Confess and be saved
Anyone else prepared to 'fess up to owning 'The Wealth of Nations', but not having read it in full? I have a rather attractive two volume version courtesy of the altogether splendid Liberty Fund, which makes me feel all the guiltier at the unspoken reproof from its acid free pages.
Anyway, help is at hand as P.J O'Rourke brings us "“On ‘The Wealth of Nations.’ ” Think of it as a hardcover blog, in which O’Rourke cites Smith’s essential points, and riffs while preaching Smithian doctrine".
There would appear to be an added bonus: "I could do without some of O’Rourke’s gratuitous insults of various people, almost all of whom seem to be liberals". More here
Least I be accused of being a complete lightweight, I have read all three volumes of the Gulag Archipelago, Ulysses, and plenty of Hayek.
Anyway, help is at hand as P.J O'Rourke brings us "“On ‘The Wealth of Nations.’ ” Think of it as a hardcover blog, in which O’Rourke cites Smith’s essential points, and riffs while preaching Smithian doctrine".
There would appear to be an added bonus: "I could do without some of O’Rourke’s gratuitous insults of various people, almost all of whom seem to be liberals". More here
Least I be accused of being a complete lightweight, I have read all three volumes of the Gulag Archipelago, Ulysses, and plenty of Hayek.
Labels: Sane economics, United States
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on Sunday, January 07, 2007 at 5:50 pm.
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You mean James Joyce's pretentious stream of drivel? I think I read the first paragraph, although I don't remember. To me, he is another sex-obsessed no-talent, like D H Lawrence.
The very same. Not sure I understood it though. I used to like D.H.L, but then I grew up a bit. He is one of those authors - like Kerouac - who one should read when young or not at all.
Not sure I agree with you on DHL C I read his poety and he does have something . Perhaps you are thinking of his reputation in the end and not as an inheritor of the Hardyesque rural novel.
I quite liked the Dubliners as well but Finnegan`s wake is worse than being hung ( even quite roughly with crowing) Portrait of a...is dull and i would say Joyce is more "adolescent" that Lawrence who is far more a traditonal novelist
I have never read Wealth of nations but I assume that whatever is useful would have found its way not an economics A level whih I slogged through
A bit of economic theory that is very useful is "comprative advantage" this is the theoretical basis for trade increasing the wealth of all the parties
I read most of DHL for Oxbridge - which I stuffed, of course.
Would Mr lawrence have used a word so coarse as "stuffed" ?
I think not C you potty mouth.
read Smith twice; enforced by various qualifications. An excellent basis for conservative views along with JS Mill.
I thin having to do it is cheating though, eh?
Ulysses, crikey what a read. Never got close to finishing. Surely you need a case of whiskey to go with it?
I have read all three volumes of the Gulag Archipelago and plenty of Hayek as well. As for Ulysses, I 'm afraid not. And poetry isn't my thing. You will be most impressed to learn that I have read the Holy Quoran. Have you ever dipped between its covers, Verity?
I've read bits, and some of the hadiths, yes, of course. But plough through an entire book I have absolutely no interest in and that promotes a philosophy with which I profoundly disagree, no.
I'm interested, though. Why did you read it?
well, everyone told me it was a thumping good read! Actually, I had a lot of encouragement from various Mohammedans over the years. I was genuinely interested in expanding my knowledge about a religion of which I knew little.But I stand unconverted to the cause as you may have surmised...
But Croydonian, have you managed to complete War and Peace? This is the benchmark for unread classics. I know plenty of people who have tried it and failed. I managed about 150 pages before boredom supervened.
No. I didn't finish it.
Doing English as a degree ( in between more important carnal pursuits I became an expert on shortnes).
Thank god for the "War poets"
Good for you CU.
IT - judging from all the pristine copies of the non-red volumes of Gulag one sees in second hand bookshops, we must be in a distinct minority. I gave up on 'the Oak and the Calf' though.
Cornelius Madman - an interesting name you have there. I have never attempted Tolstoy (or Proust), but I have read lots of Dostoyevsky.
N - A useful skill. Brevity is the soul of wit, eh?
Doing English as a degree ( in between more important carnal pursuits I became an expert on shortnes).
Fnar Fnar as did every lucky lady who was introduced to "minimania"
I can only base this on unfounded rumour.
I have no idea what PHITCH is talking about.
I haven`t read Proust but I have read Brechts criticism of Proust which makes sound as if you have ..well until now.That plus a wistful mention of a Madeleine is enough to fend of most.
I did read Tristand Shandy at a sitting once . It was bloody funny actually. For some reason novels bore me now , I remeber Douglas Adams saying the idea was you read faction for learning and fiction for pleasure but for most men it reversed at some point . I think thats right although I still enjoy poetry (modern ish)
This all shows how semsitive and yet manly I am ..I SAID SENSITIVE AND yet MANLY!!...
(Women just lap that stuff up like kittens)
Croydonian, my tag is the nickname of an Irish dentist I used to know. He was often hazy about which tooth was giving trouble, so would embark on a "process of elimination" as he called it, pulling them out one by one until the pain stopped. I was his patient just long enough for him to inflict major damage, root-canal stylie, which led to an apicectomy & maximum pain at my local hospital. I should have been alerted by his cartoonist's waiting-room full of groaning return-patients with blood-soaked bandages round their heads, but was too dim to spot the warning signs. Warning should also have been taken from the alarming manner of his ugly and fiercely protective receptionist (no doubt in love with the rogue), who at the slightest complaint brought up the fact that her employer only had one lung and was therefore "not a well man". Actually he was obsessed by golf and spent most of his afternoons in the rough, hacking at recalcitrant balls in much the same way as, during the morning, he had been hacking at enamel and bone.
