reading books recommended by stephen breyer: part one

Reading Pretentious Books By Frenchmen

Hello, and welcome to the terror dome (my Supreme Court obsession). 

A youtuber I enjoy habitually reads books recommended by celebrities, and although it may be a stretch to call Stephen Breyer (or indeed any of the public figures I admire) "celebrities," I am doing more or less the same thing here.

I found this article where Stephen Breyer talks about five books he thinks everyone should read. It's a lot of Frenchmen. This does make sense for an individual who pretended to be French for the duration of the DC Shakespeare Theater Company's Camelot mock trial.

the plague by albert camus

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was the second book recommended by Stephen Breyer that I read. The first one was Democracy in America, but that's in part two because my review is upwards of 3000 words so far. I am going to extensively spoil this book both in terms of plot points and broad themes, but I am going to first explain the sorts of people that I think would enjoy this book, so you can decide if it is something you would be interested and reading and not having spoiled for you. 

You should read The Plague if you enjoy a good plague book. If your idea of fun is characters dying in agony, have I got the book for you. You may also like this book if you are a fan of philosophy (especially existentialist philosophy), doctors, smuggling, and/or the problem of evil. If this applies to you, you may want to skip now to the part of this review that I have clearly and helpfully marked "end spoilers."

spoilers

The Plague is a book about the evil in the world and what we should do about said evil. It follows several residents of an Algerian port town called Oran that experiences a rat infestation followed by a severe outbreak of the plague. The plague is a metaphor for evil in the world. This book was written as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France, but there's not a lot that's Nazi-specific, so it's really about evil broadly speaking. Each of the major characters responds to the outbreak in a different way and teach us about the correct way to respond to evil in the world.

The first half of this book is so boring. So little happens. Then a child dies in agony and it really ramps up from there. The scene where the child dies in agony is just horrifying, but it's so, so well written. I really felt like I was there watching this grotesque scene and the accompanying screaming.

But back to the characters. There's a priest called Father Paneloux who talks towards the beginning about how the plague is the townspeople's fault because it is a punishment sent by God. After watching this child die, Father Paneloux really leans hard on the idea that evil in the world is created by God, and since God created it, there is no use fighting it because it must be what God wants and therefore totally okay. He preaches a nice little sermon to this effect and then dies. The upshot of this part is that, if we succumb to the evil in the world, we will surely die.

Then there's another character named Tarrou whose father was a prosecuter. Tarrou saw his father in court one day as a child exhorting the jury to sentence a criminal defendant to death. Said defendant is executed, and Tarrou holds his father personally responsible. He then feels that it is his responsibility to devote his life to single-mindedly fighting evil—as Tarrou says it, he wants to be a saint. This makes him a helpful person to have around in times of plague. Tarrou keeps a diary that the narrator has read, and he (the narrator) remarks that Tarrou has no personal life. He doesn't talk about himself in his diary. He has no hopes or dreams or any purpose in life other than becoming a saint (although not, to be clear, in a strictly religious sense). Tarrou contracts the plague and dies. The upshot of this part is that, if we devote ourselves wholly to fighting evil without having any personal motivation—without hope or love or anything like that—we will surely fail.

Then there is our narrator, Doctor Rieux (although we don't learn he's the narrator until the end). Doctor Rieux is sort of the middle ground between Paneloux and Tarrou. It's important to him to try to cure patients, but that's not the only thing that matters to him. He lives with his mother, with whom he is reasonably close, and he has a wife from whom he is separated. He just wants to help people out, you know? There is a part where a character—I think it's Tarrou—asks Rieux why he works as a doctor if he doesn't believe in God or any higher purpose. Rieux doesn't really answer the question because he doesn't feel like he needs a reason to be good. He isn't working for the salvation of man; he's working to heal people. 

There are other characters, too, but the only other one who is as important is maybe Rambert, although he's a lot like Rieux. There's one guy who's trying to write a book but he's obsessed with getting the first sentence exactly right before he goes any further. I liked that guy. I think his name was Grand. 

There's this trichotomy (?) throughout The Plague of saints vs. healers vs. people who are complicit in evil. I don't know, I think it's neat. It's a fun analogy.

end spoilers

I thought The Plague was pretty good. I enjoyed the plaguey parts, and I also enjoyed the philosophy and symbolic parts. As I said in the previous section (which you may not have read because of the spoilers), that the first half of this book is super boring, but the last ~100 pages are like a roller coaster. That part is so exciting. 

I would be super interested to read more books by Albert Camus (I am thinking of reading The Stranger) and more philosophy books in general. Maybe I will read something by Friedrich Nietzsche. I think he is so interesting, much like many parts of The Plague. I am also planning to read more plague books. If you know any plague books that you feel strongly I should read, you should tell me what they are in the comments for sure.

