NP but "Mad Dog" Russell
Mark Kohut
mark.kohut at gmail.com
Sat May 30 09:29:20 CDT 2015
Ray Monk REALLY dislikes Bertie and one wonders how it
affects his biographical interpretation.
Not answering that, I report that he has a very low opinion of
almost all of the non-philosophical books Russell wrote after his
youthful genius, all of the opinion books, the cultural analysis
and political books etc. His main, and seemingly right
criticism is not that he was always wrong but that he did not
try to really argue to his conclusions, simply asserted them
almost like ideational impressionism, based on 'his experience",
etc. his arrogance and need to write fast and make money perhaps.
That said, it is fascinating to read some of Bertie's between the wars
opinions, concerns and obsessions.
>From "his experience"--felt a mid-life obsessional passion (for
Ottoline Morrell)
--'Why'd you give up philosophy?".."I found I liked fucking
more"--probably apocryphal
that kept him repeating that one of the deepest problems of
the modern world was the resentful unhappiness of repressed folk, esp
the powerful. (He did this without much knowledge of Freud, Jung, etc.)
He spoke of the future of America and its capitalism as world problems
which needed addressed and/or accommodated to; he foresaw a duality
of America--Russia as power mongers IF, IF...Russia moved in a certain
direction.
he actually wrote of the economic control of the 1%--the failure of
English socialism he predicted.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list