《紐約書評》（The New York Review of Books，縮寫為NYRB）是一本在美國紐約市發行的半月刊（確切地說是每年二十期，學期段每月兩期，寒暑假每月一期，顯然是為了配合高校師生的生活日程），內容涉及文學、文化以及時事。雜誌的出發點是：對重要書籍的討論本身就是不可或缺的文學活動。2003年，《紐約書評》的發行量超過了115,000份。
The New York Review of Booksnewsletters@nybooks.comvia cmail2.com
Jun 20, 2018, 7:53 AM
to me
To celebrate The New York Review’s fifty-fifth anniversary, we are featuring one article from each year of the magazine’s history. Today’s selection, from the early Eighties, includes Renata Adler’s infamous critique of Pauline Kael, an essay by Ada Louise Huxtable on modern architecture, Robert Hughes on Andy Warhol, Nadine Gordimer on the dying white order of apartheid South Africa, and Stephen Jay Gould on the life and work of Barbara McClintock.
1980 The Perils of Pauline Renata Adler 我沒讀過她的書。(born October 19, 1937) is an American author, journalist, and film critic.
Over the years, Ms. Kael’s quirks, mannerisms, tactics, and excesses have not only taken over her work so thoroughly that hardly anything else, nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility, remains; they have also proved contagious, so that the content and level of critical discussion, of movies but also of other forms, have been altered astonishingly for the worse.
Has modern ar然chitecture really failed? Or are we loading onto it our perceptions of another kind of failure—something far beyond the architect’s control? I believe that we are addressing a much larger theme: the failure of a moral vision and the breakdown of ideals of a society in transition. What we have lost is what sociologists and psychologists call our “belief systems”—those commonly held convictions that guide our acts and aspirations. No society can function without them.
The working-class kid who had spent so many thousands of hours gazing into the blue, anesthetizing glare of the TV screen, like Narcissus into his pool, realized that the cultural moment of the mid-Sixties favored a walking void. Television was producing an affectless culture. Warhol set out to become one of its affectless heroes.
I live at 6,000 feet in a society whirling, stamping, swaying with the force of revolutionary change. The vision is heady; the image of the demonic dance is accurate, not romantic: an image of actions springing from emotion, knocking deliberation aside. The city is Johannesburg, the country South Africa, and the time the last years of the colonial era in Africa.
1984 Triumph of a Naturalist Stephen Jay Gould (1941~2002 本身就是有名的科普作家；他所評論的，參考：《玉米田裡的先知：異類遺傳學家麥克林托克》)
Barbara McClintock’s discovery of transposable elements in maize was, in retrospect, the beginning of modern molecular genetics. She suffered the fate of many pioneers—incomprehension and bewilderment from most colleagues who could not read her maps of terra incognita. But by tenacity, the blessings of long life, and continuous fruitful activity, she has avoided the maudlin ending of most tales in the annals of exploration, and has lived to savor her triumph in the midst of an active career.
《秘戲圖考 附論漢代至清代的中國性生活》（刪節本） 楊權譯 廣東人民出版社 ISBN 7-218-00952-2（Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period, Privately printed, Tokyo, 1951）
《中國古代房內考》 上海人民出版社 1990 ISBN 7-208-00642-3（Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. Till 1644 A.D., 1961）
Berry is a region located in the center of France. It was a province of France until départements replaced the provinces on 4 March 1790, when Berry became divided between the départements of Cher (High Berry) and Indre (Low Berry).
The name of Berry, like that of its capital, Bourges, originated with the Gaulish tribe of the Bituriges,[1] who settled in the area before the Roman armies of Julius Caesar conquered Gaul.
La Brenne, located west of Châteauroux and east of Tournon-Saint-Martin in the Indre department, is a region which of old straddled on the former provinces of Berry and Touraine, and is now a protected natural area (Parc naturel régional de la Brenne) as well called Pays des mille étangs, because of its many ponds created since the 8th c. by the monks of the local abbeys for pisciculture.
See also
**** A little reading for this summer ... "Souvenirs of Madame Sand" by Guillaume Trotignon, published by Marivole.
Part of a long historical saga (which begins in the 18th century with the novel "Wheat Time", first prize of the Lions Club of Central Region 2016), the historical novel "Souvenirs of Madame Sand" is the story of a long (fictitious) friendship between a woman of the people - Jeanne Chapelin - and the writer and thinker George Sand. Through the life of Jeanne Chapelin, the reader frequents George Sand and has a glimpse of his exceptional destiny. Not content to glimpse the deep relationship she has with Berry and his sincere love for the people, he also crosses the personalities that have influenced the writer but it has also influenced - let us quote among others Musset, Delacroix, Chopin, Flaubert. This novel shows a George Sand under two lights: as representative person of his time, who had, as a woman, to assert herself in the world of letters, fight with courage for her political ideals and who, by her talent and her multiple relationships, repeatedly managed to influence art in general. But also as a fragile woman (evidenced by her complex love, her existential crises and sometimes difficult family relationships), sincere in her choices (love for the people and Berry) and, more than anything, voluntary and freedom-loving.
Interview: Guillaume Trotignon's answers for My George Sand notebook.
Why address George Sand in this fourth installment? My ambition when I started writing my first novel ("The Wheat Time" - First Prize Lions Club Central Region 2016) was to make the reader travel in time and, in particular, to make him known the history of Berry. Each French region bears an impressive and striking history in detail, a story that reflects the "great history" of France. Each volume of my quadrilogy evokes an important period in the history of Berry: - Volume I, "The time of the wheat," narrated the Berry from 1715 to 1750: a poor land, subject to famine and famine, a land of legends, a land of peasantry. - Volume II, "The son of Enlightenment", describes the period 1750-1789 and speaks of an episode unknown in the history of Berry but also France: the military expedition of the Berry Regiment in New France (Quebec ). I also tackle the Enlightenment and pre-revolutionary France. - Volume III, "The Rider of the Revolution", describes the period 1789-1820 and speaks of the French Revolution in Berry but also the epic Napoleonic. I put the spotlight on central events such as the counterrevolutionary insurrection in Berry or important figures like General Bertrand, close to Napoleon I. Volume IV, "Souvenirs of Madame Sand", is part of this sequel: beginning with the period 1820-1880, its ambition is to show the political, but also the artistic and technical revolutions of the nineteenth century. Dealing with Berry, I could not duck that huge character that is George Sand, hence my choice. On the other hand, George Sand's life was extraordinary, so I had to talk about it. If you could sum up your novel in which words, which would you choose? I would use four words: "revolutions", "crises", "small people" and, of course, "art". "Revolutions" because my novel presents several - that of 1830 which had consequences in Berry and, especially, that of 1848 in which George Sand played a central role. I am also talking about the "upside down revolution" which is the coup d'etat of December 2, 1851 by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. "Crises" refers to the existential crises that enamelled the life of this extraordinary writer: her not only complex love but also her peculiar childhood - the tragic death of her father as well as other episodes -, the incessant attacks of which she was object and its quest for freedom to free itself from crises. "Small people" is important because George Sand has been paying tribute to the people throughout their lives, not only by their writings but also by their political ideals and by helping them concretely - for example, they were paying from his copyrights to the needy. "Art" because she strongly reminded that this area was not limited to men only but that it belonged to women by right; because she frequented the greatest artists of her time and with these artists she had an enriching relationship; and finally, because it has been able to renew art in different ways - for drama as well as fiction, autobiography and other genres ...
