Horizon

I won't be blogging for most of the Fall because of traveling commitments, but I applaud the idea and I hope it works out (if I had a vote it would probably be for Michela Wrong).

"A triumph. It is a mesmerising portrait of tyranny, degeneracy, mass murder and promiscuity, a barrage of revisionist bombshells, and a superb piece of research."

I vote for Mao. What more can you look for in a book? Thing's still in hardcover, though.

I've also been wanting to read The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald. Seems like the sort of novel that could satisfy both this blog's Big Historical Issue and its Hermetic Lit Crit tendencies, all at once.

Also wouldn't mind the biblical scholarship book.

Currently reading Pinker's Language Instinct, but everyone's probably already read it and anyway who wants to blog about x bar theory? That would be stupid.

Do you remember which Mao book it is? I'm afraid I've lost the link.

The Emigrants looks good, and cheap to boot.

I'm currently reading The Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774, which is excellent, as well as a German high-school textbook on ancient history from 1933, complete with ominous passages underlined. Anybody's welcome to join me on those.

Language Instinct, but everyone's probably already read it

I certainly haven't. The Typology and Universals course I had taught Greenbergian universals, and only made the occasional snide remark about Chomsky and the "nativists" inventing a theoretical framework that allows them to do linguistics without bothering to actually learn another language.

I'd suggest avoiding Pinker as a choice, unless we all think Horizon would be improved by more of my red-faced angry rants.

This is the Mao book, I believe.

I think the Chomsky Question (sounds so euphemistic, doesn't it?) is fascinating but it amazes me how quickly linguists lose all control over themselves when confronted with someone of a competing school.

Based on my patchy knowledge of such things, I believe that the generative grammarians (or whatever their current name is these days) have produced something useful which describes human languages reasonably well and if nothing else helps us program computers to produce reasonable sounding human language. But the innate language module stuff is unconvincing, raising far more (probably unanswerable) questions than it supposedly answers.

I think Terrance Deacon is on the right track in explaining the facts as we know them about language learning. I don't know enough about it really but his argument in this book is in my opinion stunningly brilliant, even if it's wrong.

Chang's Mao looks really good, but it won't be out in the US at all until October.

Eggh, got anything a little less dire?

Well, there's David Rackoff's latest. That could last us until the Mao biography comes out.

Got anything of note on your own Not Yet Reading pile?

Here's another possibility for you to ponder:

How Soccer Explains the World.

Huh. Wonder if it includes this.

Really I dunno if I'm up for book clubbing either. I'm trying to discipline myself to concentrate on a book project of my own and even my recreational reading is kind of book-related. Unless anyone would be up for a title on Western American history or natural resource politics?

Well, if it's just me and Ben, then I say either The Emigrants, the Congo book or the Jesus book.

I suggest we choose from those based on what sort of blogging we feel like engaging in. Sebald has been compared to big name deep european writers of more or less existential leaning (at least not above suspicion of such leanings). We'd probably wind up spouting a lot of high flown stuff about the human condition and most likely I'd be tempted to use words like parataxis and engage in speculations no one else thinks are important. The jesus book would attract trolls like a troll black hole but would give us something concrete to talk about. The Congo book: well, I know very little about the subject, so I doubt I'd have much to say other than "hmm...interesting."

I confess that I started the Congo book this week, and will probably finish it tonight. If you're up for following behind, that'd work.

Emigrants looks good, and I'd be up for it in a reading group composed of more than two people, but I'm afraid I really never have anything to say about fiction than "hmm...interesting".

If you're keen on it, I do think that Racializing Jesus might provide for the best discussion, as we both have opinions on the theology involved, and it seems like the sort of thing that would spawn discussion that folks who hadn't read the book would be able to jump into.

So in the absence of other voters, Alan why don't you chose between Jesus and Zaire?

Jesus it is, then. I'll see if any of the local bookstores carry it later today.

Woss parataxis? How you get to the airport with too much luggage?

Avoidance of either conjuntions or subordination depending who you ask.

Just one of those useless words I love to toss around from time to time.