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I'm totally open to Gray's arguments. Wide open. But I do find a some of his writing quite mediocre. I'm surprised by how highly he is regarded. I read Soul of
by scandox 6y ago
I'm totally open to Gray's arguments. Wide open. But I do find a some of his writing quite mediocre. I'm surprised by how highly he is regarded. I read Soul of The Marionette recently.and I thought it was a somewhat aimless and poorly written meander through other people's ideas. Had a bit of a Gell-Mann moment as well when he discussed Philip K Dick and I found his summation of Dick's ideas flat and lacking in insight: that was one of the writers on the book whose work I knew well.
- thinkingemote 6y agoI'm with you about Soul of the Marionette - aimless. But perhaps this article gives some hints as to his intention, to light a spark in our subconscious? Im not sure any lights flickered in my head reading that book though! I think he got very famous with the Straw Dogs and Black Dawn books (I've not read those). Recently he seems to be a columnist mostly ranting about SJWs and brexit - effectively a small c conservative pundit, but sometimes these contain a gem of a paragraph especially when talking about history or literature. I do like his ideas about the myth of progress and found it chimed with recent discussions about the hinge of history https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200923-the-hinge-of-history-long-termism-and-existential-risk https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200923-the-hinge-of-his... If the positive changes we have made are not inevitable and this moment in time is not the most important ever, how best should we act to make the best impact on the future?