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<![CDATA[Matt added 'Writing and Difference']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39381541
to: Writing and Difference (Paperback)byJacques Derrida
The abstract art of modern philosophy. Self-indulgent (others say playful), unnecessarily digressive and round-about----the actual conceptual depth of what is conveyed, while it was surely groundbreaking, can be stated in terms much simpler than Derrida's. Derrida is a cultural hero to many and the gravitational mass of the cult that surrounds him has bent the light in the eyes of those who adulate a man that can do no wrong.
I once heard Derrida give a lecture in Auckland on the concept of mercy as related to "merci", and it was 3 hours long. 1/3 of the audience left by 30 minutes once they saw where he was headed, 1/3 sat in rapture, and 1/3 laughed and played cards (or maybe that was my friend and I...).
Derrida blah blah blah.
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<![CDATA[Matt added 'The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39600806
to: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (Paperback)byJonathan Phillips
As others have written, this seems to be written like a compelling textbook without the dry digressions. Before reading this my clearest vision of a Crusader's life and this time was vague and cliched (I am not a history buff), and I had no grasp on how personalities were formed and flavored in light of the day-to-day realities and larger cultural dimensions that were at play during this general period of European/Islamic history. No, I feel, I have a good staring point, and a budding fascination for siege technologies/medieval ingenuity, the involutions of theological/political hypocrisies within adolescent Christianity, and glimmering of how and why Islamic/Christian got off to a rough start.
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<![CDATA[Matt added 'The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39600972
to: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Paperback)byAlan Wilson Watts
This is a very user-friendly though cogent account of Western ego-identify through the eyes of Vendanta Hinduism (this is a digestible way to understand the implications of the Hindu Vedas) and Taoism. As usually, Watts is deft and deliciously ironic without be asinine. It's too bad that books like this were never as widely read as The Secret or the Celestine Prophecy, because, at least, there is if only a light whiff of enlightened and rigorous thinking within its pages. Mind-fuck lite, I would describe it.
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<![CDATA[Matt added 'S-21 ou le crime impuni des Khmers rouges']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39600877
to: S-21 ou le crime impuni des Khmers rouges (Paperback)byDavid Chandler
I read this shortly after visiting the S-21 in early 07, and my mind was fresh with the blood-stained floors and rusting chains used to restrain thousands of victims, so it's hard to separate that experience from an objective account of the quality of this book, but, suffice to say---any glimpse, with eyebrows or editing, into what went on at this prison in Cambodia in the late 70's will leave you rattled and in awe of the collective ignorance that the world perpetrated and continues to on atrocities that happen outside of Europe and Africa. The portraits of the victims, meticulously documented by Khmer Rouge captors, displayed in part inside this book, are worth the price of this book alone.