Tag: philosophy

Sorche Nic Leodhas, Claymore and Kilt (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston 1967)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17225501-claymore-and-kilt?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ffzmwlm3Da&rank=1

This is a compendium of folklore and folk history, stories about kings and castles.
It begins with the druids, who called themselves Gaedil (stones people). Higher knowledge was their exclusive domain, and they considered it unlawful to write anything down of their history. Folk history consisted in oral form in verse and took a druid 20 years to learn. As the druids were later exterminated by the Romans, this cultural wealth was largely lost.
The book treats early lords—beginning with Fingal (if indeed historical) who ruled Argyll as Ard-righ (high chief) of the clans between Wales and the West Coast—and early saints, including Ninian and Kentigern as well as Columba.
The concept of the book is to tell us about the folktales without actually narrating the folktales. It assumes readers already know the story. We are informed about the various versions of the tales and informed of where they differ from historical fact, but some of the stories are referred to rather than told. For example, a chapter heading announces ‘the riddle sent to Bruce’, yet the chapter does not tell us what the riddle was. This is unsatisfactory.
Though well-written, it is not narrative enough to be a book of folklore and not sociological enough to be a book about folklore. I checked out the tales on Google, so I did learn something, but I would’ve preferred a more narrative approach, which wouldn’t have added too many pages to the not-too-long 157-page book.
It is illustrated with beautiful curly Celtic art-nouveau line drawings.
Other books by this author treat ghosts, legends and tales from the Highlands.

Ken Follett, The Third Twin (MacMillan General Books 1997)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92373.The_Third_Twin?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=6RcMVplLNA&rank=1

Pacey technothriller plays with the dramatic possibilities of DNA manipulation.

Genetics researcher Jeannie discovers two genetically identical twins, born to different mothers, Steve, a law student, and Dennis, a murderer. She finds evidence of a conspiracy involving a biotech company, big politicians and her own university.

Intriguingly, we begin inside the point of view of the murderer, as he rehearses his cruel fantasy.

Biotech CEO Berrington, Jeannie’s boss, is trying to talk his partners Preston and Jim into accepting a takeover bid. They want to make perfect genetic babies for the rich and sterilise the poor. Jim wants to run for president.

Stephen’s mother swears he was not adopted. When Jeannie’s colleague Lisa is raped, Stephen becomes a suspect. In real life, I think maybe Stephen would have been exonerated by examining his hands for lack of evidence of setting the fire, but for dramatic purposes, he is fitted up due to his DNA matching the perp’s.
This mystery of the identical twins whose mothers claimed natural births could be explained by a switcheroo in the maternity ward. Or IVF implementation of two different women by semen samples from the same donor.
For his own nefarious reasons, Barrington is trying to quash his own company’s study. He intentionally gets Jeannie in trouble by leaking her project to the press. They get the idea that Jeannie’s study involves ‘accessing medical records’ and raise a hue and cry over her ethics.

I feel sure that a big-name author like Ken Follett would do his research, but there were so many details where I wondered whether or not they match reality. Do police really interview criminals in front of other criminals? Do they really tell suspected rapists the address of their alleged victim? Would a rape victim be emotionally capable of interviewing her rapist’s identical twin? It would certainly be unethical in real life for the researcher to begin dating one of the study’s subjects.
However, I loved all the details about DNA analysis.

Although this was back in the age of floppy disks when computer science was less advanced, the riddle of the identical twins whose mothers didn’t know is solved by a technological innovation that was brand-new back when this was written.
Well-structured and exciting, but Follett is not of the ‘less is more’ school of writing. We get every detail–down to what type of car everyone drives.

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City (Crown Publishers 2003)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/397483.The_Devil_in_the_White_City?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_27

Two men, an architect and a serial killer, find their fates linked at the great Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.
Daniel H Burnham, designer of famous buildings like Washington DC’s Union Station, and his partner John W Root are tasked with designing a fair that would rival Paris’s 1889 Exposition Universelle, symbolised by the iconic Eiffel Tower.
One challenge was building on top of soil so soft they called it gumbo, with a bedrock 160 feet down, too deep for human workers. There was a constant conflict between the desire to make the fair grand and beautiful and the drive to save money.

