Walnut Hill Rose Garden

 A couple weeks ago my friend (ME) in Texas was telling me how she took her sister (visiting from NYC) to a gigantic rose garden in Tyler, Texas. This inspired me to visit our rose garden here in New Britain yesterday. The weather was fantastic: sunny and hot (90s). Although I went in early evening (~6 pm), the heat was still brutal. Felt like I was in Texas.

The rose garden is located at the top of a hill in a
memorial to World War 1 dead from New Britain.

Aerial view.

 

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Links:

https://txliving.com/tyler-rose-garden-and-museum/
http://www.friendsoftherosegarden.com
https://www.facebook.com/pg/WHRoseGarden/community/?ref=page_internal
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=41383
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Written Sunday June 6, 2021.

There Goes the Sun King

 I finished reading my hardback copy of the first printing of the book, The Age of Louis XIV, Part VIII of the Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. The subtitle is "A History of European Civilization in the Period of Pascal, Moliѐre, Cromwell, Milton, Peter the Great, Newton, and Spinoza: 1648-1715." The book was published by Simon and Schuster, Inc. (New York) in 1963.

My copy of the book (no dust jacket).

MY OVERALL OPINION

👍Thumbs up (i.e., that means I like it). Very glad I read it. Would recommend it to anyone who is curious about history, science, philosophy, culture, and theology. 

WHY I READ THIS BOOK

The short answer was that I read the Age of Louis XIV because I wanted to find out more about the political climate at the time The Pilgrim's Progress (TPP) was written. The Christian aspect of TPP was obvious to me but I was also aware that the author, John Bunyon, had started writing it when he was in prison for his religious beliefs. TPP was mentioned or referenced several times in Part One of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott which I read last year. 

Most of the material I encountered online was about the religious aspects of TPP. One day I realized that there might be something in The Story of Civilization series of books that I have carried around for many years barely touching except when I moved. This volume, Part VIII, includes about five (5) pages on John Bunyan. And that whetted my appetite for more. So I kept reading.

Illustration of statue in the Louvre (Paris)
of Louis XIV by Francois Girardon.

BOOK DETAILS

Published: 1963 by Simon & Schuster (New York).

804 pages plus xviii pages of front matter, and three unnumbered sections containing 59 B&W illustrations.

The main text portion concludes on page 721 and is followed by a Bibliographical Guide (10 pages), Notes (24 pages), and an Index (36 pages); the final two pages are "About the Authors." The endpapers contain four maps (see picture below).

Maps in the front endpaper.

My copy of this volume also included a little pamphlet  containing an essay by Gilbert Higher that was reprinted from the Book-of-the-Month Club News.

Click on the image to open a larger window to read this essay.

It appears that the series is no longer published in a physical hard back book. Simon and Schuster appear to only offer an E-book version. Used copies of the books can still be found via the various used book sellers. You can read the book (and the entire series and more) online.

The series is intended for the general reader, not the scholar.

ORGANIZATION OF THE VOLUME

The text is divided into five (5) books:

1. Book I: The French Zenith (1643-1715)
2. Book II: England (1649-1714)
3. Book III: The Periphery (1648-1715)
4. Book IV: The Intellectual Adventure (1648-1715)
5. Book V: France Against Europe (1683-1715)..

From the Preface ("Dear Reader"):

This volume is part VIII in a history whose beginning has been forgotten, and whose end we shall never reach. The subject is civilization, which we define as social order promoting cultural creation. It includes government,. economy (agriculture, industry, commerce, finance), morality, manners, religion, art, literature, music, science, and philosophy.

The scene is Europe. The time is from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the death of Louis XIV, whose reign (1643-1715) dominated and named the age.

The pervading theme is the Great Debate between faith and reason. 

 MY READING APPROACH

I don't remember when I exactly started reading this volume. I suspect it was sometime in October 2020. I tried to read a section each day.Some of the longer sections I broke into two reading sessions. I like to read in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee by my side and a dawning day outside the window.

The vocabulary sometimes challenged me. As much as I hate to say this, I liked using Google's Dictionary. In addition to the definition of a word, it would demonstrate how to pronounce. And there was a second way to explore pronunciation: in American English and British English and to even slow the pronunciation. This was very engaging. I tried to find something similar that was not on Google but was not successful.

Example of Google Dictionary.

