Booknotes 5.13

Dubliners, by James Joyce, published 1914, fiction, 249 pages. Alas, I didn’t like it. Sad and melancholy, which itself doesn’t bother me, but throughout I just couldn’t believe that Joyce had any love for his characters, or for humanity, and I have as little love for misanthropy as it has for me. Twenty-four years ago I read Portrait of the Artist and I believe I came away from it with a similar feeling. My interest in someday reading Ulysses has slipped beneath the waves.

The Old Regime and the Revolution, by Alexis de Tocqueville (translated by Henry Reeve), published 1856 (translation published 1873), history, 410 pages. An analysis of the causes of the French Revolution and a thesis that the revolution perhaps didn’t reform French political institutions as much as people may have thought. Fascinating and readable. Felt surprisingly contemporary, too, with passages like these: “And it may be said with strict accuracy that the taste a man may show for absolute government bears an exact ratio to the contempt he may profess for his countrymen.” And: “Since the object of taxation was not to include those most able to pay taxes, but those least able to defend themselves from paying, the monstrous consequence was brought about that the rich were exempted and the poor burdened.” All too familiar. And: “The men of the eighteenth century knew little of that sort of passion for comfort which is the mother of servitude.” Looking forward to reading Democracy in America.

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake, published 2020, science, 340 pages. The first part felt like a constant stream of fascinating facts ala An Immense World, with nuggets like this: “According to some estimates, if one teased apart the mycelium found in a gram of soil—about a teaspoon—and laid it end to end, it could stretch anywhere from a hundred meters to ten kilometers.” And this: “One study estimated that if a hypha was as wide as a human hand, it would be able to lift an eight-ton school bus.” And especially this: “Globally, the total length of mycorrhizal hyphae in the top ten centimeters of soil is around half the width of our galaxy.” Whew! Also, lichens are surprisingly interesting. But alas, towards the end the book went off into magic mushrooms and brewing alcohol and I completely lost interest. I do still very much recommend the first part, though.

Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan, published 2021, historical fiction, 47 pages. Somber yet human and ultimately hopeful. I found the prose bewitching in ways I still don’t understand but which left me wanting to read more Keegan. (Which — spoiler alert — I’ve already done. This is what happens when I’m perpetually behind on writing up these booknotes.)