Review 439: The Cosmic Drama

The Cosmic Drama by Alan W. Watts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From the Illustrated Series - The Essence of Alan Watts

Book IX

A view of how this cosmic play may be running.

I only have a few of the books from the series:

Book I  - God 

Book VII  - Philosophical Fantasies 

Book VIII  - Ego 

Book IX  - Cosmic Drama

Review 438: Ego

Ego by Alan W. Watts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From the Illustrated Series - The Essence of Alan Watts

Book VIII

Ego – what is the I, what is me.

According to Alan Watts is more than your thoughts, your body. But we often distance ourselves from the body parts. We typically mean I as in the brain, our thoughts and thinking selves. We feel outside of our bodies, not a part of the world. Watts says this is image is an hallucination of ego. We are the sum of our body, inside and out, and the environment that we live in. Yes, we need the environment too, it is part of us.

The rest of the book discusses how we came to this false identity, this symbolism of ego and I as separate from everything.

I only have a few of the books from the series:

Book I  - God 

Book VII  - Philosophical Fantasies 

Book VIII  - Ego 

Book IX  - Cosmic Drama

Review 437: Philosophical fantasies

Philosophical fantasies by Alan W. Watts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From the Illustrated Series - The Essence of Alan Watts

Book VII

In this book Watts proposes three different fantasies – which at the end he asks, now maybe isn’t this what is going on right now?

The first is about reproduction. Technology has advanced: first we had paintings, then realism style. Photographs were then invented, first as plain black and white, and so on until movies and television. Watts then proposes that someday we will see these images without a tv, but in three dimensions say in your living room. And as technology advances first your hand will go through this image, but then it will be solid, and you do something like dance with this image. Then you could interact and there will be a way that the movie and you are interacting as one, you control the outcome of what happens next, and then the realism becomes perfect. At this point the question arises – is this where we are now?

The second philosophical fantasy is about how every living thing on this earth is the center of it. You are the center, and so are rabbits and a fish and a fly, right in the middle of everything.

The last is about a cycle of everything, somewhat like the chicken and egg. The big bang started everything and the stars, planets everything was formed. But here Watts case is slightly smaller, just a star and planets. Life developed and kept on developing until there is an intelligent species, like us and goes on until boof they blow everything up and then it starts again.

One reason I like Alan Watts is that he has you think about the state of things, ponder this.

I only have a few of the books from the series:

Book I  - God 

Book VII  - Philosophical Fantasies 

Book VIII  - Ego 

Book IX  - Cosmic Drama

Review 436: God

God by Alan W. Watts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From the Illustrated Series - The Essence of Alan Watts

Book I

A short excerpt book on some of Alan Watts teachings, adapted from transcripts recorded in the last years of his life. A series of nine books were published, this is the first book.

The book is small, very easily read within one reading session. One page has an image, mostly derived from Japanese images. The other page is a short paragraph. The content is to have you think about God, how to represent the image. The viewpoint is mostly from the Christian religion, although others are mentioned. Letting go is the fundamental aspect of faith. To believe is from the root word lief, which means wish, so to believe is a strong wish. Faith is what is needed. Do not cling; but have faith.

I only have a few of the books from the series:

Book I  - God 

Book VII  - Philosophical Fantasies 

Book VIII  - Ego 

Book IX  - Cosmic Drama

Review 435: The Stations of Still Creek

The Stations of Still Creek by Barbara J. Scot
My rating: 3.75 of 5 stars

I've had this book a long time, been meaning to read it right away for a long while, finally I did and now slightly disappointed. The writing style was okay, with some good descriptive scenes of nature.

The book was about Scot's time in living apart from her husband in a cabin in the Mount Hood National Forest. They owned this cabin for years, and she moved in one day to figure things out: her marriage, her writing, and contemplate death. Also, to heal physically as she had problems with her back and eye. Scot was a teacher and quit several times but kept going back as they needed money. It was her husband’s time to quit work for a while, instead she quit work again and went to the forest. They really don’t talk about important things.

What bothered me the most is how she approached nature. It was there for her, for personal use. When she described how she developed these stations, these places in the forest for her to stop and just sit, they were highlighted on how she fit in there. She tended to them, she created them and the paths by cutting out a lot, it is not nature as it is, but human involved. At least she would stop and just look and be.

Scot says that her goal after being healed was using her privileged time in the Mount Hood Forest to be an example of how nature can heal psychologically when you stop and just not do anything, not-doing.