But I like the name, and being somewhat Irish myself can identify with his foibles and his extreme touchiness. I think he has passed on to that great Health Trust in the Sky, where his pliers may even now be grappling an angel's molar.
Newmania: I cannot abide Proust, though I did get through Swann's Way.
Strange, I can't settle in to fiction any more. And I used to love it and all the great writers. And now, I just can't get into novels.
I have derived much amusement from dire puns involving Madeleines and madeleines, so I ought to do the decent thing and read it in the original one of these days.
CM - a noble name you sport sir.
Dentists are not good .Dustin Hoffman , in Marathon Man , has nothing on me I had crown hacked out recently and by the end of the ordeal I was weeping for mummy.
This rather dented the rough hewn laconic persona I had attempted for the benefit of the nurse.She also had to hold for a while and murmur "There there and no more crying .." another set back.
yeah, well - "sensitive and manly"...
or was it just delicate
Evening all, full of sympathy, me
how are the burns mr drew?
In my home town ( northern bore time) we had a regular i the loal bars/clubs restaurants.
An nice but frankly alarming drunken dentist called vince
we nicknamed him
"mental dental"
Doctors tend to vear to the eccentric
I have a Harold Shipman anecdote , my part in his downfall, I will save it for my own blog.
I'd almost forgotten abt the burns,(and the "not unattractive scar") but thanks for asking, Hitch. That really was quite an enjoyable 3-way ping-pong for a bit back there.
Tonight however I am a bear with a sore head, and also finger. Didn't need to drive home last nite, it was chez nous, so a few more than usual, then the washing-up this morning, smashed 3 glasses & slashed finger.
Then had to take sprog back to university.
Should probably shut down now, not conducive to required level of wit'n'wisdom.
grump
(could do with mania's nurse, actually, hem hem)
I say leave the sprog at university and move!
Change adress , change name ,you will never regret it.
I have always planned to be an old dad.
Unless I live to be 100 the fuckers will have no chance of borrowing serious money off me.
Im going to wait until Im 50.
BTW PHITCH Hussein and I have something in common. ...we are well hung.
Two Muslim extremsist walk in a room
boom boom
I `m here all week
Those posts were funny, Newmania! You can tell I've been in all day and not subject to any live human contact.
It's too hot to go out. ALREADY!
BTW, I have a wonderful dentist. He is a brainbox, does absolutely painless dentistry and while getting his advanced degree, he used to take his notes in Greek (letters, not the language) to give himself that extra challenge. A porcelain crown, with walk-in shower, fitted cabinets and decking costs £130.
..fitted cabinets and decking ...ho ho
For a moment there I thought you were going to play Humiliation; before the dentists intervened.
HG - OK, I'll kick it off. I have never read any Jane Austen.
Jane Austen made me who I am today. Pride and Prejudice at 15 and I was ruined. Ruined, I tell you.
Even if you aren't an EngLit. person that's setting the bar very high; absolutely none at all? not even Emma?
ok , I've never read Marcel Mauss's Essay sur le don .
HG - Nope, not one of them. I did not have to do her or the Brontes for O or A, and they have never appealed since. I believe the undisputed champion is the English professor who claims not to have read Hamlet.
On the flip side, a friend has moved to Bogota, and one of her conversation starters is 'what are your three favourite books?' I don't think anyone has managed anything more worthy than 'Erm, 'The Da Vinci Code', erm...'. She is not impressed.
HG I returned to your previous excellent post on the problem with the world.
I love Jane Austen above almost any writer. I think she is next after Shakespeare and I am quite serious
Newmania, Don't you think any politician who speaks with the precision, accuracy in word-choice and order, and completeness of Austen will be listened to just for the pleasure of it? When you wrote your 'serious' piece you didn't mention how pleasured are all listeners, at all levels, by fine speech; and how fast portmanteau words lose listeners' attention, so politicians, having got our attention, should be careful not to lose it by lazy usage
I once heard Enoch Powell addressing a packed audience in the K.E. in Birmingham; he spoke with such clarity of expression, with every idea introduced, developed, considered and that strand of thought closed and threaded into his tapestry of argument that when he ended after an hour I'd have gone to the stake for him, never mind vote for him, and so would have the rest of the hall
And I didn't agree with his political stance.
Every time the chance is given to a political leader to speak, it should be taken well, not off the cuff fumbles.
Blairspeak is another distasteful legacy.
Bizarrely forced to read Sons and Lovers at age of 14 (Cheltenham Ladies College) What a load of old cock! His prose is like eating chocolate brownies at the same time as lobster, washed down with a Tia Maria muesli cocktail. And about as sexy.
HG - On the other side of the coin, another master of rhetoric is Jesse Jackson. I fear that although there is interest in hearing good public speakers, we only hear them at conferences these days as the pols are far more interested in a sound bite for the evening news.
Lilith - Quite outstanding. I think we have a runaway leader for metaphor of the year even at a mere eight days in.
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