Do you talk a lot about Berry in your novel? This is the very heart of my subject. I do so because of the constraints imposed by my quadrilogy (all previous volumes have highlighted the Berry) but also because George Sand, in my eyes, owes a lot to Berry: this "province" was first for her a land of inspiration, an essential "muse". The Berry also allowed him to forge his social and political struggles (I speak in particular about the creation of his newspaper L'Eclaireur) and also because this land, which saw him born, constituted for him an indispensable refuge during the crises existential that it has crossed - think of Nohant but also, of course, Gargilesse-Dampierre, two places that are as many places of creation as retirement. I think we can not separate George Sand from Berry and the two have had an intimate and powerful relationship, made of love, a relationship where both have self-fed. Living abroad, I know how much the environment conditions psychology, the vision of everyone, ideas ... I would add that some artists have an undeniable link with their regions - I think Maupassant or Flaubert and Normandy, Daudet and Provence. For George Sand, it's Berry.
What event do you think had the most impact on George Sand's life? There have been several. His meeting with Aurélien de Sèze, Ajasson of Grandsagne, Jules Sandeau, Alfred de Musset, or the fact that she realized that her husband was cheating on her, just like the meeting with Chopin, his first literary success, the revolution of 1848 ... can not be put aside. I could also mention the tragic death of her father when she was just a child: in terms of her entire life, we can see how psychologically George Sand was a woman strong, determined and voluntary. Despite all these events, one has caught my attention because I think it's original and I think it deserves to be more valued. I talk about it in my novel: it's about George Sand's war experience when she was just a child, a rather unknown episode of the general public. Indeed, George Sand had gone, with his mother, to see his father in Spain, in a Spain then at war because refusing the Napoleonic invasion (insurrection of May 2, 1808, back of mayo). You really have to realize that George Sand has crossed, with his mother, a country in insurrection, ravaged, with corpses, where battles were taking place, a journey that must, I think, mark it in depth, especially since she was only a child. I would add that it was also on this occasion that she met several people who participated in the Napoleonic legend: she met Marshal Murat in particular in the palace of the Bourbon kings in Madrid and slept in the palace ... Imagine- you! Moreover, as a result of this grueling journey, she lost her little brother only a few months old then - another and terrible tragedy! - his father. From my own point of view, this rather unknown stay in Spain was important in the character of the novelist and her relationship to life: the sight of corpses, a dark atmosphere in which the war hovered ... The little girl who would become George Sand, for me, then understood death, the difficulty inherent in life and became extremely fighting. I sought to highlight this expedition in Spain as the death of his father in my novel to better show the psychology of George Sand.
Which scene did you have the greatest pleasure to write? There are two that I really appreciated: the one where I met George Sand, Chopin and Delacroix in Nohant. These three giants together in Berry !! There is another, which I address at the end of my novel: the visit of Flaubert and Tourgueniev to Nohant ...
Do you discuss other subjects than George Sand? Yes of course ! If the attendance of my heroine with George Sand represents a large part of my novel, there is another equally important hero - Duke Louis-Alexandre de Nuys. In addition to the extraordinary life of George Sand, the other ambition of my novel is to show the broad history of the nineteenth century. The latter, in fact, can not be reduced to the arts alone: it is first of all a period of revolutions and major political but also economic and technical upheavals. I talk about these themes through my second hero who becomes an influential financier, who is passionate about trains and has a troubled relationship with politics. There is another character that I bring into my novel and which, in my opinion, can not be evaded in the nineteenth century: it is about Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who will become Napoleon III. I describe his experience in prison but also his dizzying ascent, through - fatal - the coup. I was interested in this character rather erased in the collective memory of the French: I feel that his life is worth being narrated because it has aspects as impressive (his ambition, his determination to obtain power) that troubling and negative (coup d'etat). For me, a good novel must show dramatic evolutions: in "Souvenirs of Madame Sand", I show that of George Sand and that of Napoleon III. This comparison may seem a little daring but it is not without interest to express the nineteenth century in its complexity ...
Thanks to Guillaume for this participation.
Souvenirs of Madame Sand, by Guillaume Trotignon, published by Marivole.
Photos: George Sand by Nadar (private collection). Cover of the book "Souvenirs of Madame Sand".
Un peu de lecture pour cet été... « Souvenirs de Madame Sand » par Guillaume Trotignon, aux éditions Marivole.
S’inscrivant dans une longue saga historique (qui débute au XVIIIe siècle avec le roman « Le temps des blés », premier prix du Lions Club de la région Centre 2016), le roman historique « Souvenirs de Madame Sand » est le récit d’une longue amitié (fictive) entre une femme du peuple – Jeanne Chapelin – et l’écrivaine et penseuse George Sand. Au travers de la vie de Jeanne Chapelin, le lecteur fréquente George Sand et a un aperçu sur son destin exceptionnel. Non content d’entrevoir le rapport profond qu’elle entretient avec le Berry et son amour sincère pour le peuple, il y croise également les personnalités qui ont influencé l’écrivaine mais qu’elle a aussi influencées – citons entre autres Musset, Delacroix, Chopin, Flaubert. Ce roman montre une George Sand sous deux lumières : comme personne représentative de son époque, qui dut, en tant que femme, s’affirmer dans le monde des lettres, se battre avec courage pour ses idéaux politiques et qui, par son talent et ses multiples relations, parvint à plusieurs reprises à influencer l’art en général. Mais aussi comme une femme fragile (en témoignent ses amours complexes, ses crises existentielles et ses relations familiales parfois difficiles), sincère dans ses choix (amour pour le peuple et le Berry) et, plus que tout, volontaire et éprise de liberté.
Interview : les réponses de Guillaume Trotignon pour Mon carnet George Sand.
