Bertrand Russell: How to Become a Man of Genius

Apropos of nothing:

If there are among my readers any young men or women who aspire to become leaders of thought in their generation, I hope they will avoid certain errors into which I fell in youth for want of good advice. When I wished to form an opinion upon a subject, I used to study it, weigh the arguments on different sides, and attempt to reach a balanced conclusion. I have since discovered that this is not the way to do things. A man of genius knows it all without the need of study; his opinions are pontifical and depend for their persuasiveness upon literary style rather than argument. It is necessary to be one-sided, since this facilitates the vehemence that is considered a proof of strength. It is essential to appeal to prejudices and passions of which men have begun to feel ashamed and to do this in the name of some new ineffable ethic. It is well to decry the slow and pettifogging minds which require evidence in order to reach conclusions. Above all, whatever is most ancient should be dished up as the very latest thing.

There is no novelty in this recipe for genius; it was practised by Carlyle in the time of our grandfathers, and by Nietzsche in the time of our fathers, and it has been practised in our own time by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence is considered by his disciples to have enunciated all sorts of new wisdom about the relations of men and women; in actual fact he has gone back to advocating the domination of the male which one associates with the cave dwellers. Woman exists, in his philosophy, only as something soft and fat to rest the hero when he returns from his labours. Civilised societies have been learning to see something more than this in women; Lawrence will have nothing of civilisation. He scours the world for what is ancient and dark and loves the traces of Aztec cruelty in Mexico. Young men, who had been learning to behave, naturally read him with delight and go round practising cave-man stuff so far as the usages of polite society will permit.

One of the most important elements of success in becoming a man of genius is to learn the art of denunciation. You must always denounce in such a way that your reader thinks that it is the other fellow who is being denounced and not himself; in that case he will be impressed by your noble scorn, whereas if he thinks that it is himself that you are denouncing, he will consider that you are guilty of ill-bred peevishness. Carlyle remarked: ``The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools.'' Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark. You must not denounce well-defined classes, such as persons with more than a certain income, inhabitants of a certain area, or believers in some definite creed; for if you do this, some readers will know that your invective is directed against them. You must denounce persons whose emotions are atrophied, persons to whom only plodding study can reveal the truth, for we all know that these are other people, and we shall therefore view with sympathy your powerful diagnosis of the evils of the age.

Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

28 December 1932

50 book challenge: #24, #25, #26, #27.

#24: Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic. DO. NOT. WANT. Thus ends my foray into Discworld territory.

#25: Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor. Yay! I had heard good things about this science fiction series, the Vorkosigan saga, and I'm pleased to report that it's overall pretty good. Dialogue and the plotting is excellent: Bujold really tells a rip-roaring adventure. There's the occasional misstep, but maybe that's attributable to early novel-writing--I'm still on the earliest instalments.

#26: Bujold, Barrayar. Yes, better than Shards of Honor. The author's approach is, evidently enough, to take her main characters, imagine the worst that could happen to them, then make it happen.

#27: Tolkien, The Two Towers. Frodo was alive but taken by the Enemy.

50 book challenge: #19, #20, #21, #22, #23.

#19: The Fellowship of the Ring. It's been about 10 years, at least, since I last read this.

#20: The Farthest Shore. Third book in LeGuin's Earthsea series. Tombs of Atuan is the best; both this and the first suffer from vague plots, and unspecified plot devices. This is a hazard where magic forms a major element of the story, I guess.

#21: Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic. Meh. I was disappointed. As if Piers Anthony and Douglas Adams had a less funny love child. I will persist with the Discworld series because I've heard good things, though.

#22: Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene. Surprising; I didn't know what to expect, but I liked this. Reminded me in some ways of Lucky Jim, but with more serious stakes. (How could anything be more serious than the economy of the Dutch shipbuilding industry in 1630s?)

#23: Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome. Needs less dull, more droll. I really, really wanted to like this, and parts were funny, but in the end JKJ never seemed willing to let me get the joke on my own---there was always a sentence that made things a little too obvious (even if part of the humor was in the obvious overstatement). I guess I'm in the minority on this one, since it seems to be universally adored. On a personal note, I once visited Jerome's house in Buckinghamshire, when I was living in London. A friend of mine and his family were living there currently, and we made a pitstop there while driving to Wales for a camping trip. It was a v. v. charming English country house. Thank you, Henry Curran. (At least now I know that Jerome originated the phrase: "I love work, it fascinates me; I could sit and watch it all day," without which hundreds of office coffee mugs would be vacant.)

