Book Commentary January 25, 2010 By Michael We have had a pile of new stuff in these past weeks, and I haven't remotely been able to keep up with it all. Rafts of SF paperbacks; a bizarre edition of Twilight in a tin box, of all things. A few items have caught my eye. I first ran across JG Ballard in my twenties, picking up a copy of the short story collection Terminal Beach. It's like the old Charles Fort story of his job labelling fruit in his father's store in his youth: running out of apricot labels, he continued using peach labels. Terminal Beach is labelled Science Fiction, and it is, sort of, like apricots and peaches, perhaps. Much the same with the novel Concrete Island. This guy, in the novel, crashes over the parapet of a highway onto the island below. And is trapped for the duration of the story. It's ludicrous, weird and eventually quite horrible. You are just passing by, but you can't look away. Stephen Toulmin died just this past December. He was a respected British philosopher and educator, influenced by Wittgenstein. I've noted his name before, books of his passing through the bookstore. In Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Toulmin critiques the modern preference of scientists and philosophers for abstract and theoretical issues to the practical. For preferring Descartes to Montaigne, so to speak. This is really a study and critique of the development of Humanism in the 16th and 17th centuries, thus straddling History and Philosophy. Finally, the second part of Marjane Satrapi's excellent Persepolis came in. A very fine graphic novel, very nice use of heavy contrast, thick black and white, and a great story told with both wit and humour. Satrapi grew up in Tehran immediately following the Islamic revolution, and this second part follows her story to Vienna, her struggles to adjust, return to Iran, and eventual, final, departure. Honestly, why watch a movie when you can read the original comic book? Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard. Picador USA, New York, 2001. Trade paperback, $9. Cosmopolis by Stephen Toulmin. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996. Trade paperback, $12. Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. Pantheon, New York, 2004. Hardcover, $13. Back to Commentaries

Book Commentary

January 25, 2010

By Michael

We have had a pile of new stuff in these past weeks, and I haven't remotely been able to keep up with it all. Rafts of SF paperbacks; a bizarre edition of Twilight in a tin box, of all things. A few items have caught my eye.

I first ran across JG Ballard in my twenties, picking up a copy of the short story collection Terminal Beach. It's like the old Charles Fort story of his job labelling fruit in his father's store in his youth: running out of apricot labels, he continued using peach labels. Terminal Beach is labelled Science Fiction, and it is, sort of, like apricots and peaches, perhaps. Much the same with the novel Concrete Island. This guy, in the novel, crashes over the parapet of a highway onto the island below. And is trapped for the duration of the story. It's ludicrous, weird and eventually quite horrible. You are just passing by, but you can't look away.

Stephen Toulmin died just this past December. He was a respected British philosopher and educator, influenced by Wittgenstein. I've noted his name before, books of his passing through the bookstore. In Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Toulmin critiques the modern preference of scientists and philosophers for abstract and theoretical issues to the practical. For preferring Descartes to Montaigne, so to speak. This is really a study and critique of the development of Humanism in the 16th and 17th centuries, thus straddling History and Philosophy.

Finally, the second part of Marjane Satrapi's excellent Persepolis came in. A very fine graphic novel, very nice use of heavy contrast, thick black and white, and a great story told with both wit and humour. Satrapi grew up in Tehran immediately following the Islamic revolution, and this second part follows her story to Vienna, her struggles to adjust, return to Iran, and eventual, final, departure. Honestly, why watch a movie when you can read the original comic book?

Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard. Picador USA, New York, 2001. Trade paperback, $9.

Cosmopolis by Stephen Toulmin. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996. Trade paperback, $12.

Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. Pantheon, New York, 2004. Hardcover, $13.

Back to Commentaries