Pourquoi aborder George Sand dans ce quatrième opus ? Mon ambition lorsque j’ai commencé la rédaction de mon premier roman (« Le temps des blés » - Premier prix des Lions Club de la région Centre 2016) était de faire voyager le lecteur dans le temps et, en particulier, de lui faire connaître l’histoire du Berry. Chaque région française est porteuse d’une histoire impressionnante et saisissante dans le détail, une histoire qui reflète « la grande histoire » française. Chaque tome de ma quadrilogie évoque une période importante de l’histoire du Berry : - Le tome I, « Le temps des blés », narre le Berry de 1715 à 1750 : une terre pauvre, soumise aux disettes et aux famines, une terre de légendes, une terre de paysannerie. - Le tome II, « Le fils des Lumières », décrit la période 1750-1789 et parle d’un épisode méconnu dans l’histoire du Berry mais aussi de France : l’expédition militaire du régiment du Berry en Nouvelle-France (Québec). J’aborde aussi les Lumières et la France prérévolutionnaire. - Le tome III, « Le Cavalier de la Révolution », décrit la période 1789-1820 et parle de la révolution française en Berry mais aussi de l’épopée napoléonienne. Je mets à l’honneur des événements centraux comme l’insurrection contre-révolutionnaire en Berry ou des personnages importants comme le général Bertrand, proche de Napoléon Ier. Le tome IV, « Souvenirs de madame Sand », s’inscrit dans cette suite : abordant la période 1820-1880, il a pour ambition de montrer les révolutions politiques mais aussi artistiques et techniques du XIXe siècle. Traitant du Berry, je ne pouvais esquiver cet immense personnage qu’est George Sand, d’où mon choix. Par ailleurs, la vie de George Sand étant extraordinaire, il me fallait en parler. Si vous pouviez résumer votre roman en quels mots, lesquels choisiriez-vous ? J’utiliserais quatre mots : « révolutions », « crises », « petit peuple » et, bien entendu, « art ». « Révolutions » car mon roman en présentent plusieurs – celle de 1830 qui eut des conséquences en Berry et, surtout, celle de 1848 dans laquelle George Sand joua un rôle central. Je parle également de la « révolution à l’envers » qu’est le coup d’Etat du 2 décembre 1851 de Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. « Crises » fait référence aux crises existentielles qui ont émaillé la vie de cette extraordinaire écrivaine : ses amours non seulement complexes mais aussi son enfance particulière – la mort tragique de son père ainsi que d’autres épisodes –, les attaques incessantes dont elle fut l’objet et sa quête de liberté pour se libérer des crises. « Petit peuple » est important car George Sand n’a cessé de rendre hommage au peuple tout au long de son existence, non seulement par ses écrits mais aussi par ses idéaux politiques et en l’aidant concrètement – par exemple, elle versait une partie de ses droits d’auteur à des nécessiteux. « Art » parce qu’elle a rappelé avec force que ce domaine ne se limitait pas aux seuls hommes mais qu’il appartenait de droit aux femmes ; parce qu’elle fréquentait les plus grands artistes de son temps et qu’avec ces artistes elle a eu des relations enrichissantes ; enfin parce qu’elle a su renouveler l’art de différentes façons – tant pour le théâtre que pour la fiction, l’autobiographie et d’autres genres encore…
Parlez-vous beaucoup du Berry dans votre roman ? C’est le cœur-même de mon sujet. Je le fais en raison des contraintes imposées par ma quadrilogie (tous les tomes précédents ont mis en valeur le Berry) mais aussi parce que George Sand, à mes yeux, doit énormément au Berry : cette « province » fut d’abord pour elle une terre d’inspiration, une « muse » essentielle. Le Berry lui permit aussi de forger ses luttes sociales et politiques (je parle notamment de la création de son journal L’Eclaireur) et aussi parce que cette terre, qui l’a vue naître, a constitué pour elle un refuge indispensable lors des crises existentielles qu’elle a traversées – pensons à Nohant mais aussi, bien sûr, à Gargilesse-Dampierre, deux lieux qui sont autant des lieux de création que de retraite. Je pense qu’on ne peut séparer George Sand du Berry et que les deux ont entretenu une relation intime et puissante, faite d’amour, une relation où les deux se sont autoalimentés. Vivant à l’étranger, je sais ô combien l’environnement conditionne la psychologie, la vision de tout un chacun, les idées… J’ajouterais que certains artistes ont un lien indéfectible avec leurs régions – je pense à Maupassant ou Flaubert et la Normandie, Daudet et la Provence. Pour George Sand, c’est le Berry.
Selon vous, quel événement a eu le plus de conséquence sur la vie de George Sand ? Il y en a eu plusieurs. Sa rencontre avec Aurélien de Sèze, Ajasson de Grandsagne, Jules Sandeau, Alfred de Musset, ou encore le fait qu’elle se soit rendue compte que son mari la trompait, tout comme la rencontre avec Chopin, son premier succès littéraire, la révolution de 1848… ne peuvent être mis de côté. Je pourrais également évoquer la mort tragique de son père alors qu’elle n’était qu’une enfant : au regard de l’ensemble de sa vie, on constate combien, d’un point de vue psychologique, George Sand a été une femme forte, déterminée et volontaire. Malgré tous ces événements, un a beaucoup retenu mon attention car je le juge original et je trouve qu’il mériterait d’être davantage valorisé. J’en parle dans mon roman : il s’agit de l’expérience de guerre de George Sand alors qu’elle n’était qu’une enfant, un épisode plutôt méconnu du grand public. En effet, George Sand était allée, avec sa mère, voir son père en Espagne, dans une Espagne alors en guerre car refusant l’invasion napoléonienne (insurrection du 2 mai 1808, dos de mayo). Il faut vraiment prendre conscience que George Sand a traversé, avec sa mère, un pays en insurrection, ravagé, avec des cadavres, où des batailles avaient lieu, un périple qui a dû, je pense, la marquer en profondeur, d’autant qu’elle n’était qu’une enfant. J’ajouterais que c’est aussi à cette occasion qu’elle a rencontré plusieurs personnes qui ont participé à la légende napoléonienne : elle a notamment croisé le maréchal Murat dans le palais des rois Bourbons à Madrid et a dormi dans le palais… Imaginez-vous ! Par ailleurs, à la suite de ce voyage éreintant, elle a perdu son petit-frère âgé seulement de quelques mois puis – autre et terrible tragédie ! – son père. De mon propre point de vue, ce séjour plutôt méconnu en Espagne a été important dans le caractère de la romancière et son rapport à la vie : la vue des cadavres, une ambiance sombre dans laquelle la guerre planait… La petite fille qui allait devenir George Sand, pour moi, a alors compris la mort, la difficulté inhérente à la vie et est devenue extrêmement combattive. J’ai cherché à mettre en valeur cette expédition en Espagne tout comme la mort de son père dans mon roman pour mieux montrer la psychologie de George Sand.
Quelle scène avez-vous eu le plus grand plaisir à écrire ? Il y en a deux que j’ai beaucoup appréciée : celle où je réunis George Sand, Chopin et Delacroix à Nohant. Ces trois géants ensemble en Berry !! Il y en a une autre, que j’aborde à la fin de mon roman : la visite de Flaubert et de Tourgueniev à Nohant…
Abordez-vous d’autres sujets que George Sand ? Oui, bien sûr ! Si la fréquentation de mon héroïne avec George Sand représente une grande part de mon roman, il y a un autre héros tout aussi important – le duc Louis-Alexandre de Nuys. Outre la vie extraordinaire de George Sand, l’autre ambition de mon roman est de montrer l’histoire large du XIXe siècle. Celui-ci, en effet, ne peut se réduire aux seuls arts : il est d’abord une période des révolutions et de bouleversements politiques majeurs mais aussi économiques et techniques. Je parle de ces thèmes au travers de mon second héros qui devient un financier influent, qui se passionne pour les trains et qui entretient un rapport trouble avec la politique. Il y a un autre personnage que je fais intervenir dans mon roman et qui, à mon sens, ne peut être esquivé au XIXe siècle : il s’agit de Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, qui deviendra Napoléon III. Je décris son expérience en prison mais aussi son ascension vertigineuse, par le biais – funeste – du coup d’Etat. Je me suis intéressé à ce personnage plutôt effacé dans la mémoire collective des Français : j’estime que sa vie vaut le coup d’être narrée car elle possède des aspects aussi impressionnants (son ambition, son acharnement à obtenir le pouvoir) que troublants et négatifs (coup d’Etat). Pour moi, un bon roman se doit de montrer des évolutions spectaculaires : dans « Souvenirs de Madame Sand », je montre celle de George Sand et celle de Napoléon III. Ce rapprochement peut paraître un peu audacieux mais il n’est pas sans intérêt pour exprimer le XIXe siècle dans sa complexité…
Merci à Guillaume pour cette participation.
