Changes and preparations

[paulhope]

So I'm preparing for this Europe backpacking trip. I leave this weekend, will be in the UK and Ireland for two weeks (much of it with family) before setting out to the continent on my own.

Comments

possession and suggestions

[anonymous]

Also unable to find it in the house, I bought a used copy (which I have yet to read.)

A hippie suggestion: don't bring many, and make most of them things you're happy to leave behind in cafes or on trains when you're done. Pick up new ones as you go. That way you don't have to carry them all around the whole time. (Or I guess you could exchange some with us after the first two weeks.)

Another idea: go for dense things, i.e. things that take lots of time per cubic inch, at least for the time after you can unload things on us. (This favors Foucault and not Rowling... not sure where the rest fall in between those.)

- louisa hope

Re: possession and suggestions

[paulhope]

Good points. I was saving Potter for the UK though--something to get my heart rate up in Shropshire. Were you intending on taking Possession?

[firezdog]

Ah -- you could have brought Husserl's Logical Investigations. That's the book I'm all excited about right now.

[paulhope]

Merleau-Ponty was my purchase in that vein. I find that I end up appreciating philosophy more the closer it gets to contemporary.

[rachiestar]

Dear God, chuck The Magus. I hate that book so fucking much. IMHO, it occupies the same dimension in philosophical literature space as does Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintance. I really can't stress enough how much that book sucks.

If you want a contemporary British replacement, Julian Barnes' History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters is beautiful and thought-provoking and will be more memorable and culturally/personally useful to you, I think, than the Fowles.

Also I found History of Sexuality: Volume 1 more accessible than Discipline and Punish. It's also shorter.

[paulhope]

Dear God, chuck The Magus. I hate that book so fucking much. IMHO, it occupies the same dimension in philosophical literature space as does Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintance. I really can't stress enough how much that book sucks.

Wow...uh...gee. I guess that one's out then. :)

Also I found History of Sexuality: Volume 1 more accessible than Discipline and Punish. It's also shorter.

You've recommended this to me before, but I think that it might be a salient difference between us that ::gulp:: I don't...erm...cogitate about...you know...sexuality as much as *ahem* you do. ;)

[rachiestar]

hey seb, this is hal

[paulhope]

Why the opposition to Harry Potter? Are you against popular escapist fiction in general, or is there something you find particular revolting about kid wizards?

The stuff you mention about Foucault's dubious scholarship was something I'm worried about. It sounds like his method is to draw out the trajectory of history through remarkable historical examples/ideas, but the importance of such ideas (the ship of fools, the panopticon) in actual history is highly questionable. Do you have any advice on reading Foucault as far as getting what might be "essentially right" and spitting out what is historical fiction?

I think I will bring Discipline and Punish and will probably read it on the trip. In any case, I'll try to be done with it by Burning Man, where we can discuss it at length. Alternatively, email correspondence would work.

[anonymous]

I love that people are so impassioned about this.

Here's an idea: how about a travel guide?

Eli

[paulhope]

Excellent suggestion. Thankfully, that's one of the first books I got!

I've been awaiting your promised note with bated breath.