Status Updates From Introduction to Modernity: ...

Just when I think this one is losing me I get to another chapter that pulls me back in. The prelude on Nature was rough going, and the ending section on "Women" and "Modern Woman" made me cringe a bit. Had to remind myself that he was writing from a 1961 viewpoint. But the next prelude on Youth and Repetition was outstanding! The few pages on the quickening of history and the news cycle was amazingly prescient. Wow.

And then you hit "A Letter" and "Notes on the New Town" and all becomes quite distinct and clear as to Lefebvre's thoughts on modernity, whether in art, politics, architecture or city planning. Reading this alongside Humboldt's Gift by Bellow seems like a fortuitous pairing. They speak to each other a bit in terms of modernity and the feeling of something that has passed or is passing as we all get pulled to the new.

Not an easy read in any way. Sure, the sentences seem to make sense, as they go by one by one, but always this underlying feeling of overall disconnection. Fogginess. Occasionally one is rewarded with a clear image of how what Lefebvre is writing connects to modernity, but then it all slides away as more words and sentences carry it like a cacophonous train back into the dark tunnel of loosened understanding. Poetry