Souvenirs de Madame Sand, par Guillaume Trotignon, aux éditions Marivole.
Photos : George Sand par Nadar (collection privée). Couverture du livre « Souvenirs de Madame Sand ».
Tagore has been called one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century and the greatest poet India has ever produced. In Our Time looks at the polymath, progressive, painter, play writer, novelist, short story writer, composer of many songs and friend of Gandhi.
Great writers often shape our impressions of a place. Steinbeck and Dust Bowl Oklahoma, for instance. Sometimes a writer might even define a place, as Hemingway did for 1920s Paris. Rarely, though, does a writer create a place. Yet that is what the Indian poet and Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore did with a town called Shantiniketan, or “Abode of Peace.” Without Tagore’s tireless efforts, the place, home to a renowned experimental school, would not exist.
Tagore produced many of his famous poems at the school, which has always been known for its arts program.
For Indians, a trip to Shantiniketan, a three-hour train ride from Kolkata, is a cultural pilgrimage. It was for me, too, when I visited last July, in the height of the monsoon season. I had long been a Tagore fan, but this was also an opportunity to explore a side of India I had overlooked: its small towns. It was in places like Shantiniketan, with a population of some 10,000, that Tagore — along with his contemporary Mohandas K. Gandhi — believed India’s greatness could be found.
As I boarded the train at Kolkata’s riotous Howrah Station, there was no mistaking my destination, nor its famous resident. At the front of the antiquated car hung two photos of an elderly Tagore. With his long beard, dark eyes and black robe, the poet and polymath, who died in 1941, looked like a benevolent, aloof sage, an Indian Albus Dumbledore. At the rear of the car were two of his paintings, one a self-portrait, the other a veiled woman. Darkness infused them, as it does much of Tagore’s artwork, unlike his poems, which are filled with rapturous descriptions of nature. As the train ambled through the countryside, Tagore’s words echoed in my head. “Give us back that forest, take this city away,” he pleaded in one poem.
The son of a Brahmin landlord, Tagore was born in Calcutta, as Kolkata was called back then, in 1861. He began writing poetry at age 8. In 1913, he became the first non-Westerner to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The committee cited a collection of spiritual poems called “Gitanjali,” or song offerings. The verses soar. “The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end,” reads one.
Tagore became an instant international celebrity, discussed in the salons of London and New York. Today, Tagore is not read much in the West, but in India, and particularly in West Bengal, his home state, he remains as popular — and revered — as ever. For Bengalis, Tagore is Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Andy Warhol and Steven Sondheim — with a dash of Martin Luther King Jr. — rolled into one. Poet, artist, novelist, composer, essayist, educator, Tagore was India’s Renaissance man. He was also a humanist, driven by a desire to change the world, which is what he intended to do in Shantiniketan. Upset with what he saw as an India that mooched off other cultures — “the eternal ragpickers of other people’s dustbins,” he said — he imagined a school modeled after the ancient Indian tapovans, or forest colonies, where young men meditated and engaged in other spiritual practices. His school would eschew rote learning and foster “an atmosphere of living aspiration.”
Equipped with this vision — and unhappy with Calcutta’s transformation from a place where “the days went by in leisurely fashion,” to the churning, chaotic city that it is today — Tagore decamped in 1901 to a barren plain about 100 miles north of Calcutta. Tagore’s father owned land there, and on one visit experienced a moment of unexpected bliss. He built a hut to mark the spot, but other than that and a few trees, the young Tagore found only “a vast open country.”
Undaunted, he opened his school later that year, readily admitting that it was “the product of daring inexperience.” There was a small library, lush gardens and a marble-floored prayer hall. It began as a primary school; only a few students attended at first, and one of those was his son. Living conditions were spartan. Students went barefoot and meals, which consisted of dal (lentils) and rice, were “comparable to jail diet,” recalled Tagore, who believed that luxuries interfered with learning. “Those who own much have much to fear,” he would say.
Shantiniketan and its school represented an idea as much as a place: people do their best learning and thinking when they divorce themselves from the distractions of urban life and reconnect with their natural environment. That’s not easy to do in India. As my train trundled past rice fields and open space, I was inundated with offers of a shoeshine, pens, biscuits, flowers, jhalmuri (puffed rice), newspapers, musical performances and a magic show that featured the transformation of a Pepsi bottle into a bouquet of flowers.
Before I knew it, the train pulled into a tiny station, and the touts and hawkers were replaced by a few young men meekly asking if I needed a taxi. We drove past a moving collage of small-town India: squat buildings, women in saris riding sidesaddle on motor scooters, men in rickshaws selling banners emblazoned with verses from the Great Poet, tailors working from sidewalk shops, a sign for the “Tagore Institute of Management for Excellence.” Fifteen minutes later, I entered the lush grounds of the Mitali inn — and exhaled. India often takes your breath away; rarely does it give it back.
After settling into my simple room, lined from floor to ceiling with books (including Tagore’s), I met the inn’s owner, Krishno Dey, a former United Nations official who returned to his native Bengal some years ago. Sitting in a portico with ceiling fans whirling, we dined on chom-chom, or mango pulp (it tastes better than it sounds).
“You’re not going to see much here,” Mr. Dey warned me, “because there’s really not much to see.”
Perfect, I thought. I had just spent three weeks in Kolkata, an unrelenting city of 13 million, and “not much” was precisely what I craved. India may have invented the concept of zero, but traveling in the country has more to do with infinity. A seemingly infinite number of people, vehicles, noises, odors, wonders and hassles. Not in Shantiniketan, thankfully, where there are just enough sights to justify a few days’ stay.
The perfect activity is to read Tagore, and that’s what I did on the veranda, where I stumbled across a poem called “The Gardener”: “Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
Tagore, who lived on campus, produced much of his poetry in Shantiniketan (and nearly all of his paintings), taught a few courses and hosted a parade of visitors that included Ramsey MacDonald, a future British prime minister, and Gandhi.
Ridiculed at first, Tagore’s new school, which he called Patha Bhavan (“a place for the wayfarer”), became a college in 1921 and attracted thousands, including a young Indira Gandhi, the Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen and Satyajit Ray, the Indian filmmaker.
“If Shantiniketan did nothing else,” Mr. Ray once recalled, “it induced contemplation, and a sense of wonder in the most prosaic and earthbound of minds.”
Today, more than 6,000 students attend the university, which is now known as Visva-Bharati. Despite a drop in academic standards, its art school is still considered one of the best in the world.
As the school grew, so did the town. Its streets are lined with stately sal trees (some planted by Tagore), tea stalls and tiny bookstores. The poems and paintings of Tagore are everywhere.
Bicycles, which outnumber cars, are the best transportation. One day, Mr. Dey lent me his clunky bike equipped with a single gear and a bell, which came in handy given that there seem to be no passive-aggressive drivers on Indian roads, only aggressive-aggressive ones. Riding under a blanket of monsoon clouds, I passed schoolgirls in crisp blue uniforms, two or three to a bike. My destination was Rabindra Bhavan, the small museum that celebrates Tagore’s life.
