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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
Still on Hurewitz' The Struggle for Palestine. Slow progress. The topic of education has stuck in my mind. Jews educated young Zionists in schools on the Continent, while Arab Palestinians couldn't help but be influenced by their local peers.
Zurayk made an interesting comment in his book The Meaning of the Disaster that Jews spent their youths being influenced by all kinds of "isms." If we pare down his evident outgroup prejudice (he includes Naziism), there was a point being made there. From an Arab point of view, the Jews were importing a great deal of the rest of the world's thought. But taken literally, it seems that the Arabs lacked the desire to empathize because they were busy berating their own people in a nationalist educational program.
Meanwhile, the "national home" of the Jews became a done deal, and because of the pressure for emigration from Europe and its underlying reasons, Arab maximalist goals, rightly or wrongly, moved further and further away from their grasp.
Bless me, I have finished The Count of Monte Cristo. I really admire the writing and vocabulary of Dumas (and, moreover, the anonymous translator), but I cannot in good conscience recommend this book. The imprisonment, escape, and discovery of the treasure are terrific, but the remaining 600 pages, comprised of palace intrigue, upper class French political and financial discussions, page-long descriptions of gardens, and all the rest make for a bit of a slog. I understand now why there are so many abridged versions of this book. I do like how the book ends, and I do like Dumas last sentence. He specifies two words that all humans should live their life by: Wait and Hope. Interesting bit of wisdom from the French master.
So. I am happy to be moving on. I have a handful of books that have been in my backlog. I plan to start with Dreamland which is a chronicle of the opioid epidemic. The opioid epidemic is a bit played out in the sense of literature and documentaries (it reminds me of the flood of books and movies about the Great Recession), but I always enjoy a good book about rich aristocrats taking advantage of the poor and vulnerable. Hoping it goes a bit faster than Monte Cristo!
It's funny - I think of that garden often and it even shows up in my dreams. I don't remember much of the plot of that section of the book, but I made quite a mental picture of that garden!
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