A Dance to the Music of Time (Volumes 1-3) (Anthony Powell, 1951 - 1955)

(728 pages)

Powell wrote a 12-volume series between 1951 and 1975; this book includes the first three volumes (A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer's Market, The Acceptance World). 

Author is looking at English political, cultural, military life in mid-20th century.

Narrator is Nicholas Jenkins.  He has school chums or acquaintances in the early going - Kenneth Widmerpool, Charles Stringham, Peter Templer, Quiggin, Mark Members, etc.  There is an Oxford don named Sillery (manipulative).  He meets family members of the schoolmates. 

Mr. Deacon - eccentric; hangs with Gypsy Jones.  St. John Clarke (Quiggin and Members compete for him).

The characters graduate from school and begin their professional careers, relationships.

I've seen some comparisons to Proust's novel, but so far it hasn't struck me in that manner (unfortunately).  Still, I think I'll continue reading.  Hopefully things pick up.

Wild Problems - A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us (Russ Roberts, 2022)

(207 pages)

The author is or was an active blogger, and I found his thoughts consistently useful.  Now he's doing "Econtalk" - pretty much the only podcast I ever listen to. And he writes a few books. 

In this one he's talking about a framework for approaching life's biggest decisions - who to marry, whether to have children, where to live, how to live well - things that can't be solved by measurement or calculation - in part because living with the decision changes the decider in significant ways while living out the decision.  

The author would be first to admit there is no answer here. He talks about some artists, scientists and how they approached big issues. Don't chase "maximum happiness" - be open, use energy trying to figure out who you want to be. Accept uncertainty. Nothing drastically new here, but he has a very useful way of talking about it.

Some focus areas - 

-- develop the pause before reacting - because we all have that innate or visceral response on various topics - don't give in to it.

--in conversation - just wait! learn how the other person is feeling, what's top of mind for them.  maybe I get to what I thought I might want to talk about, maybe not - either is OK

--a very useful idea - contrasting being the central character v. being part of a larger ensemble.  This is often a problem - we all would love to be the star of our show.  He recommends thinking of perhaps a group of dancers where success is found by working together, subordinating individual priorities.

--contract v. covenant.  the covenant strengthens love into loyalty. don't inspect whether you're getting whatever full contractual benefit you imagined

--repeating - a lot boils down to just honing the art of "catching yourself" as you are.  so very difficult. Proust; Cather, Mann, Conrad - these are writers that I think (or at least hope) help me in this regard. 

And my heroes Calvin & Hobbes appear in the finale!!!  "It's a magical world, Hobbes, o' buddy . . . Let's go exploring!"

Endurance (Alfred Lansing, 1959)

(353 pages)

I thought I was pretty familiar with the Shackleton expedition.  But not really. For one thing, I wasn't even aware of this book - available for over 60 years - and I didn't know that so many diaries and logbooks were available.  The author relies on those sources - detailed, intimate; he's skillful at working with this.

The chairman of the board of a publicly-held company that I represented was a direct descendant of Shackleton, and it was interesting talking to him back in the day; he had traveled to Antarctica.  Neither here nor there.

I was pretty far into this book when hanging out with my dad during his last days. We talked about this in quite a bit of detail - he had great recall about aspects I hadn't known about, such as crossing the island. Like most of us, I think he was most impressed by the navigation skills - just incredible that the island was found - even more incredible when considering the description in this book of some of the details of the navigation challenges (not that I understood them very well).

General courage and good spirits through so much; perhaps author being a bit kind, but numerous time he states when folks faltered - impressive.

Building the ship; its fight against pack ice; a good follow-on to "Six Frigates."

The magnitude of the drift and life on an ice floe  in that part of the world; the complete isolation - wow.

The photos - I had no idea these survived - incredibly interesting.

The challenge for the author of writing day after day of highly similar things - yet it did not feel repetitive. Somehow.  Episodes - 

--living on icebound Endurance

--Mark Time Camp - near the boat

--Patience Camp

--a few days on a floe

--Boat trip to Elephant Island

--boat trip to South Georgia Island

--Crossing the center of the Island

--Traveling through ice back to Elephant Island