Built on his former estate, it consists of a clutch of bungalows separated by raked gravel. Inside the dimly lighted exhibition hall are a few handwritten pages from “Gitanjali,” Tagore’s most famous poem, and black-and-white photographs of Tagore — a few of him as a dashing young man, but most of an older Tagore with crinkly eyes, looking off into the distance.
There are photos of Tagore with Helen Keller, Freud and Gandhi. Notable for its absence is the Nobel Prize itself. It was stolen from the museum in 2004, a crime that remains unsolved and that is, some believe, emblematic of a deeper problem.
“Long before the prize was stolen, Tagore was stolen,” quipped Kumar Rana, an aid worker I met. Reminiscing about Shantiniketan’s “good old days” is a popular sport here. Everyone I met told me how the air was once cleaner, the streets quieter, the people gentler.
Later that afternoon, I strolled through the sprawling university campus, with its simple concrete buildings and rows of sal trees. In the art studios, students’ work was on display: intricate bas-reliefs of Hindu goddesses, a sculpture made from a bicycle rickshaw.
A group of students gestured to me from a dormitory balcony. I climbed some stairs and found them slumped about a simple room — perhaps not as austere as Tagore had in mind, but close. On the ledge of the balcony sat one of their assignments, a bust of a well-known artist, a Shantiniketan alumna, drying slowly in the humid air.
Tagore left Shantiniketan rarely, but when he fell gravely ill in 1941, he went to Calcutta for treatment. It was there, in his ancestral home, that he dictated his last poem. “Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything — some love, some forgiveness — then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.” Nine days later, the Sage of Shantiniketan died.
Toward the end of my stay, I encountered a baul singer alongside the road, strumming an ektara, a guitarlike instrument with a single string. He waved and I steered my bike toward him.
With their unruly hair, matted beards and saffron kurtas, the singers (baul means “crazy”) are difficult to miss. Neither Hindu nor Muslim, they are said to be insane with the love of God and wander the countryside, as they have for centuries, singing enigmatic songs about the blessings of madness and the life of a seeker. Tagore adored the bauls, and even declared himself one of them.
I sat on the ground and listened to the hypnotic music. Bauls have grown popular in recent years and, inevitably, poseurs have tried to cash in. So when another traveler, a well-off Kolkatan with an expensive camera, joined us, I asked, “Do you think he is a real baul singer?”
Clearly displeased with my question, he said after a long pause, “He’s as real as you want him to be.”
Sitting on the hard Shantiniketan earth, a breeze foreshadowing the monsoon rains, I closed my eyes, listened to the music, and asked no more questions.
IF YOU GO
Getting There
Shantiniketan is reached via Kolkata. The fastest way is by train. The Shantiniketan Express runs daily and takes about two and half hours. Round-trip fare: approximately 1,560 rupees, or about $30, at 52 rupees to the dollar, on Indian Railways: indianrail.gov.in.
Where to Stay
Mitali Homestays (91-94-3307-5853, mitalishantiniketan.com; 1,560 to 4,160 rupees, about $30 to $80, a night) is a delightful B&B run by Krishno and Sonali Dey with lush gardens, an impressive library and delicious food. They will lend you a bicycle for the day, and offer suggestions about what to do.
What to See
The Rabindra Bhavan Museum features several of Rabindranath Tagore’s original manuscripts, as well as letters and photographs. Closed Wednesdays.
What to Buy
Shantiniketan is known for its leather goods, batik prints and artwork. Visit the bustling Saturday market on the outskirts of town.
Eric Weiner, author of “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine,” is working on a book about the connection between place and genius.
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Asia and the West
Never the twain
The intellectual roots of Asian anti-Westernism
Jul 28th 2012 | from the print edition
Dreaming of doing down the overlords
From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia. By Pankaj Mishra. Allen Lane; 356 pages; £20. To be published in America in September by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; $27. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk RARELY has the prestige of the West fallen lower in Asian eyes. Seemingly endless wars and the attendant abuses, financial crisis and economic malaise have made Europe and America look less like models to aspire to than dire examples to be shunned. In response, Asian elites are searching their own cultures and intellectual histories for inspiration.
In this section
As Pankaj Mishra, a prolific Indian writer, shows in this subtle, erudite and entertaining account of Asian intellectuals’ responses to the West, much the same was true over a century ago. He defines Asia broadly, as bordering with Europe at the Aegean Sea and Africa at the River Nile. A century ago, what he calls “an irreversible process of intellectual…decolonisation” was under way across this huge region. For Mr Mishra, and many Asians, the 20th century’s central events were the “intellectual and political awakening of Asia and its emergence from the ruins of both Asian and European empires”. China and India have shaken off foreign predators and become global powers. Japan has risen, fallen and risen again. It is commonplace to describe the current century as Asia’s. Mr Mishra tells the story of this resurgence through the lives of a number of pivotal figures, as they grappled with the dilemma of how to replicate the West’s power while retaining their Asian “essence”. He pays most attention to two, both little known in the West. One, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, was like most of them “neither an unthinking Westerniser, nor a devout traditionalist”. Despite his name, and despite a tomb in Kabul restored at America’s expense, al-Afghani was born in Persia in 1838. An itinerant Islamist activist, he also spent time in Egypt, India, Turkey and Russia, railing against the feebleness and injustices of Oriental despotisms and the immorality of Western imperialism, and trying to forge a Pan-Islamic movement. He had the ear of sultans and shahs. The other main character is Liang Qichao, a leading Chinese intellectual in the twilight of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing, and the chaotic early years after it fell in 1911. Steeped in the old Confucian traditions and aghast at the weak new republic, he came to the conclusion that “the Chinese people must for now accept authoritarian rule; they cannot enjoy freedom”. Writing in 1903, however, he saw this as a temporary phenomenon. He would have been surprised to find China’s rulers today arguing much the same. Two other developments would also have surprised these men. The first is how disastrously some of the syntheses of West and East worked out: from Mao’s and Pol Pot’s millenarian communism, to al-Qaeda’s brand of Islamist fundamentalism and Japan’s replication of the worst traits of Western imperialism. Japan’s later aggression helps explain the other surprise: that in many ways the links between Asian thinkers look more tenuous now than they did a century ago. Then, men such as Liang, or Rabindranath Tagore (pictured) from Bengal, would travel to Tokyo. They would dream of a pan-Asian response to the West, inspired by Japan’s example. China is now the coming Asian power, but it is not an intellectual hub of pan-Asianism, either in Communist orthodoxy or in efforts to revive Confucianism. And the Islam of al-Afghani’s ideological heirs has made little headway in non-Muslim countries. There is one contemporary Asian phenomenon that, Mr Mishra notes, would seem far less surprising to the author’s subjects than to many present-day Westerners. That is the depth of anti-Western feeling. Millions, he writes, “derive profound gratification from the prospect of humiliating their former masters and overlords.” That prospect, however, masks what Mr Mishra concedes is an “immense intellectual failure”, because “no convincingly universalist response exists today to Western ideas of politics and economy”. The ways of the West may not be working. Yet the alarming truth, Mr Mishra concludes, is that the East is on course to make many of the same mistakes that the West has made in its time.