In the same city, at the same time, while Jack the Ripper was on the rampage in London, Holmes began construction of a building—‘the castle’—which would include a purpose-built torture chamber in the basement.
Holmes opened a pharmacy on the ground floor of his new building, and his female clerks and supposed wives kept disappearing.

Problems arose with the White City. Opening day was lacklustre, with poor weather, unfinished exhibits, the Ferris Wheel half-finished and buildings and attendance below target.

Holmes opened his torture building as a hotel, where numerous young women seem to have checked out without paying. He promised marriage to Julia, now pregnant, but instead bumped her off, selling her cadaver to medical students.

Holmes was finally nabbed by Detective Frank Geyer, ‘America’s Sherlock Holmes’. Geyer finally found the bodies of Holmes’ former partner Pietzel’s daughters, and a search of ‘the castle’ uncovered bones and numerous macabre details. On the inside of the vault, there was the distinct imprint of a woman’s foot. It was estimated that Holmes may have killed up to 200 people during the course of the fair.

The setting—Chicago—is portrayed just as intricately as that of the protagonist and the antagonist. The gleaming white world’s fair, as a metaphor for technological progress in America, is contrasted with the dark, perverted doings of Holmes. The plot is roughly but not strictly chronological making for more interesting reading than a month-by-month narrative.
The fair launched many firsts–the first concert transmitted by telephone, the first recitation of the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ in schools, the first pancake mix, the first rendition of the ‘there’s a place in France’ cobra-charming tune.
The White City’s neoclassical architecture inspired design across America. “The exposition was Chicago’s conscience—the city it wanted to become.”

Cornelius Loew, Myth, Sacred History and Philosophy (Harcourt, Brace & World 1967)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26308179-myth-sacred-history-and-philosophy

This comprehensive study looks at the evolution of religious thought from the early Sumerian creation myths to Plato’s Academy.

To early Man, the church and state were the same institution, and city-states evolved out of precincts surrounding temples and shrines. Human leaders (kings) were thought of as descended from or adopted by the gods, and it was their responsibility to align human order with the divine. Creation was considered to be a (sexual) union between Mother Earth and Father Sky. The Egyptian pantheon reflected a political conflict between the desert (Seth) and agriculture (Osiris).

The earliest art of 7500 BC, naked female figurines, showed a reverence for fertility. The ancient Greeks’ reverence was for the concept of fate, to which even the gods were subject. Then developed the concept seen in the Book of the Dead that the deceased was to be judged by the gods for his ethical behaviour in life.

With Pharoah Akhenaten came the first concept of monotheism (although I believe the historical Moses was earlier).

Hebrew sacred history drew from this history, reflecting ‘the conviction that there is an ultimate other than man, society or the cosmos’, and the idea that God was bigger than the cosmos. Their sacred books portrayed kings as real humans. Religious thought stressed appeals for social justice. The Deuteronomic ‘reforms’ reflected the different political situations of Israel (Samaria) and Judah and cultic rivalry with the worshippers of Baal.
The Greeks invented drama in 535 BCE (Thespis and the tragodoi), influencing later civilisations’ thinking that stories of the gods were ‘just stories’. Xenophanes went so far as to say that man created God in his own image. Cultic practices emphasised both ‘the Apolline remoteness with God and the Dionysiac identity with it’ (ER Dodds). Amid the growing confidence of post-Persian Athens, later dramatists stressed the concept of moira (fate).

Socrates’ hero as archetype strove for personal awakening, moral wholeness and an ultimate that was superior to the state, an idea that was considered ‘impiety’ and for which he was executed in 399 BCE.

Auguste Comte mapped the philosophic evolution from anthropomorphic theology to metaphysical philosophy (using concepts rather than gods) to positive science to genuine knowledge.

Much can be said about this subject, and this book goes some way toward saying it.