The older one gets, the more one gains in self-understanding–or so I’d like to believe about myself. One aspect of mature self-knowledge is recognizing how much energy we expend over the years in avoiding knowledge about ourselves and the world around us. It’s a moment of self-reckoning, one of many important ones we can have throughout our lives. But why does that happen at all? Why would anyone not want to have information, which can only help us make better decisions–right? Wrong–the truth can also threaten things dear to us. These are the questions that have occupied me for two decades now and which I address in my book.
The Oedipus myth, which seems so familiar to us, shakes me every time I return to the version written by ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus. The reason is that no one in the story is to blame for the carnage that ensues. At the center of the tragedy is Oedipus, who does and does not want to know the truth about himself: that he unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
I am struck over and over again by the intricate ruses he uses against himself, and which we are all susceptible to. I put the book down every time, wondering if self-knowledge is always such a good thing and what I might be hiding from myself.
The story of Oedipus the King (or Oedipus Rex), is a Theban play written by Sophocles, one of the three ancient Greek Tragedians whose work as survived. In the story of Oedipus Rex, Laius, King of Thebes, finds an oracle foretelling that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son (Oedipus) was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found Oedipus and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him…
An autobiography like no other. Though written sixteen centuries ago, Saint Augustine’s Confessions are more gripping and surprising than any contemporary memoir I know. Cast in the form of a prayer to God, the book reveals the inner turmoil of someone who, on the surface, at least, seems happy and talented.
But that is only because he keeps his misery from himself. “I have become a question to myself,” he writes. When a painful moment of self-revelation finally arrives, he sees all his inner pain and blemishes and is horrified. And in that same moment, with God’s help, it all disappears. And life begins again.
An amazing giant poster filled with over fascinating facts and quiz questions all about our amazing Solar System. Discover the wonder and complexity of the Solar System with this giant, colourful poster perfect for any bedroom wall or classroom. Discover amazing facts about asteroids and comets, and discover the fascinating features of the planets and the Sun in our Solar System with DKfindout! Solar System Poster. This visually spectacular giant poster measuring 602x1008mm or 24x40" will challenge children to develop their knowledge, ask questions, and increase their curiosity for our place in space in a fun and engaging way. Perfect…
In 1660, Amsterdam is the map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is a colorist, paid to enhance the black-and-white maps for the growing number of collectors. Her talent brings her to the attention of the great Joan Blaeu, owner of a prestigious publishing house. Not content to simply…
“This book was written in good faith, reader.” It’s hard not to love a book that begins with a lie. Written in the late 16th century, during the Wars of Religion, Montaigne’s Essays purport to be the occasional, delightful jottings of a distracted nobleman.
In fact, his large ambition was to ease his readers into a revolutionary new way of thinking about themselves that would temper their passions. He wanted to persuade us that we are always changing our feelings and, tastes and ideas; the only thing constant seems to be our inconstancy. And “that’s ok,” purrs Montaigne, because I’m the same way. Forget sin, you can’t be fully responsible for yourself. Forget heaven, learn to live happy on earth. Saint Augustine fumes….
Humanist, skeptic, acute observer of himself and others, Michel de Montaigne (1533—92) was the first to use the term “essay” to refer to the form he pioneered, and he has remained one of its most famous practitioners. He reflected on the great themes of existence in his wise and engaging writings, his subjects ranging from proper conversation and good reading, to the raising of children and the endurance of pain, from solitude, destiny, time, and custom, to truth, consciousness, and death. Having stood the test of time, his essays continue to influence writers nearly five hundred years later.
Every couple of years–or whenever I’m feeling very blue–I pick up Dicken’s novel and reacquaint myself with the beguiling Samuel Pickwick, Esq., the only saint whose company I can bear. Samuel is a retired businessman who now wants to enjoy life with a jolly band of dim misfits like himself, and they set off for adventures across Britain.
Mainly, though, his jolly naïveté gets them into scrapes. Pickwick is a true innocent, ignorant of the ways of men and ignorant of himself. And so, in the end, he must be bailed out by the less deceived. Yes, ignorance can be bliss for beautiful souls–but only if someone else is driving.
In The Pickwick Papers we are introduced not just to one of the greatest writers in the English language, but to some of fiction's most endearing and memorable characters, starting with the 'illustrious, immortal and colossal-minded' Samuel Pickwick himself. It is a rollicking tour de force through an England on the brink of the Victorian era. Reform of government, justice and commercial life are imminent, as are rail travel, social convulsion and the death of deference, but Pickwick sails through on a tide of delirious adventure, fortifying us for the future - whatever it might throw at us.
Meet Lev Gleason, a real-life comics superhero! Gleason was a titan among Golden Age comics publishers who fought back against the censorship campaigns and paranoia of the Red Scare. After dropping out of Harvard to fight in World War I in France, Gleason moved to New York City and eventually…
No work of the great psychologist Sigmund Freud has been more maligned than this book. When the first edition was published in Germany, it was rightly hailed as a literary masterpiece. But Freud kept expanding it over the years, aiming to make it more “scientific,” but only managed to turn it into a turgid object of mockery.
My first attempts to read the final edition all failed. But when, a few decades ago, a fresh and highly accessible English translation of the first edition was published (by Oxford University Press) all my simple minded views about self-knowledge and self-deceit underwent a transformation. It was like growing a new set of eyes.
This groundbreaking new translation of The Interpretation of Dreams is the first to be based on the original text published in November 1899. It restores Freud's original argument, unmodified by revisions he made following the book's critical reception which included, under the influence of his associate Wilhelm Stekel, the theory of dream symbolism. Reading the first edition reveals Freud's original emphasis on the use of words in dreams and on the difficulty of deciphering them and Joyce Crick captures with far greater immediacy and accuracy than previous translations by Strachey's Freud's emphasis and terminology. An accessible introduction by Ritchie Robertson…
Ancient wisdom has it that “all human beings want to know.” Our own experience proves that all humans also want not to know. Today, mesmerized crowds follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise. Why is this? Where does this will to ignorance come from, and how does it continue to shape our lives?
In my book, I offer an absorbing psychological diagnosis of the human resistance to knowledge and the self-destructive fantasies it leads us to entertain about everything from the innocence of children to the course of history. The result is a highly original meditation that invites readers to consider their own resistance to self-knowledge.
Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, is only 15 when she falls in love with an impoverished poet-solder. Theirs is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes many obstacles until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his bestseller.
The 19th century women's rights movement and the rise of public education intertwine with one woman's story of struggle, perseverance, and love.
Alice Harris is pressed to marry a Civil War veteran twice her age when her family’s inn fails in 1882 in western North Carolina. She remakes herself by…