When she passed by me with quick steps, the end of her skirt touched me. From the unknown island of a heart came a sudden warm breath of spring. A flutter of a flitting touch brushed me and vanished in a moment, like a torn flower petal blown in the breeze. It fell upon my heart like a sigh of her body and whisper of her heart.
The Gulag Archipelago (Russian: Архипела́г ГУЛА́Г, Arkhipelág GULÁG) is a three-volume book written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was first published in 1973, followed by an English translation the following year. It covers life in the gulag, the Sovietforced labour campsystem, through a narrative constructed from various sources, including Solzhenitsyn's own experience as a gulag prisoner, reports, interviews, statements, diaries, and legal documents.
Following its publication, the book initially circulated in samizdatunderground publication in the Soviet Union until its appearance in the literary journal Novy Mir in 1989, in which a third of the work was published in three issues.[1] Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, The Gulag Archipelago has been officially published, and since 2009, is mandatory reading as part of the Russian school curriculum.[2] A fiftieth anniversary edition will be released in 2018.
但砷最為人知的一點，還是做為經典毒藥之用；在各式各樣使用砷來下毒的想像或真實故事裡，最具爭議的無疑是拿破崙在遙遠的南大西洋聖海倫娜島（island of St Helena）上離奇死亡的種種傳說。這個故事再次顯示了在大自然中，顏色和毒性是如何連結在一起。當這名被廢黜的國王於1821年5月過世時，由伴隨他流亡的隨從人員且與他同樣來自科西嘉的私人醫生為他進行解剖，結果發現了胃潰瘍，因此將死因歸結於胃癌。要到了很久之後，拿破崙男僕的日記於1955年出版後，各界才開始升起懷疑聲浪。對加拿大的拿破崙粉絲班．偉德（Ben Weider）來說，日記中描述拿破崙1821年初那幾個月惡化的情況，明顯就是中毒的症狀。1961年，瑞典毒物學家史丹．傅孝武（Sten Forshufvud）對拿破崙毛髮樣本進行了分析檢測（拿破崙忠誠的僕人們都具有先見之明，拔下一搓國王的頭髮），結果發現頭髮中確實含有高量的砷。這兩個人最終一起合作，進行了進一步的檢測，發展出拿破崙是下毒受害者的這個理論；在一連串峰迴路轉的謀殺論演繹之後，得出了一個如同推理小說般的確切結論。偉德和傅孝武並未對自己的理論多加考據，在忽略進一步思考的情況下，就出版了一系列著作，詳述了他們的理論。
湛約翰(John Chamlers)、謝衛樓(Davello Z. Sheffield)、韶瑪亭(Martin Schaub)、惠志道(John Wherry)、艾約瑟(Joseph Edkins)、皮堯士(Thomas W. Pearce)、羅為霖(Llewelyn Lloyd)、安飽德(Patrick J. Maclagan)
《聖經和合本》（Chinese Union Version，簡稱和合本；今指國語和合本（Kuoyü Union Version），舊稱官話和合本（Mandarin Union Version）），是今日華語基督新教教會最普遍使用的《聖經》譯本，問世一百年以來，一直是華人教會的權威譯本，是眾多信徒心愛的聖經。此譯本的出版源自1890年在上海舉行的傳教士大會，會中各差會派代表成立了三個委員會，各自負責翻譯官話（白話文）、淺文理（淺文言）、深文理（文言文）譯本。
1904年，《淺文理和合譯本》（Easy Wenli Union Version）出版《新約》。1906年，《深文理和合譯本》（High Wenli Union Version）亦出版《新約》。1907年，傳教士大會計劃只譯一部文理譯本，於1919年出版《文理和合譯本》（Wenli Union Version）。1906年，官話的翻譯工作完成了《新約》；1919年，官話《舊約》的翻譯工作完成。在1919年正式出版時，官話《聖經》譯本名為《官話和合譯本》，從此就成了現今大多數華語教會採用的和合本《聖經》。並在1983年起進行了修訂，使其更貼近現代文意修正錯譯，在2010年完成出版《和合本修訂版》。
尤思德(Jost Oliver Zetzsche)著，蔡錦圖 譯：《和合本與中文聖經翻譯》. 香港：國際聖經協會，2002年. ISBN 962-513-244-9
Bible in China: The History of the Union Version or the Culmination of Protestant Missionary
尤思德(Jost Oliver Zetzsche)：《一生之久的工作：〈和合本〉翻譯30載》(The Work of Lifetimes: Why the Union Version Took Nearly Three Decades to Complete)，載於 伊愛蓮(Irene Eber) 等 著，蔡錦圖 編譯的《聖經與近代中國》. 香港：漢語聖經協會，2003年：61-83頁. ISBN 962513350X.
伊愛蓮(Irene Eber)等 著，蔡錦圖 譯：《聖經與近代中國》. 香港：漢語聖經協會，2003年. ISBN 962513350X.
Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering Eleonore Stump OUP Oxford, Sep 23, 2010 - Religion - 688 pages
Wandering in Darkness Narrative and the Problem of Suffering Eleonore Stump A highly original approach to the problem of evil Draws together philosophical, religious, and scientific perspectives on the human condition Offers a way to make sense of existence in a world of suffering The magnum opus of a leading figure in the philosophy of religion Demonstrates the continuing value of Aquinas's theodicy for philosophers and theologians today Features illuminating exegeses of central biblical narratives
Only the most naïve or tendentious among us would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one hold, consistently with the common view of suffering in the world, that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that one can. Wandering in Darkness first presents the moral psychology and value theory within which one typical traditional theodicy, namely, that of Thomas Aquinas, is embedded. It explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons. Eleonore Stump also makes use of developments in neurobiology and developmental psychology to illuminate the nature of such union. Stump then turns to an examination of narratives. In a methodological section focused on epistemological issues, the book uses recent research involving autism spectrum disorder to argue that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. Using the methodology argued for, the book gives detailed, innovative exegeses of the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham and Isaac, and Mary of Bethany. In the context of these stories and against the backdrop of Aquinas's other views, Stump presents Aquinas's own theodicy, and shows that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. She concludes by arguing that this explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering.
About the author (2010)
Eleonore Stump is The Robert J. Henle, SJ, Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992. She received a Ph.D. in medieval studies and medieval philosophy from Cornell University in 1975.
Bibliographic information
Title
Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering
Incipit Part I: The Nature of the Project 1. Suffering, Theodicy, and Defense 2. Philosophy and Narrative 3. Narrative as a Means of Knowledge: Francis and Dominic 4. Narrative and the Knowledge of Persons Part II: The World at Large: Love and Loneliness 5. The Nature of Love 6. Union, Presence, and Omnipresence 7. Willed Loneliness 8. Other-worldly Redemption Part III: The World of the Stories: Suffering in Particular 9. The Story of Job: Suffering and the Second-personal 10. The Story of Samson: Self-Destroying Evil 11. The Story of Abraham: The Desires of the Heart 12. The Story of Mary of Bethany: Heartbrokenness and Shame Part IV: Other-worldly Theodicy: What We Care About in a Defense 13. Theodicy in Another World 14. What We Care About: the Desires of the Heart 15. The Defense of the Defense: Suffering, Flourishing, and the Desires of the Heart Desinit
Contents. Equestrian Montaigne. 1. Travel Journal. 6. Of Idleness. 12.
