Freedom and the American Revolution

The most curious fact about the American Revolution is that it happened at all. Historian Gordon Wood says that in the traditional sense, "Americans were not an oppressed people; they had no crushing imperial shackles to throw off. In fact, the Americans knew they were probably freer and less burdened with cumbersome feudal and monarchical restraints than any part of mankind in the eighteenth century." Even to many of its international observers, the revolution seemed a rebellion with little cause.

Perhaps, though, the cause of revolution ought not present itself as such a mystery, for it would appear that what brought about the American Revolution had to do with the conditions of the New World. The New World had given Americans the experience of what it was like to have to forge ahead in free circumstances. The Americans therefore "revolted not to create but to maintain their freedom," Wood says. "While the speculative philosophers of Europe were laboriously searching their minds in an effort to decide the first principles of liberty, the Americans had come to experience vividly that liberty in their everyday lives."

Julian Barnes on Writing

The Best American Essays series was not published until 1986. As is standard with any of the Best American books, The Best American Essays 1986 volume collects the putative best works of the previous year, 1985, the year of my birth.

As a writer of essays and autobiographical fiction, I owe it to myself to familiarize myself with the major works from my birthyear forward. Let's begin with the leadoff piece of this volume written by Julian Barnes titled "On Writer Worship."

Barnes claims to own a piece of fence that belonged to the house of writer W. Somerset Maugham (pictured left). Barnes also writes of a pilgrimage he took to the site of what was once the home (now destroyed) of Gustave Flaubert, where he came across a stuffed parrot that once sat on Flaubert's writing desk.

Tocqueville: Democracy in America

 

In 1831, a young French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States to make a study of the new country's prison system. While treading the fresh soil, he turned his attention to the character of the country itself. He became enamored by the democratic revolution the nation had undergone since its liberation from England in the war of 1776 and its establishment of its constitution in 1787.

In contrast to his native France and its development following the revolution of 1789 and the ascendancy of Napoleon in 1799, Tocqueville believed there was something much more egalitarian about the democratic character of the States. Moreover, he believed these egalitarian ideals he sensed in the real-life world of the citizens represented a new spirit of the age, one which he believed the whole world would come to emulate. He was not wrong.

At the same time Tocqueville admired the democracy and equality of the New World, he also observed some underdetermined features about the way the country operated which might lead to future malfunction. He was especially critical of how underdetermined legal matters were regarding political crimes as defined in national and state constitutions.

T.S. Eliot on History and Art

Every work of art speaks to every other work of art. The introduction of a single piece of art alters the valence of every previous work. James Joyce published Ulysses in 1922, and now Homer's Odyssey appears to be a precursor to Ulysses just as Ulysses arrives in homage to The Odyssey.

Interestingly, historical events work the same way. The French Revolution of 1789 takes on a new meaning when 1914 breaks out in a war of empire against empire rather than a rising up of people against kings. The First World War of 1914 kills the dream of the French Revolution.

Why Read Moby-Dick?

Recently, I was relaying to a friend that I am rereading Moby-Dick, and my friend said Moby-Dick was his father's favorite book. "But I've never read it," my friend said. "Too big a reputation."

Indeed, the reputation of the book overshadows the book itself. The very notion of a great book, especially one regarded as the great American novel (Moby-Dick is), is likely to scare away readers. A shame, because good books, not only great ones, ought to be enjoyed.

Moby-Dick is a pleasure to read. A passive narrator, writing under an assumed name, recounts a whaling voyage he took in which the ship and crew were lost to sea on account of a Great White Whale. And were it not for the monomaniacal pursuit of the Whale by the captain, a Quaker named Ahab who lost his leg to the selfsame whale, then the crew might not have perished.

As for the reading experience, the delight is in the details. The book is largely written as though you're engaged in a conversation with a talkative sailor who wants to let you know exactly what whaling is like. He wants to tell you everything he knows about whales, the true accounts and legends alike.