Disraeli Bio

A Man for Many Seasons

   I’ve been reading it and reading it. Zillions of names and lots of activities, mostly of them minor. The sensible thing is to skip; for a long while I wasn’t doing that, but I now skip gobs. Nor am I really focused either. Not a good combination. There is no doubt that he was a remarkable man, with a successful and versatile career in politics and a successful and extensive career as a novelist. Apparently some of his novels are still readable, though I don’t expect to follow up on  that. I don’t yet know what I will  read next, but it will be a different kind of book for sure.  

More Disraeli

I read on in what I find to be an unsatisfying book. Not because it doesn't tell you enough, but because it tells you too much. So much detail; an incredible number of people. I've started skipping, but still hope it will be truly interesting when Disraeli becomes really important. If not, I'll jump ship.

Reading Update

   If I mostly report on my reading that’s because that is mostly what I do. Because I walk only when I have a companion and then not for very long, I spend much time at my desk in my very pleasant room. I missed two excellent and very desirable concerts this week, thanks to the fact that my back has been acting up, for the first time in quite a few years. The one of those misses was most unusual for me—Ellie playing the Mozart concerto with her orchestra; hearing her practice it in the house was not an adequate substitute. The other was her orchestra playing Fidelio—no loss doing it without the  stilted spoken dialogue. I saw it only once, with Jon Vickers as the imprisoned Florestan “complaining” mostly in a horizontal posture.

    Well, what I am reading is quite different. A few years ago I put on my Kindle what they call a Sample, a biography of Disraeli about whom I knew nothing. Now I have started reading the whole biography by Robert Blake. I’ll have something to say about that before long.

End of Blog?

You may have noticed that my blog postings have shrunk to the minimal. I’m now thinking of taking the next step and closing it down—not unreasonable for someone aged 91. I herewith broadcast that intention in the most unlikely case that there might be objections to that. ——RHW

Art Collecting Today

I happened on this book by Doug Woodham and read it in the course of a few days. It’s a well done account of the ins and outs of the art market. I’ve done my collecting, in particular the works by sculptors, now in the collection of Northwestern’s Block Museum. Besides those ins and outs it has much to say about do’s and don’ts—all of them seem to be helpful. As to whether any collector is open to such general advice is an open question. Dyed in the wool collectors are not much interested in advice telling them what genre they should be interested in. Still, the book was worth reading even though I’m quite sure I will never benefit from its advice.   

Adam and Eve

   What book I happen to read is hei wie der Würfel fällt, (hey as the die falls) as the song would have it. I forgot how I got to the Kissinger biography; Mark gave me the Perl Calder volume, but before that I read Stephen Greenblatt’s Swerve and now his Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.

   For me, Greenblatt’s projects hit the spot, though that is not as flattering as it seems. I have an allergy to free-wheeling acounts of actual happenings (the allergy is to bullshit), but I’m no longer prepared to plough through carefully documented narratives. So, voila. Greenblatt will not be flattered by my praising him as an author for semi-literates, though I am sure he knows that’s where the money is to be made.

   I am now reading his book on Adam and Eve and what happened to them in the centuries after their (ficticious) lives. Interesting if not always edifying. I’m at the point (around the time of the discovery of America) when it became clear (to most) that that there were vastly more people than the offspring of Adam and Eve. That huge increase of the canvas conveniently made Adam and Eve into the forefathers of just the Jews. I’m looking forward to further discussions, but I’m not optimistic.