SUMMARY
A detailed reading of Montaigne, Descartes, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, underscoring the foundational and potentially liberating force of travel in early modern French philosophy. "Abbeele's study offers more than the title promises; it goes beyond a mere illustration of the common place of travel as a metaphor for critical thought in order to investigate the extent to which the metaphor of travel might actually limit thought. In a series of readings examining the figure of travel in the writings of Montaigne, Descartes, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, Abbeele argues that "each writer's discourse allows for the elaboration of a metadiscourse opening onto the deconstruction of the writer's claims to a certain property (of his home, of his body, of his text, of his name)" Philosophy and Literature
On this day in 1903, famed author George Orwell was born in Bengal (present-day India). The year before his passing, he published one of his most famous works – 1984 – a fictional story that took readers into a dystopian future of government control and surveillance. Orwell, whose birth name was Eric Arthur Blair, was convinced from a young age that he would be a famous author. Much like his peers, Orwell considered Lenin one of the most significant men of his time, but his refusal to conform often led him to be deeply critical of imperialism and capitalism. Later in life, Orwell vehemently criticized communism, as evidenced in his book 'Animal Farm'. Today, we take the opportunity to remember Orwell’s contributions to literature and for his critical eye on social norms. Just shy of 1984, UNESCO published two special issues in The Unesco Courier and the review 'The Impact of Science in Society', exploring the intersection of fiction and reality and focused on Orwell's work. How does today compare to Orwell’s predictions for the future?
Check out here some of the articles dedicated to Orwell. Enjoy the read!
萊奧納多達芬奇（Leonardo da Vinci，1452—1519），意大利文藝復興時期的偉大代表，思想深邃，學識淵博、多才多藝。他廣泛地研究繪畫、雕塑、音樂、光學、數學、天文學、地質學、生物學、建築工程等多種學科，既是藝術巨匠，也是現代生理解剖學的先驅，構想出了初級機器人、機械車、飛行器，以及樂器、鬧鍾、自行車、照相機、溫度計、紡織機、起重機、挖掘機等許多發明設計。達芬奇保存下來的手稿大約有6000頁，記錄了這位曠世全才對世界的精確觀察和無數奇思妙想。
After portraying titans of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics such as Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs, author Walter Isaacson ’74 has now turned his attention to someone whose intellectual triumphs and artistic brilliance may outpace all of the others: Leonardo da Vinci.
In a dazzling new biography, Isaacson plumbs da Vinci’s relentlessly curious and creative mind, poring over the to-do lists that da Vinci maintained to hold himself to his intellectual pursuits. Isaacson also digs into da Vinci notebooks crammed with math problems, maps, sketches of “The Last Supper,” doodles, riddles, and notes-to-self in his mirror-image handwriting in an effort to decode what he thought and to retrace how his mind darted between art and science, engineering and the humanities.
As the ultimate Renaissance man, da Vinci fused rigorous observation, mathematics, and scientific experimentation with imagination and endless wonder. He was a procrastinator who managed to unlock mysteries of the human body, envision flying machines that predated recorded flight by centuries, and create two of the most celebrated paintings in Western art. He was also a perfectionist who could abandon or relentlessly tinker with projects he deemed flawed, including the “Mona Lisa.” Though known for his exceptionally sharp eye for detail, da Vinci is credited with inventing sfumato, a painting technique in which lines and edges are smudged to simulate how things appear in 3-D.
His personal life was also a study in contrasts. Born out of wedlock and having almost no formal education, da Vinci was a savant and a bon vivant popular among the political, intellectual, and courtly elite in Florence and Milan. He was a stylish, even flamboyant dresser who dated younger men but rarely shared intimate details of his personal life publicly.
Isaacson spoke with the Gazette about what he learned about da Vinci’s creative process and what his remarkable life still has to teach us.
GAZETTE: You’ve written about other giants of math, science, and technology. What prompted you to tackle da Vinci, and how did your exploration of his life reshape your understanding of him?
ISAACSON: In some ways, it began for me at Harvard, where the whole point of a liberal arts education is to connect the arts and the sciences in different disciplines. I realized that whether it was Benjamin Franklin or Steve Jobs or Leonardo, the ability to be interested in all fields helped enrich an appreciation for the patterns of nature and also helped enrich their lives. Leonardo is the ultimate person who connects arts and sciences, who connects the humanities and engineering. “Vitruvian Man” is the ultimate symbol of how do we fit into our earth, our universe, and into spirituality, and he does it by connecting the work of great art with the work of great scientific precision.
I discovered that he had more than 7,000 pages of notebooks, so I went around the world, from Milan to Seattle, looking at his notebooks and trying to piece together all of the questions he was exploring every day. How his interest in squaring the circle as a mathematical problem tied in with his interest in the flow of water tied in with the way he did “Vitruvian Man” or the “Mona Lisa.” Likewise, I found out that he loved producing theatrical pageants and saw his notes and noticed how they connected to the tricks he used in “The Last Supper.” The purpose was to use the notebooks as a foundation for watching his mind dance back and forth between art and engineering. And that will be the most important recipe for creativity in the future. It’s not just about learning engineering or learning how to code. Nor is it about just learning about literature and poetry. It’s learning about how to stand at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences.
GAZETTE: I was fascinated by those notebooks and to-do lists. Both are so ordinary and yet seem to have played such a key role in his creative process. Why did he rely on them?
ISAACSON: Because paper was a little bit expensive, he crammed many things on one page. The opening notebook page at the beginning of my book has a sketch of “The Last Supper,” but it also has some geometry problems he was trying to figure out — how the same mathematical pattern underlies swirling water and curling hairs. So you see a playful and extraordinarily curious mind dancing with nature as he hops across the page.
A drawing of an elderly bearded man, believed to be a self-portrait of da Vinci. Harvard Fine Arts Library, Digital Images & Slides Collection 1998.00960
GAZETTE: Da Vinci’s belief in science, observation, and experiential knowledge was unusual for his time. Where did that belief come from?
ISAACSON: It helped that he was born out of wedlock, so he couldn’t be a notary like his father and grandfather. He became very self-taught just when [Johannes] Gutenberg’s printing press is spreading. He becomes what he calls a “disciple of experience.” So he’d read something in a book and then say, “How would I test that?” Or he’d learn something like the Biblical flood and then he would sketch the layers of fossils in sediments near Florence and say, “Well, that doesn’t make sense because these were laid down over thousands of years.” So he questions received wisdom, and like Steve Jobs and a lot of creative people, he’s a bit of a misfit, a round peg in a square hole. He’s illegitimate, he’s left-handed, he’s gay, he’s vegetarian, he’s somewhat heretical. But Florence in the 1470s celebrated people who were from diverse backgrounds, whether immigrants from the fall of Constantinople or people who liked both engineering the dome of the cathedral but also painting the angels that would adorn the cathedral.
GAZETTE: Da Vinci is sometimes criticized for his willingness to be distracted and go off on tangents, leaving behind many unfinished works or abandoned pursuits. You say that shouldn’t be viewed as negative. Why not?
