And there goes my buffer...
Quick review on this week's readings:
Aug 26 Froissart's Chronicles : 1/5 This is a list of names, not an actual reading.
Aug 27 BURRRNSSSS: 0/5 Off to a great start this week!
Aug 28 Faust by Goethe: 4/5 Faust is literature's most delightful villain protagonist.
Aug 29 Antony by Plutarch: 3/5 A good Lives!?
Aug 30 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: 3/5 Even a questionable translation can't keep MA down. (Although it probably could've gone up to a 4 in a better edition)
Aug 31 "The American Scholar" by Emerson: 2/5 This got a point for being a historical example of a crappy commencement address.
Sept 1 Some Fruits of Solitude by Penn: 3/5 This goes in the "I was sleepy when I read it, but I can tell it was good" category. Will read the whole thing later when I'm more awake.
Average: 2.29 Mostly the usual suspects dragging this one down. "Saved" by a surprisingly good lives.
Overall Thoughts on The Project:
This was a drag of a week (not helped at all by several longer selections). Burns and Emerson continue to be disasters. Froissart flips the script, after scoring a FOUR last time, down to a one. Plutarch swoops in with a surprisingly interesting lives to keep the score from absolutely cratering.
This was one of the "themiest" weeks, with Aurelius, Emerson, and Penn covering a lot of the same ground in their own ways. I think of the three I liked Penn the best, but I think a stronger translation of Aurelius could've pulled ahead.
I haven't talked about the, "you don't have to like everything, but you should hopefully learn from everything" angle of T5FSOB in a while, and Emerson's speech is a strong showing. It's astounding how little you'd need to change to make this a modern commencement address. Obviously, modernize the language a bit, but otherwise it's the same self-important, navel-gazey, faux-inspiration drivel that millions of people pay to be "strongly encouraged" to listen to.
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