Now I am going to judge Stephen Breyer for liking this book. I would not have guessed based on the rest of the information I know about him that Stephen Breyer is a fan of plague books, but that's cool and fun I suppose. I think he must enjoy the plague part of The Plague, but I expect he also enjoys the triumph-of-the-human-spirit aspect. This does make sense with his personality. Based on some of his books I have read, he was a judge because he believes the American legal system is a good way for people to have their rights protected. Very altruistic of him. Plus, anyone who stayed on a radical conservative court as long as he did is surely an optimistic individual. I also think he enjoys this book because he likes the French.

Because Stephen Breyer is a The Plague fan, I would recommend to him the book How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. This is a fantastic book about a pandemic and it also has some nice stuff about how great humanity is. And there is a talking pig. Although it does not have the French in it if I remember correctly.

in search of lost time by marcel proust

no rating

Wow I did not mean for this blog post to be so long. 

I'm not really sure what In Search of Lost Time is about because I didn't read it. I was intending to read the first volume, Swann's Way, and keep going if I liked it. But I couldn't even finish Swann's Way. The writing is so pretty. But it's so hard. And the sentences are crazy long.

The ~100 pages I read were about this guy reminiscing on his childhood. He's really anxious and just vaguely upset all the time. The author does a really good job of making you feel how upset the narrator is. It's a well written book—or at least, what I read was good. I think this book is about your past haunting you, but, really, I wouldn't know.

Out of all three books I read, it makes the most sense to me that Stephen Breyer enjoys In Search of Lost Time because it is wordy and incomprehensible like him. Here is an actual quote from Swann's Way.

"And even today, if in a large provincial town or a part of Paris I do not know well, a passing stranger who has 'put me on the right path' shows me in the distance, as a reference point, some hospital belfry, some convent steeple lifting the peak of its ecclesiastical cap at the corner of a street I am supposed to take, if only my memory can obscurely find it in some small feature resembling the dear departed form [of his childhood church], the stranger, if he turns around to makes sure I am not going astray, may, to his astonishment, see me, forgetting the walk I had begun or the necessary errand, remain there in front of the steeple for hours, motionless, trying to remember, feeling deep in myself lands recovered from oblivion draining and rebuilding themselves; and then no doubt, and more anxiously than a short time before when I asked him to direct me, I am still seeking my path, I am turning a corner . . . but . . . I am doing so in my heart . . ."

Here is an actual question that Stephen Breyer asked a lawyer in the oral argument for Austin v. Reagan National Advertising.

"All right. So I'll—I'll tell you why we let the home—my own kale shop, I sell fried kale, and right outside I want a big picture of kale that lights up, okay? It's mine. This is my shop. I want to decorate it the way I want, strong interest. I don't have the same interest in what the billboard 40 miles outside the town says about my kale shop. Okay. There's your difference. And the grandfather is because we love grandfathers, okay? There we are. And that's historic. And go back to the year two, you'll discover those kinds of distinctions. So there are distinctions, and, therefore, I have to get to the content-based. And now I'm back at Justice Alito's question, content-based? Hey, the whole SEC is content-based. And what about the infinite number of FDA rules that say you better disclose how much sodium there is? That's not content, sodium? It isn't. It's salt. But salt, by the way, is a kind of content, and it's not good for you. But, regardless—regardless, FDA, SEC, try the energy world, you better disclose, Mr. Smith Energy, how much coal you're burning, okay? And we can go on through the whole U.S. Code. So, as you know, my conclusion is this makes no sense. It does make sense in the context of where you're trying to do time, manner, and circumstance. It does make sense in the context of where you're trying to see if it's viewpoint discrimination. But, as to the rest of it, no. Okay? What do you want to say to me? Say—say just get on the boat, it's passed, sailed, do your best? Or what do you want to say?"

Let us compare. Both Proust and Stephen Breyer enjoy phrases that start in one place, go somewhere completely different, and might?? end up back where they started, although only they can say for sure. It is not at all surprising to me that Stephen Breyer vibes with this book. 

Oh, also, Stephen Breyer is smarter than me and pretentious. That's what else it says about him that he likes this book. 

a few more concluding thoughts

I don't think it makes sense to give too many concluding thoughts here since there is going to be a part two. But, at this juncture, I will say that I think Stephen Breyer has good taste in books and a weird affinity for the French. I would say that I have gotten something out of this project. Actually, I have gotten two things out of this project. I read The Plague, which may well be the start of a beautiful friendship (between me and philosophy books), and I learned that I am really not up for reading Proust. Obviously I am very cool, but even I have limits.