ISAACSON: There are critics who say that if Leonardo had not spent so much time studying anatomy or squaring the circle or figuring out how to divert rivers or engineering flying machines or dissecting the human eye and studying optics that he would’ve ended up painting more masterpieces and that all of these passions were a waste of time. It may be true he would have painted more masterpieces, but he would not have painted “The Last Supper” or the “Mona Lisa” had he not been deeply interested in all of the patterns across all of the arts and humanities and sciences and engineering, had he not been obsessed with squaring the circle or dissecting every muscle and nerve of the human face or knowing how light strikes the center of the retina differently from its edge. He would not have been Leonardo da Vinci; he would have been a master craftsman, but not a genius.
GAZETTE: Did the scientist inform the art, or did the artist inform the science?
ISAACSON: At first, the science was used in service of the art, like how do birds fly or how do the muscles of the neck look? But Leonardo, literally as well as figuratively, started dissecting the muscles of the neck and soon he’s dissecting every organ and doing layered drawings of all parts of the body for curiosity for its own sake. He can’t help himself. When he explores a piece of science he needs to know for his paintings, soon he’s geeking out to square the circle or do a cross-section of the human heart, which is not going to help him paint “The Last Supper” but it is going to help make him Leonardo. One of the things we learn is that the pursuit of useful knowledge should be allowed to flow into the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
GAZETTE: You write that what separates da Vinci from other super-intellects and super-talents was his ability to bring imagination to intellect. Can you explain?
ISAACSON: Part of his imagination comes from just being so observant about things we forget to study after we outgrow our wonder years, like why is the sky blue or what does the tongue of a woodpecker look like? And then his imagination was honed by his love of theater, and so he would build a prop, say an aerial screw to bring angels down from the rafters in a play. But then he would go on to try and make a real flying machine like the helicopter he drew, because he had the talent of letting his imagination blur into reality.
“… He’s a bit of a misfit, a round peg in a square hole. He’s illegitimate, he’s left-handed, he’s gay, he’s vegetarian, he’s somewhat heretical,” says Walter Isaacson ’74 of Leonardo da Vinci. File photo by Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer
GAZETTE: He comes across as a brilliant visionary, of course, but also as a complicated, thoroughly modern man. How did someone who was such a singular figure and a misfit, as you call him, find so much success and acceptance in his day? He was certainly no outcast despite his unusual talents and qualities.
ISAACSON: Both in Florence and in parts of Renaissance Italy, for certain periods, there was not only a tolerance of diversity but a joy and celebration of diversity. And that’s what made Florence in the late 1400s so creative. That people of diverse talents, personalities, and lifestyles all worked together and a person like Leonardo — who wore short pink-and-purple tunics and had a young male companion and who indulged in fantasy — was beloved by both the Medicis and, later, other rulers in Italy. He had a very collegial, friendly, and kind personality. In his notebooks, there were more people referred to as “my close friend” than almost any person you can imagine. He loved Donato Bramante the architect, Luca Pacioli the mathematician, and the list goes on and on of the people he would have dinner with so he could ask them questions. He loved other people. In college or at a university, you end up being in the most diverse environment you’ve ever been in, diverse in terms of people’s backgrounds and lifestyles and diverse in terms of their interests. Leonardo loved to be around such enlivening and stimulating diversity.
GAZETTE: What lessons does da Vinci’s life offer the rest of us?
ISAACSON: We should retain the child-like curiosity that we outgrow sometimes when we leave our wonder years. And we should make sure that both our students and our children are curious about the most ordinary things, like why is the sky blue or why does water swirl when it flows into a bowl. We will never be able to push ourselves to understand the tensor calculus that Einstein used to describe the curvature of space and time, but we can all push ourselves to be like Leonardo and observe whether a bird’s wing goes up faster or down faster when it is flying or observe how the pattern of a hair curl matches the pattern of a swirl of water. That’s a combination of curiosity and observation for its own sake, not because we can make something useful out of it.
This one-volume selection from Leonardo's notebooks encompasses every aspect of his interests in painting, architecture, engineering, optics, anatomy and much more. It includes fables and epigrams and an outline of his life told through his writings.
The new Introduction, and Preface by Leonardo expert Martin Kemp, explore the artist's genius and the contents and legacy of his manuscripts.
The selection is helpfully organized into seven themed sections, and editorial comentary puts the material in context.
New notes, a chronology of Leonardo's life, and full list of references to manuscripts.
John Newbery (9 July 1713 – 22 December 1767), called "The Father of Children's Literature", was an English publisher of books who first made children's literature a sustainable and profitable part of the literary market. He also supported and ...
ジョン・ニューベリー賞（The John Newbery Medal）は、例年、アメリカ合衆国における最も優れた児童文学の著者に与えられる賞である。アメリカ図書館協会の下位組織であるAssociation for Library Service to Children（児童図書館協会）が運営して ...
The John Newbery Medal was awarded for the first time on this day in 1922.
Named after the 18th-century British publisher and “father of children’s literature,” the award recognizes the most distinguished American children’s book published the previous year.
Newbery demonstrated that children’s literature could be profitable, but he also used his books to market other business ventures. In “The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes,” a character dies because “Dr. James’s Powder was not to be had.” Fortunately for the concerned reader, Dr. James’s Fever Powder was widely available at the time; fortunately for Newbery, he inherited the patent.
Newbery believed that children learned best through play. Accordingly, his books were designed to instruct even as they amused. For an additional two pence, his first children’s book, “A Little Pretty Pocket-Book,” above, was sold with a black-and-red ball or pincushion. Children could stick a pin into the red side to mark good behavior or the black side to mark when they were bad.
The first Newbery Medal was awarded to “The Story of Mankind,” a history of the world for children by Hendrik Willem van Loon.
When I turned 80 three years ago, I retired my weekly PBS series and have since focused on the web with a small, dedicated team as the avenue for our journalism. Your response rewarded our efforts, and we have been pleased and grateful for your interest and attention. I treasure the many messages from so many kindred spirits.
Now it’s time for another farewell, and with this note I am signing off.
BillMoyers.com will continue to serve as the archive of the television journalism my colleagues and I have produced over the past 44 years. I hope you find it useful. The site will go into archive mode on Wednesday, Dec. 20.
Until it moves to a new home, our Trump-Russia timeline, created by the indefatigable Steve Harper and orchestrated by our producers, will continue to publish right here at BillMoyers.com, tracking the convergence of events connecting the Trump empire and Russian oligarchs now being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.
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—Bill Moyers
BILLMOYERS.COM
Farewell – BillMoyers.com When I turned 80 three years ago, I retired my weekly PBS series and have since focused on the web with a small, dedicated team as the avenue for our journalism. Now it’s time for another farewell. Continue reading
This weekend, The New York Times printed every lie Donald Trump has told since taking office. The effort deserves the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, Bill Moyers says.
我 看過原文，中譯文大體不差。此是伏爾泰旅英的25封通信，故又稱《英國通信》。英國的自由風氣早在歐陸之先，伏氏在英所見所聞，備受感慨和啟示。全書涉及 彼時英國的宗教、政府、議會、文化、培根、洛克、牛頓，等等。這本書說明伏爾泰在英國已被“啟蒙”了。英國對法國“啟蒙運動”的影響，常被輕視；伏氏此書 大有助于了解歐洲這段的社會思想史。
「西方浄土 須弥山」に見入る内覧会の入場者たち＝１７日午後、東京都台東区の東京国立博物館、相場郁朗撮影
