Subject/Object

Having just moved and having unpacked my burgeoning library, finally, I get to put some new purchases that have been kicking around onto the shelf. Of course I am thinking about Benjamin’s “Unpacking my Library”, which can be found in Illuminations.

And the non reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. Experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world. Suffice it to quote the answer which Anatole France gave to a philistine who admired his library and then finished with the standard question, “And you have read all these books, Monsieur France?” “Not one-tenth of them. I don’t suppose you use your Sèvres china every day?”

So when I go to make comments on these books, you must realize that I haven’t read all of them, and may not for quite a long while.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. Vintage (used).

There is another edition of this from Routledge, and I would have rather had that one in order to match my copy of On the Order of Things. On the other hand, this one matches my copy of Discipline and Punish, so what am I going to do? Have read half way through; I find Foucault can go off the rails on occasion, but you have to hold on to get to the good parts.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Confessions. Everyman (new).

I got this at overstock price, and it is wrapped in plastic, so I have been resistant in opening it. It matches a nice copy of The Idiot that Xuan-Yen gave me, although that one has a wonderful picture on the cover.

Jacobs, Jane. Cities and the Wealth Of Nations. Random House. (Used, first edition, my book looks much better than this picture, and I dislike when I can’t find a correct Amazon image)

I have a copy of her Dark Age Ahead, which was short and interesting. I’ve also read The Life and Death of Great American Cities, which I loved at the beginning but I felt dragged as it went on. I didn’t know this was a first edition when I bought it, but with what little bibliographic knowledge I have, it is hard cover, and there is only one printing listed, so I am pretty sure no one has read this since it was published.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology, Johns Hopkins. (new)

What can I say? The book that started it all, really. I’ve read and own quite a number of his works, but I have always felt something was missing without this one. Even the Translator’s Preface, which I’ve worked through, was enjoyable. Although the real task lies ahead, which I approach with a little trepidation.

de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Perennial. (used)

I don’t know how I feel about this edition. I have a very old used edition of the first part of the work which I got free from discards of a book sale. I didn’t have an entire edition, but sometimes, you know, you get a book home and you dislike the smell of the pages—and this is how I feel about this one. Important book, though, good to know how much reading and political participation the average American was involved in.

Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shambhala (used)
The Diamond Sutra & The Sutra of Hui-Neng Shambhala (used)

An exception to my above quotation about not reading books right away, when it comes to religious texts, particularly Buddhism, I always dive right in. I find I particularly enjoy reading Buddhism on the subway, especially when I read about the Bodhisattva, or the Buddhist saint. Hui-Neng was the Sixth Patriarch of Zen (Chan) in China. I had forgotten about him from my Chinese Philosophy class, and the stanza which won him the robe, begging bowl and the transmission of the dharma. His competitor had wrote:

Our body is the bodhi tree
And our mind a mirror bright
Carefully we wipe them hour by hour,
And let no dust alight.

The Fifth Patriarch was less then impressed. Hui-Neng, a foreigner, was forced to pound rice and was not allowed to attend dharma teachings. In secret he wrote his own stanza on the wall:

There is no bodhi tree,
Nor stand of a mirror bright,
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?

I think after reading Buddhism it allows me the opportunity to meditate at being content with my current situation, both personally and professionally.