Favourite Essays

[SJS]

To go with the Book Thread (where people just tend to put what they are reading or argue about what they have read) I would like to actually let people read what I have enjoyed reading and, hopefully, derive as much pleasure from the same. Needless to say, that cant be an entire book. So let it be an essay and essays can be absolutely terrific.

Here is one that I read in Jammu last week. The entire family was in town for the last rites of my mother. My brother who was holidaying in Cyprus came with the books he had carried there. I borrowed Matin Amis's Einstein's Monsters and the following is the introduction to this lovely little gem of about six essays. The introduction itself was enough for me to make up my mind to read all the books Amis has written.

Rated as one of the 50 top British writers of the last 65 years (since the war) I found Amis brilliant. I hope you do too.

Martin Amis-Einstein's Monsters

This link gives the entire book. The introduction - Thinkability is right at the beginning.. . .

 

[sledger]

I got a first for my essay on electoral systems last year, I'm not joking when I say I like to read it back to myself every now and again.

 

[cover drive man]

Probably going to sound stupid here but, what's a first?

 

[Manee]

Top grade.

 

[sledger]

Probably going to sound stupid here but, what's a first?

First class. Basically the university equivalent of getting an A grade.

 

[cover drive man]

Nice.

 

[GotSpin]

I got a first for my essay on electoral systems last year, I'm not joking when I say I like to read it back to myself every now and again.

Is that like an HD...because here First Class is for honors thesis ---or is that what you're referring to

 

[Pothas]

Anything written by Isaiah Berlin.

 

[cpr]

First class. Basically the university equivalent of getting an A grade.

Nah, you have to work for a first.

 

[sledger]

Nah, you have to work for a first.

What are you implying!?

 

[Redbacks]

As man thinketh - James Allen

 

[cover drive man]

Hardly up there with top uni stuff but here's a piece on the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, a hero of mine:

Glenn Gould

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said "Without music, life would be a mistake." And the composer Ludwig Van Beethoven once said "Music is the one incorporeal entrance to the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend." And perhaps the person who has come the closest to going beyond these already beautiful notions was the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.
Born in Toronto, Canada 1932 Gould championed the polyphonic composition methods, in fact he believed the piano was defined by its contrapuntal ability. He shared this view with keyboard instruments in general. But if we throw aside the technicalities we are left with a man, completely in love with his art who refused to conform and in doing so, reached what must have been incredible fulfillment.
Although I don't particularly agree with his aesthetic views I find his passion, flair and genius incredible. His rejection of Liszt, Chopin and other composers of the romantic era was a brave move in a world which beloved much of the work thrown aside. But to Gould, this wasn't brave, he wasn't careerist. It was him committing himself to the music he loved and made it his mission to involve the listener in the wondrous experience.
By throwing aside most romantic work. He focused mostly, on the polyphonic structure of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and the texture it created. He also spent some time (but not much) on the atonal works of principally Schoenberg, Webern and Berg.
Over time, Gould developed problems, people close to him (and there weren't many as he preferred an isolated existence) described him as "Paranoid" and "Neurotic" He also developed an addiction to psychiatric drugs which was a contributor to the stroke which ended his life in 1982.
Today, Gould's legacy (in my opinion) does him an injustice, he is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century yet his eccentricities have made him more of a cult-figure than the artist he was. His personal chair, his singing to the tune as he played, his habit of wearing coats and gloves in the middle of summer and all his other unusual attributes have turned people away from his calling in life, music.
I will probably never reach anywhere near his ability on the piano, yet his music has left an inspired mark in my soul.

" I believe that the justification of art is in the eternal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalised, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual,, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." Glenn Gould.