Lucas Mattos > Recent Status Updates

Chapter VII of The Tragic Sense of Life squeezes me past the essay's midpoint and is, at this point, the work's uncontested lyrical apex. This chapter begins Unamuno's exploration of the consequences of the failures of strict faith and of rationalism to justify a belief in God. It oozes with the despairing poeticism of a vagrant soul, one floating between two justificatory extremes.

???

Got through chapter VI; if we're speaking in terms of the number of chapters in the book, this brings me to its midpoint.

Reread chapters IV and V and got a few pages into chapter VI.

Had a slightly better time with chapter V than with chapter IV. I wish Unamuno's references came more easily to me—the notes at the end of the book aren't much help.

Just finished chapter 4, which was near-completely incomprehensible, due especially to how many outside textual references it invoked. I'll have to go back for a more careful reading sometime, but for now I'd rather trudge forward and into chapter 5.

Went back ~20 pages from where I left off to try and really understand everything, then read ~5 pages past that same point. I still don't fully understand much of what Book II is saying, but I don't regret taking my time with what I'd already read. I tried my best not to use Beth Lord's guide (with no disrespect towards Lord; I just wanted to exercise myself more than I would've if I'd read it alongside the Ethics).

Not sure where I got 41% from earlier. I guess it doesn't matter anymore, since I'm only two percentiles away.

Leaving it here for today. I've reached what I believe to be the last diagram in the book. I'll miss them!

Even though I fundamentally disagree with some of the presuppositions which guide the Ethics, I'm captured by its elegant structure and by Spinoza's beautiful writing.