Reading Roundup: December, 2024: What Happened to Captain Cook?
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides (Bookshop|Library)
Captain Cook has long held a particular fascination for me, but what I found this book did best was give a glimpse into how he approached contact with native peoples on his voyages. While the native Hawai'ians eventually took his life due to what Sides characterizes as misunderstandings on both sides, I was rather impressed with his sensitivity to the people he encountered. Indeed, throughout the Pacific he left on quite good terms with most - even the Hawai'ians, until unfortunate circumstances meant he had to return immediately upon attempting to depart, which exacerbated the cultural misunderstanding. While the system he may have been embedded in was a tragedy the consequences of which still reverberate today, I cannot say I feel the man himself was anything like malicious. In all of these ways and more, it is plainer to me after reading this that he was a large part of the model for the character of Jack Aubrey in the Aubrey-Maturin series.
Notable Media
Trump's Fans Are Suffering From Tony Soprano Syndrome
I found Adam Serwer's analysis here uneven. Yes, "bad" readings of fictions abound - it's not just these particular instances, nor these particular actors engaging in them. That said, I'm not sure Serwer's reading of Tony Soprano in particular, but as a stand-in for the general, isn't also a "bad" reading. To me, David Chase is suggesting that Tony Soprano is us - the American citizen at the turn of the 21st century - and maybe even by extension America itself. Is it a cautionary tale? Perhaps. But that's the thing, some of these "bad men" are characters not written into morality plays, but in much more multifaceted, considered works of fiction that are more nuanced in their focus and characterization than merely concerned about what you're "supposed" to think about any of them. The one is the function of art, the other a function of propaganda. This article engages in what seems to me the archetypal criticism of our times, one that constantly mistakes the one for the other, and exacerbates a mindset that leads to things like fights over what's included on the shelf in your public library. To me, the greater solution is increased literacy across all formats in order to better discern propaganda from nuance and to more critically process and engage with what's in a book/on TV/at the movies rather than simply consume it.
A Miracle: Notre Dame's Astonishing Rebirth From The Ashes
Just a highly engaging interactive story about the changes Notre Dame has undergone.
"I Do Not Consider Myself Very Scholarly": Remembering Kris Kristofferson
Linking Kristofferson to the Romantic movement just makes me like his songs even more.
December 10: The Chaconne, and the Meaning of Life (Itzhak Perlman, violin)
This is the kind of analysis that makes me realize I just don't listen to music in the same way as others. I'd like to, but it's clearly a skill I do not currently possess.