50 book challenge: #16, 17, 18.

#16: Inventing the Middle Ages:The Lives, Works and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century. Norman F. Cantor. I should have gone straight to the chapter on Lewis and Tolkien, and quit after that. The writing was fluid but sometimes florid, and you sometimes got the feeling that Cantor was settling scores. The hagiographic approach to R.W. Southern, too, was odd. The failure to found an institute in his name was "Arthurian tragedy"? Talk about defining tragedy downward.

#17: A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin. Yes, I've been reduced to reading young-adult fiction. These books are good, though.

#18: The Tombs of Atuan, LeGuin.

50 book challenge: #15 [SPOILER].

Complete short stories of Flannery O'Connor.

OK, I didn't read all of them, but enough to count it as a book, I think. Looking at the number, and looking at the date, I think I'm in trouble to make my halfway goal of 25 by the end of June. Look for a P.G. Wodehouse marathon shortly. Seriously.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

"Some fun!" Bobby Lee said.

"Shut up, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life."

Lion v. buffalo v. crocodile v. lion v. buffalo.

More plot twists than a Hollywood movie. 8 minutes long, but worth it.

50 book challenge: #12, #13, #14 [SPOILERS].

#12: Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World (3,000 BC to 500 AD). Anglim et al. Somebody owes Thucydides some royalties, given the lengthy block quotes. Tedious.

#13: Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World. Bennett et al. Better than the first, which is not saying much. Absurd illustrations, which were usually captioned with "This 19th century illustration of Richard I at the battle of Acre is completely inaccurate in all relevant details, due to the anachronistic romanticism, but it may give you a rough idea of how exciting the battle must have been."

#14: Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert. Passionate woman sleeps with men not her dull husband; ignores child; goes into debt; offs herself by arsenic; husband dies; Berthe works in cotton mill; pharmacist Homais gets legion of honor. Possibly the most perfect novel ever written, and possibly my favorite.

Benjy crawls.

More on Dawn Powell.

From a review of the new Edith Wharton biography, ruminations on why hard-drinking, self-promoting dudes like Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald got more respect than women like Wharton, Cather, and Powell:

Tim Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post, is almost single-handedly responsible for reviving her reputation. Miss Powell, who died in 1965, was virtually unheard of amongst the wider public until Mr. Page wrote a 1998 biography and arranged for many of her 15 novels to be reprinted, including in the Library of America.

Miss Powell's masterpieces include 1936's "Turn, Magic Wheel," a deliciously satirical but sensitive look at literary life in New York, and 1942's "A Time to be Born," a thinly veiled send-up of Clare Boothe Luce. She also wrote novels, like "Come Back to Sorrento," about her Midwestern roots.

"These are great American novels," Mr. Page declares. Mr. Page, who lives in Baltimore, suggests two reasons she didn't receive more acclaim.

"She upset social conservatives with her characters, who tend to sleep around and drink a lot, and are not necessarily admirable role models for anybody," he muses. "Then she ticked off the left because she was not a utopian. When she was writing, a lot of the literary world was left of center. She never believed in revolutions, she never believed in inspirational literature. She saw humanity in a mess — always was, always would be. ... There are still people offended by her willingness to look at life head on."

My first trip to NYC. By Benjy.

This past weekend, I went to New York City for the first time, and took my first plane ride, too. That was fun. Here I am with my seat back not upright, and my tray table not in the upright and locked position.


Also fun: free TV at every seat! Sadly, the TV proved inedible despite my best efforts.


While staying in Meredith's apartment, I had an encounter with a strange Austrian man named Georg. I was a little offended by his use of the term "schutzie pookie," but I am told that in Austria that is a term of affection.

I warmed up to him.
Still, I was relieved to be back in my mother's arms.

Lynn's wedding was a lot of fun. Here I am in my "formal Bjorn." Dig those reflective stripes, baby!
Then, next morning, the trip home began. Here I am in the Columbus airport. I was not amused.

Ah, Gate C-51. We had some good times together.


It seemed like weeks, but eventually we made it home. By now, everything has pretty much returned to normal, and I have resumed my attempts to fit this large green sphere in my mouth. Wish me luck!