Dan > Recent Status Updates

Finish book 5

Finished book 4

Finished book 3

Great moody writing.... darkness slowly enveloping the town of Whitby.

the first four chapters of Harker's trip to Castle Dracula was excellent!

I do not agree with Terrence Real's "bad individualist v good collectivist" dichotomy. I don't agree with his definitions and his approach lacks the nuance he has elsewhere. And don't even get me started on Real's faulty history of the Enlightenment and Romanticism....

Finished book 2

Finished book 1

You didn't hate the 50 page essay by Tolstoy either. It was harder to get through than the rest of the book but it is a theory of history that I will apply to any historical work, whether non-fiction or fiction in the future. All I have left now is the afterword and introduction!

So ends the story portion of War and Peace! Now what's left is the 100 page essay epilogue (and the afterword & introduction). I actually like the essay and philosophy parts so far so I am excited for it to be honest.

Tolstoy's book reminds me of the ancient historians, who meditated on history, philosophy, and human nature through the telling of history. Part truth, part fiction, Tolstoy, like ancient historians, put words, actions, and great speeches into characters from history that may be untrue, but true to those characters, as Tolstoy imagined them