"Letters from a Stoic"

 

I don't often see marble busts with
facial hair; looks hard to carve!

"Letters from a Stoic" – another of my book group reads – compiles 124 letters written by Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca to his friend Lucilius. Seneca writes about daily life and current events, using them to expound upon the stoic philosophy of living a good life by cultivating virtue.

Contrary to the common modern take, Stoicism is not about covering up emotions (keeping a stiff upper lip, as the British might say); that's a caricature created by the Epicurean critics of Stoicism. Stoics returned the favor, and now we typically think of Epicureans as incorrigible hedonists. It's pretty ironic that these days, each philosophy is best remembered for what its critics, rather than founders, had to say about it.

"The Plague"

 

"La Peste" en français

Though it's been a couple months since I finished reading it, I still haven't decided whether "The Plague" is a bit too on the nose – or the perfect book – for this COVID-19 era. It tells a fictional tale of bubonic plague in a coastal city, following the lives of various citizens as they look for meaning amidst the suffering. Much of the human experience is on display: selfishness and greed and denial, yes, but also empathy and care and even heroism found pursuing a shared purpose. It's part philosophy, part psychology, and fully profound.

A few of my favorite passages follow¹.

"Republic"

 

The one-name author
Gives us a one-word title
(This is a haiku)

What can I say about "Republic"? Before reading a single page, I already knew that it's considered one of the great works of the Western canon, setting in motion centuries of philosophical debate about the nature of justice and purpose of government. What I didn't realize is that it's also something of a page-turner.

"The Second Mountain"

The second mountain from
the left...no, that one.

David Brooks¹ came to town last May to promote "The Second Mountain," his most recent book. I'd actually been to a book talk of his several years ago when "The Road to Character" came out and thought about picking up a signed copy, but the line was sufficiently long and the hour sufficiently late that I decided not to. This time it was a morning talk, so no such concerns!

Brooks can be quite funny. One of my favorite moments was when he told the story of being taken to Central Park when he was a child for a be-in (i.e. a time and place the hippies would go to "be"). Someone set a garbage can on fire and the crowd was throwing their wallets into it to demonstrate how little they cared about material things. The five-year-old Brooks saw a five dollar bill beginning to smolder so he broke through the crowd, reached in, grabbed it, and ran away –  "and that was my first step toward conservatism."

How about the book?

"Fallen Leaves"

Not to be confused with
"Autumn Leaves" (Prévert)

I actually learned about "Fallen Leaves" from a 2015 NYT obituary about the owner of a Pakistani bookstore. It begins as follows:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After his father died, Ahmad Saeed took over the office on the ground floor of the family's storied bookstore here, Saeed Book Bank. Then the elderly men started visiting, seeking to settle old debts.

"They all apologized and said they had tried to see my father while he was alive but his office was always too crowded and they were embarrassed," Mr. Saeed said.

Five times such men arrived, hat in hand, not just to pay their respects to the son and family, but also to say they wanted to pay for books they had shoplifted as children. Mr. Saeed said his father, Saeed Jan Qureshi, who died of heart failure in September, would have been amused: He had always regarded book theft by children as an investment in a future where people still read, and thus become his customers.

In the article, it becomes apparent that "Fallen Leaves" was one of Saeed's favorite works. Since a recommendation from such a wise-seeming person carries extra weight, I put the book on my list and finally read it earlier this year.

"Gratitude"

The cover art looks
like a stylized sunset.

Last February, beloved neurologist and author Oliver Sacks wrote a New York Times op-ed ("My own life") about his thoughts upon being diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and learning that he could expect to live for only a few more months. "Gratitude" is a collection of this and three other essays on aging, the search for meaning, and dying with grace.