Thomas Mann 1948-
New at IWP Books: Aldous Huxley, 1923, On the Margin. From the Essay on Pleasures:“We have heard a great deal, since 1914, about the things which are a menace to civilization. First it was Prussian militarism; then the Germans at large; then the prolongation of the war; then the shortening of the same; then, after a time, the Treaty of Versailles; then French militarism — with, all the while, a running accompaniment of such minor menaces as Prohibition, Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Bryan, Comstockery….”
“Civilization, however, has resisted the combined attacks of these enemies wonderfully well. For still… waisberg.micro.blog
Review of D. J. Taylor’s Who Is Big Brother? by Theodore Dalrymple.
New at IWP Books: Aldous Huxley, 1930, Music at Night. From the Essay on Foreheads Villainous Low:“If by some miracle the dreams of the educationists were realized and the majority of human beings began to take an exclusive interest in the things of the mind, the whole industrial system would instantly collapse. Given modern machinery, there can be no industrial prosperity without mass production. Mass production is impossible without mass consumption. Other things being equal, consumption varies inversely with the intensity of mental life. A man who is exclusively interested in the things of the m… waisberg.micro.blog
New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Shaw, 1951. From Jacques Barzun’s review of the book:“Desmond MacCarthy has not in this country the reputation that he deserves. A few know him as the one-time editor of a periodical of the Thirties called Life and Letters, as the author of a book on the much earlier but no less significant Court Theatre, and as a critic at large for the New Statesman and the Sunday Times. He is also to be numbered among the band of learned lunatics (I profess to be one too) who take pleasure in the pseudo-scholarship of Sherlock Holmes. The reissue in book form of Mr. MacCarthy… waisberg.micro.blog
New at IWP Books, Two by Bernard Shaw: On the Rocks (1934) and Geneva (1938). Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence:“In his last years, Shaw extolled Russian Communism, like Bertrand Russell, the Webbs, and millions of other intellectuals. But in Shaw, one suspects a different spirit within the motive. His approval of government by murder and massacre looks like a desperate gambler’s last throw. It contradicts not only a lifetime of clear pragmatic thought, since protracted violence means practical failure, but also the plays written at the same time as the advocacy: The Apple Cart, On the Rocks, … waisberg.micro.blog
New at IWP Books: Desmond MacCarthy, Experience, 1935. Three Parts: Of Human Nature; During the War; Digressions of a Reviewer. From the Chapter on Making Speeches:“What daunts me when I get upon my feet to speak is not that I am unaccustomed to public speaking, but that all my previous speeches have been failures. And yet I think, or rather, to use the formula of words which was constantly on the lips of that cautious metaphysician Sir William Hamilton, — “It seems to me that I think I believe,” that there is the making of a speaker in me. In the first place, why otherwise should I continue to be … waisberg.micro.blog
Mary Murphy is one of Nine-to-Five