From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net> Subject: RE: Adieu to 2003 Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 09:46:36 -0600 Lydia, I violated your 23rd commandment and went to see 'The Hours' and hated it. I thought it was a bad bad movie. I previously read the book before seeing it, so I also knew exactly how much damage had been done translating it into cinematic terms. The novel is something I would definitely recommend reading, however. I found it a very witty approach that combined metafiction with literary criticism in a way that reminded me at times of Julian Barnes' 'Flaubert's Parrot'. I also finally got around to reading 'Infinite Jest' this past year and have become very impressed with David Foster Wallace's enormous powers as a writer as well as how sensitively he portrayed our epoch as a time of sadness, melancholy, fear, addiction and an unbridled religious sense of competition. (Sports and warfare being the dominant metaphors of the business world.) What was it I promised to do about Franzen's 'The Corrections'? My memory is extremely faulty these days. I would be interested in discussing Gramsci in greater detail in 2004 here. He has been in my thoughts as well lately. I think US fundamentalism acts in a way that is analogous to the Catholic Church in Mussolini's Italy and it might be interesting to apply Gramsci analysis of the one to the other. The end-times mythology appears to have become our new common sense. (Lydia, as I'm sure you know, an important work of Gramsci's is entitled "The New Prince".) Despite the evil Leo Strauss' depiction of Machiavelli as the father of modernity, it is probably more correct to see Machiavelli as a Renaissance thinker, strongly influence by Rhetoric (in ways similar to Vico, Nietzsche and Lyotard). I read a fascinating book by Anthony Parel in 2003 entitled "The Machiavellian Cosmos". Parel argues that Machiavelli is deeply involved in contemporary theories about astrology and the four humours. Unless these factors are understood, it is very easy to misinterpret his work. Certainly, his major twin themes of virtu and fortuna obviously relate to this. Nietzsche's Will-to-Power and Eternal Recurrence seem in many ways a further elaboration of these themes; also the Deleuzian rolling of the dice and chaos theory and complexity theory. On the other hand, Machiavell's virtu seems related to Badio's emergence of the ethical subject overcoming the contingencies of the situation. Contrary to Strauss, perhaps Machiavelli might be described as the first postmodern. Eric --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.524 / Virus Database: 321 - Release Date: 10/6/2003
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