Review 434: The Rebellion of Jane Clarke

The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Cabot Gunning
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Really enjoyed this book! It's set in 1769 in Boston and a small town nearby where Jane Clarke grew up. She's now a young adult tending to the sick learning from a village woman, when her father wants Jane to marry Phinnie Paine. Jane, however, says no to Paine's proposal. This infuriates her father, and he sends her off to Boston to tend to her elderly aunt who is ill.

While in Boston Jane hopes to see more of her older brother and finds that tending to her aunt's illness is much different than a sore throat or a burn, it's a daily management of her symptoms, which seems to increase whenever there is noise outside. The city life is much noisier, and smellier, than the small village Jane is used to. There is also the political situation, which is very much on everyone’s mind and agenda.

British soldiers have been sent to the colony to "keep the peace" in Boston, instead it aggravates the townspeople and creates disturbances. Jane Clarke finds herself entwined in a couple of these disturbances and she quickly learns that the newspapers don’t necessarily print the truth as it happens.

While exiled from her Satucket village Jane tries to understand not only the political situation, but also herself and what she wants for a husband. In an errand to buy paper for letter-writing Jane meets Henry Knox and they become friends. Though there is this bit of match-making and relationship woes, it certainly isn’t the center of the novel. Plus there are unexpected turns of events!

I love how Jane grew as a character and discovers herself. And the historical facts in the book make it brilliant. However, Jane does question nearly everything frequently, particularly in the beginning of the book. She is growing and learning but this type of uncertainty may make some readers frustrated at the pacing. For myself, I just want to read another Sally Gunning book!

 

P.S. Apparently this is book 3 is a series. I didn't realize that and this book can be read without the previous two. Although, maybe those are where I should start with another of Gunning's books.

Review 433: Elizabeth Costello

Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Perhaps if I knew what I was in for with this book the rating would be higher...there is little to no plot or character development. It is barely a novel, instead many texts of essays written out, but put into the mouth of the main character, Elizabeth Costello.

The last "lesson" or chapter was the most interesting to me, despite agreeing with several of the premises put forth in the previous "lessons". This last makes you really consider all that she has said before, and so it seemed with sincere conviction. This is a book that will make you think, it does not give you everything. That I do like, just wasn't quite what I was in the mood for when I started reading.

Review 432: North Woods

North Woods by Daniel Mason
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There was some early hype and good reviews, so I thought I should read this as well. An audio copy was available to borrow, so I started to listen.

Turns out, this was highly enjoyable. I very much liked the multi-cast narration for this book. The format lends itself to more voices than one narrator, as there are different forms of storytelling weaved into the book.

The location doesn’t change through the book, but the years and characters, even the trees change. We get an in-depth view of some of the people who live in the yellow house. And some of the residents don’t really leave after dying. So, this book is a good pick for this time of year.

I loved the deep focus on the trees and the nature around the house, the apple orchard and the forest. There was a surprising section on some beetles that the text is more often found in the romance section. Perhaps too much anthropomorphizing on those small creatures. It definitely provides a new way of seeing.

Book rating: 4.5 stars

Review 431: Into the Groove

Into the Groove: The Story of Sound From Tin Foil to Vinyl by Jonathan Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a history of recorded sound. Initially the inventors, Edison and others, thought this would benefit businessmen the most, as they could record their notes or whatnot. Reporters could record an event then dictate off that recording for their articles. The inventors didn’t foresee how music would dominate.

Jonathan Scott had done incredible research about the recorders and players, and the formats for these devices. In the early days it wasn’t clear if the cylinder, which was most popular, or the disc would win out. Later there were format wars of speed of the discs, and of course the materials used until we land on vinyl that is used today.

There’s an extensive glossary at the back, which I perused but didn’t thoroughly read. Links and pointers to old archives and the earliest recordings are included. All in all an extensive book and interesting, however it didn’t hold up to extensive reading. The writing style at times was a bit hokey, gimmicky with trying to make puns and otherwise funny remarks, but they fell flat for me. Not sure it matters terribly, but the writer is based in England so there was a focus more on the UK than the United States, so a little slant away from my own experience.

Musicophiles and those dedicated history buffs about things or stuff, may find this a more engaging read than myself.

Fun fact: Jazz was first known as jass but everyone thought the letter J would be too easily erased, so they switched the last letters to Z so we have: JAZZ.