The 306 Greatest Books #69 - The Social Contract

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

This is definitely not the best book I have ever read, however it was interesting nonetheless. The Social Contract was similar to the other political commentary books on the list as I'm sure most of them do not differ much in tone, but it was written around the formation of the US Constitution and it is enlightening to see how this book influenced the formation of my country. Although interesting, I would not recommend this book since it is rather dry but it does bring up some rather good points. The main few I noticed were that according to Rousseau, the US is a representative aristocracy not a democracy. Because Rousseau, along with other political philosophers of the time, thought a large country would not be stable as a democracy so it could never work. The second is that The Social Contract showed the citizens of Europe that kings were not appointed by divine right but are only in power because the people let them be. This is partially what led to the civil unrest around the same time in many European countries. It you are interested in political theory, then this book is for you, otherwise I would not bother.

The 306 Greatest Books #68 - Candide

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Candide by Voltaire. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

Candide is by the philosopher Voltaire, whose primary concern was optimism. Ironically though, the book turns out to be rather depressing, yet cheerful, at the same time. I am not sure how, it just does. It is written rather like a children's story, where there are very little embellishments and the characters zip around from place to place in a rather short time frame. But there are a lot of deaths (or supposed deaths), rape, war, slavery and other "adult" concepts making it definitely not a kid's story. The point of the story, I believe, was so that Voltaire could express his distaste for practically everything. This includes religion, war, and people's intolerance of each other (although he expresses his own intolerance rather well, a bit hypocritical). But anyway, the story is a rather interesting read, short (always a plus when your reading 300+ books), and I enjoyed it, but not enough to go on my personal greatest books list.

The 306 Greatest Books #67 - Prometheus Bound

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Prometheus Bound  by Aeschylus. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

This is one of the earliest writings that are on any of the 100 Greatest Books lists. The story is about the gods, which is typical of the Greek and Roman literature at the time. More particularly, Prometheus, the Titan who brought fire to mankind. The play takes place at the start of Zeus' punishment to Prometheus for bringing the fire, where Zeus had Hephaestus chain Prometheus to a rock to be roasted alive everyday. The play is very short, it took me only about 45 minutes to read. However, I could not find any strong "moral lesson" in it, so my assumption is that this is an entertainment piece. At first I thought the play was about Prometheus' vanity and pride and that was why he was being punished, but the more the play went on the more it seemed to be anti-Zeus with his pride. Zeus' pride is shown when Prometheus reveals that he knows the possible downfall of Zeus and he is the only one who can stop it. Zeus then proceeds to torture Prometheus more until he reveals that information. Maybe this is a piece about pride? I am not really sure. Overall, the play is enjoyable but I feel it is not strong enough to be on my list.

The 306 Greatest Books #66 - Tartuffe

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Tartuffe by Moliere. This book can be found on the Sybervision and and My Book Lists.

In their essence, plays are written to be performed and not read, so I don't often enjoy reading plays because I don't get the full experience out of them. But even with that caveat, I thoroughly enjoyed Tartuffe, enough so to put it on my personal favorites list. The play only took me about 2 hours to finish and it was very easy to follow along with. The plot is about a rich family where the father takes in a beggar, Tartuffe, and the father dotes on Tartuffe as a beloved son to the exclusion of his whole family. He even pledges Tartuffe to his daughter who is already engaged to another man. Overall, the play is very witty and invokes a pretty good moral lesson and best of all, everything works out in the end.