I also would use Wikipedia to augment the text in order to find out more about people and places. Perhaps the ability to supplement the text with online material made the reading experience more satisfying for me.

Finished the book on Saturday April 17, 2021.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I really, really enjoyed reading this book. Nearly every day, their dry wit brought a smile to my face.

While I was reading the first part of the book, the 2020 US Presidential election was underway. Nearly everyday, I found something in the early days of Louis XIV that correlated with the contemporary political scene in the US. When I heard news commentators exclaim that some event or situation was unprecedented, I was often amused because I had just read something similar that happened in 17th Century France. Later, when I read about the English Civil War, I again found many touch points with the contemporary US political environment. 

Earlier this year, while I was reading A Wrinkle In Time, I was reading in The Age of Louis XIV about physics (Newton) and astronomy (Halley) and then philosophy (Descartes, Locke, George Berkeley, Leibniz, and Spinoza). What is real? So much overlap between the two books at that time. Quite fascinating. 

So much to learn.

NEXT

Am currently reading Ready Player One (started Saturday April 10, 2021).

Started Part IX of the Story of Civilization, The Age of Voltaire, on Thursday April 22, 2021.

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Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Durant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moli%C3%A8re
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-pilgrims-progress.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Women
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bunyan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Girardon#/media/File:Louis_XIV_statue_equestre.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Girardon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Highet
https://erenow.net/modern/the-age-of-louis-xiv/ 
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-wwwrinnnkllle-innn-tttimme.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Player_One
https://erenow.net/modern/the-age-of-voltaire-a-history-of-civlization-in-western-europe-from-1715-to-1756/
----------------------------------------------------
Written Sunday 25 April 2021

A Wwwrinnnkllle innn TTTimme

 

Cover of Tina's homemade note to me.

I am writing this post about a month after I actually finished the book (but I'm dating the post closer to when I think I completed the book). The Covid chaos (to simplify the accumulation of distractions, frustrations, and anxieties) has resulted in diminished motivation for things like logging my activities, filing receipts and anything that is not needed for basic living.

Anyone who has read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time will recognize my reference in the title of this blog post. I wrote about the background to my reason for reading this book in a previous post. After wracking my brain trying to recall when I finished the book, I  thought the book title to be a most appropriate title for the blog post.

My sister, Tina, sent me a note (see picture above) in answer to my inquiry on why she sent me the book. I thought the note was pretty cool, and a good way to start the post.

Bottom line: I finished the book, enjoyed it immensely, and heartily recommend it.
(Apparently Disney produced a movie version a few years ago but I have no interest in that). I just finished the Durant's book (see below) and I'm anxious to post about it but don't want to let my thoughts about A Wrinkle in Time slip away.

There is a lot I could say about this book but I don't want to write a dissertation here. If you are keen to discuss the book, call me and let's talk.

The book is beautifully summed up in 90 seconds in this video:

As you may know, while I was reading AWIT, I was also plowing through Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization (Part VIII) The Age of Louis XIV. During the various narratives about time travel in AWIT, I was also reading about Newton and Leibniz developing the Calculus, Physics and Science and Astronomy (Halley's comet) and philosophy (John Locke, George Berkeley, Spinoza). So there was a lot of philosophical and astronomical overlap between the two books.

The Black Cloud (1957 US edition).

Later, in some of my supplemental reading about AWIT, I learned that Madeleine L'Engle was reading about Einstein as well as the astronomer and science fiction author Fred Hoyle. It appears that his novel, The Black Cloud, influenced "The Dark Thing" in AWIT.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but was disappointed in the ending: "All You Need is Love" which I found to be contrived and convenient (need to find an ending, quick. "Love" is always a nice solution). But what exactly is love? It's more that the main character Meg running around IT shouting, "I love you." This was simple and silly because it seemed to come out of nowhere, like clicking your heels ans chanting "there's no place like home."

This book turned into The Time Quintet series and four (4) more books were published during the next thirty years. I don't know if I will read those. Perhaps I might if someone gives them to me as a gift or I find them cheap at a used book sale.

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Links:
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2021/02/tomorrow-never-knows.html
https://www.madeleinelengle.com/
https://read.macmillan.com/mcpg/a-wrinkle-in-time/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhsCCQrCNAs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Quintet
https://vimeo.com/222978679
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Written Sunday 18 April 2021.