101 Philosophers

So I have yet to bite the bullet and conform to the new fandangled way of the world. I have not yet transitioned from the old fashioned world of physically turning the page to the science fiction voodoo of e-readers. Call me old fashioned, call me cheap, call me technologically ignorant, but I still prefer cracking the spine and turning the pages of books that came from the good old fashioned art of rain-forest-genocide. A few of the reasons I still purchase books are the fact that when people come over they are impressed by my vast library, I never have to worry about buying glass figurines to decorate my bookshelves with (I keep them in a decorative box under my bed because they are for me to look at and nobody else), and I still really enjoy going to bookstores to browse. The problem with buying books is that they have become so damn expensive, and branching out is difficult to do. I am constantly looking for recommendations from people I know, but there are only so many times I can tolerate being told “the Twilight Saga was soooooooooooo good.”  Unless you are a thirteen year old girl…NO IT WASN’T!!!!!!!

While browsing through my local Bookstore-Corporation-Location the other day I came across the sale section. This is the greatest place to find books simply because you can pick up a hardcover for like six bucks, and only be a few years behind on the author’s story arc. As long as I don’t constantly look to see when new books are coming out I think I’m up to date. But this is not the point. My point is you never know what little gem you might run across on the sale table, and I found an interesting little title that I thought I would try out. It is Madsen Pirie’s 101 Great Philosophers, and it’s great for a simpleton like me who likes to think they know a little bit about philosophy. So the premise is there is an ancient tribe of nomads who are in search of a magical amulet that will free the immortal tiger-god from its prison…no its not. It’s a list of 101 philosophers.

This may sound like a waste of time, but the beauty of this is that each entry on the philosophers is only 1 ½ pages. Trust me I have read a little bit of Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, and have found that philosophy is hard. There are big words and abstract concepts that make me feel stupid. I may not be the smartest person I know, but I can read words that are strung together. The problem is that in philosophy you will read four pages and end up having no idea what the author was talking about. Pirie does a good job of hitting the key points of particular philosophies, and not filling it with overly complicated philosophical jargon. This is a good starting point for anyone who might be interested in philosophy, but doesn’t necessarily want to do the legwork of sifting through thousands of years of philosophical work. Pirie briefly explains the philosopher’s ideas and relevance and then references some of their work. It’s not complicated and if nothing else you will learn a few new names of past intellectuals, and hopefully be able to throw a little philosophy into your next pick up line, I’m thinking something to the effect of:

“Baby you must have been what Leibniz meant when he said that God made the universe the best of all possible ones. I couldn’t imagine a perfect world without you.”

And then you could use the Socratic Method to convince her that turning you down is the wrong choice.

Surely this would work on an attractive lady in a bar (as long as she hadn’t read Candide). I don’t know, I haven’t tried to pick up a girl in a long time…my wife doesn’t allow it. Surely philosophy is a turn on…right? If not you can lead in with some interesting tidbit from the previous night’s episode of Jersey Shore.

Anyway, go check out this book and see if you can enhance your knowledge of philosophy one page at a time.

Oh Clive....So sentimental

I'm a pretty big fan of Clive Cussler, and think the guy can tell one hell of a story, but it seems that as he advances in years he has become increasingly more sentimental. I know it's very difficult not to become attached to your characters, especially the ones you have been writing about since the 70s, but enough is enough. The books I'm mainly talking about are those that make up the Dirk Pitt series.

First off you should know that the God awful movie Sahara was based on one of these books, but I'm comfortable saying that the failure of this movie was more Matthew Mcconaughey's fault than anyone's. Maybe we can throw the whole cast in there, I'm not sure I only made it halfway through. The next time Hollywood makes a film adaptation of a book they need to make sure that the screenplay writer has actually read the book. (Atlas Shrugged Part I anyone?)

Let's move on to my point. Throughout Clive's work he has always added himself as a character named...you guessed it Clive Cussler. Seriously in one book he tells Dirk to call him dad. I could kind of let this slide if his fictional alter ego was the same character every time, but nope he changes. Dirk Pitt has probably met "Clive Cussler" at least 10 times and every time it seems to be in a different scenario. Like I said, Cussler is one hell of a story teller, but come on. Let's get a little separation. Let's just stay out of it. It seems that every time his character appears he comes into the story to provide a little help to Dirk, and this is always in some minor way. Cussler- you are the author. You don't need to be in the story to save Dirk. You are writing the damn thing so technically you save him every time he gets into a scrape.

Whether he considers my recommendation or not (because I know most famous authors read this) doesn't matter, I will continue to read his books. Like Patterson's Cross series I have become attached to the characters, but unlike Patterson Cussler still dedicates enough time to his books that make them good reads. If you have never read these they are worth picking up. If you don't find them particularly interesting you can always turn it into a game of "Where's Cussler?"

We're back (hopefully)

So it has definitely been a bit, and I would like to blame this on life being busy, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that I am pretty lazy and kind of forgot about the blog. My bad. I would like to apologize to the one or two people who have actually taken the time to open my little musings (Thanks Mom!) and am now wholly dedicated to keeping up with this fine literary tool. That's right...tool.

So here we go.

I finally finished War and Peace and will ultimately have a long and boring in-depth post for it, but for now I'd like to bring up something that has been bothering me. Patricia Cornwell.

If you have never read any of her books I would highly recommend them, although her main character can come across as a raging Man-Hater every once in awhile. I'm OK with this to a certain extent (we can be dicks sometimes, and I accept that), but what I cannot accept is the fact that Cornwell decided to change the way her books were written.

The first books in the Kay Scarpetta series were written in the First person, and for some unknown reason she decided to switch to third. This may seem like a trivial detail, but remember how I mentioned her character can come across as a Man-Hater? Well now she is a Cold-hearted-Man-Hating-She-Beast from Medical School Hell. Whatever reason Cornwell had in making this switch better have been a good one because Kay Scarpetta is kind of a bitch now. I now understand why Marino was  always telling her this. I do have a theory about this swtich...can we say GHOST-WRITER? I hope that is not the case, but you never know. Why else would you F-up a formula that has worked for some twenty or so books.

All the series authors out there...STOP CHANGING MY CHARACTERS!