Reflections on Week 8 (Feb 19- 25)

  Link to this week's readings

Working on getting a little ahead. I was up 3 or 4 days, but then the weekend caught up with me.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Feb 19 Buddhist Writings: 3/5 Only because I also read "Death's Messengers" which was adjacent, but not assigned. The ones in here were just ok. 

Feb 20 "Letters on The Quakers" by Voltaire: 3/5 Interesting reading on the Quakers, and the lack of self awareness by Voltaire is worth thinking on a little.

Feb 21 "What is University" by Newman: 3/5 Another one that I don't entirely agree with, but that makes some points worth thinking about, which is the whole point of this project.

Feb 22 Burns: 0/5

Feb 23 Samuel Pepsys by Stevenson: 2/5 I would've rather read excerpts from Pepsys than this review of it. Did enjoy his suggestions to write when/where you read a book inside the cover.

Feb 24 "L'Allegro", "Il Penseroso", and "The Nightingale" by Milton: 1/5 Milton is about as good of a poet as Burns, but he gets a point for at least being readable.

Feb 25 The Shortest Way with The Dissenters by Dafoe: 2/5 Fair satire, but overly long.

Weekly Average: 2 It was all going so well before Burns. Overall, kind of an odd week for selections. As I pointed out, the Buddhist selections aren't the strongest in T5FSOB (or even the most representative), and the Pepsys review feels iffy without being familiar with the original. 

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Starting to be able to build connections between the readings more now. Some of that is seeing the same writers again (second appearances for both Milton and Voltaire) and some is just getting more used to styles and time periods I'm not as familiar with. I think I'd like a little more context for some of the selections. Not a long "study guide" or whatever, but slightly more info on how/why they were selected, and maybe one or two questions/things to focus on. Why is Elliot so obsessed with Burns? How did he decide which Buddhism entries to feature? There's some value in the relatively "blank" way most of the selections are presented in terms of letting you make up your own mind, but it's a little unsatisfying to read a selection and go "Why is this here?" and not be able to get an answer.