BREAKFAST BOOK (4): WHAT WOULD SOCRATES SAY, edited by Alexander George

At first I thought I was a victim of bait and switch. This is not a book of contemporary questions answered by quotes from classical philosophers. And I would have quickly figured that out if I had taken even a minute or so to thumb through it. But it was cheap on a remainder table and it looked like fun,

Socrates remains silent for the most part, although he and other big guns may be occasionally referenced by one of the twenty-two academics who answer reader inquiries on the website AskPhilosophers.org. They all teach at respected institutions, with Amherst College, home base of editor Alexander George, well represented. And this contemporary line up of philosophers probably have more to say and can speak more directly to the issues posed by the questioners than quotes pulled from The Critique of Pure Reason or The Nichomachean Ethics. For instance, I cannot image that Socrates would be very enlightening on the Santa Claus issue -- when to tell, how to break the news, and specifically is it morally wrong to let kids believe in St. Nick at all. On the other hand, Mark Crimmins, who teaches at Stanford, and Louise Antony from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, offer lively, contrasting views. I am curious to know how many parents will be convinced to follow Ms. Antony's tough love approach.

The book is divided into chapters with titles like, "What Can I Know," "What is a Man," and, "What Ought I to Do." (On that last one, yes, you should probably visit your mother for Christmas even if you don't particularly want to.) The question of relativity comes up often, in the moral rather than the Einsteinan sense. If lions eat meat why shouldn't I? Why are moral codes opposed to evolutionary codes? 

In some cases the inquirer might get more than he or she bargained for, but the responders are not above telling the questioners not to quibble so on some issues. When asked why philosophers so seldom agree, Nicholas J. Smith of Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon, is very to the point, "It is our job to disagree."

BREAKFAST BOOK (3): DOCUMENTA 13 DAS BEGLEITBUCH/ THE GUIDEBOOK

This has been my breakfast companion for several weeks. Documenta, the ultimate in international art exhibitions, occurs every five years in Kassel Germany. The extravaganza always produces a doorstopper catalog, usually several volumes of unreadable essays, and this chunky guidebook. The guidebook is what you are supposed to lug around with you at the actual exhibition, where you can spend several days visiting the different venues, taking in too much art in too little time. Forget about the films and lectures.

I have attended a couple of times in the past but decided to let this one slide. Reading reviews and now looking at the guidebook almost makes me wish I had made the trek, but then I remember years and trips to various huge international art expos where I wondered why I hadn't just stayed home , saved several thousand dollars, and bought the catalog. So I guess it all evens out in the end.

This year there are over 200 artists, and each gets a two-page spread in the guidebook. If I was consistent, I could read three artist entries per day at breakfast and make a complete tour in a little over three months. But I am not consistent. After a couple of months I am maybe halfway through. What stands out? Nothing, really. The projects tend to be so conceptual that the catalog entries do them little justice. If something seems interesting I have to google the artist and try to find out more. So far I have done that for the Cambodian photographer Vandy Rattana; Egyptian filmmaker Wael Shawky; Margaret Preston, an Australian painter born in 1875; and, the Slovakian artist Roman Ondak, whose ongoing Observations. a project invovling an archive of found images from Eastern European magazines has always seemed like something I would like.

Maybe in five years I will feel like going to Document 14.

FOLLOW THE BREAKFAST BOOK LABEL FOR OTHER BREAKFAST RECOMMENDATIONS

Below: random images from Documenta 13

The selection of unreadable essays
mentioned above

Lara Favaretto's "Momentary Monument IV (Kassel)," 2012

A Spanish greyhound called Human with his front leg painted pink, by artist Pierre Huyghe. “Live things and inanimate things, made and not made,” reads Huyghe’s description of his materials

Marionette by filmmaker Wael Shawky

BREAKFAST BOOKs (2): DEAR NEW GIRL OR WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS

(Part of an ongoing series on books that make excellent substitutes for the morning paper. Follow the Breakfast Books label for more suggestions.)

Editor Trinnie Dalton worked as a substitute teacher in Los Angeles from 1999 - 2003. One of her duties, as it is of all teachers, was to confiscate the notes passed among her charges. She saved these, maybe those she considered the best, maybe all of them. Eventually she turned them over not to the principal's office but to artist friends and let them have a go at transforming them into this book of drawings.

How, you might wonder, do you improve on perfection? When it comes to the contents of the notes, the artists know not to tamper with such raw beauty. Fragments or complete texts from the notes appear unaltered and offer up a mind-numbing, misspelled stew of venom and angst delivered in grammar that often suggests borderline brain dysfunction. Using this source material, the 20 or so artists and artist collectives Dalton selected took a variety of approaches. Many participants have mastered the kind of crappy drawing that apes the scratchy images adolescents scrawl onto notebook covers but that just a few years later can be reproduced only by someone with an MFA. Other have styles that come from advertising and commercial graphics. Some are baroque while others are brutally direct. Leanne Shapton places a line drawing of a face in the upper center of the page and below it quotes a simple message: If I see her on the stairs I am going to throw gum in hair. Or, I dare you to ask Steven do you ever wish you looked cute and that lots of girls liked you. Paper Rad, a collective based in Pittsburgh, PA and Providence RI, often channels Peter Max for their contributions. The ubiquitous Marcel Dzama is a contributor, and I am sure that just as I recognized maybe four or five other names, anyone who follows the contemporary art scene, especially on the West Coast, will recognize familiar styles. 

Leanne Shapton

Gay accusations are common, and particularly punchy phrases attracted more than one artist. OK cute or OK ugly receives several visual treatments, as does the ever hopeful Thank you for your quick response. Many entries are sadistically hurtful, but Dalton's compilation would make a poor excuse for an anti-bullying tract. None of the contributors appear to suffer from survivor's guilt. They relish the chance to dig into this material, whether they intend to create images that are as vicious as their sources or as poignant as many of the feelings that underly it. And none of the artist match the visual power of one note in red marker that begins 2:Victoria, goes on for fifteen increasingly illegible lines, and ends with the injunction: P.S. PLEASE W/B.

Jason Holley

BREAKFAST BOOKS (1) : THE LIVES OF THE NOVELISTS by John Sutherland

This has been my breakfast book for the past several weeks. Since it is not something I will probably ever finish cover to cover, now seems as good a time as any to review it.

Nicholas Monserrat

Sutherland offers an idiosyncratic tour of the English novel through the lives of 294 novelists. (By default, any survey of the novel that includes only 294 authors will be idiosyncratic. The choice of whom to include is going to be highly personal.) I read the 25 entries from the 17th and 18th century straight through, but the urge to pick and choose became irresistible. I have taken to looking at the contents and mentally dividing the names into four categories;

1) Authors I have read.
2) Authors I have not read but might still someday read.
3) Authors I have not read and cannot imagine that I will ever read.
4) Authors I have never heard of.

Having worked around used and remaindered books for 30 years, I was surprised that Sutherland came up with so many authors that fit Category Four. I can still picture the pocket paperbacks or book club edition hardbacks of authors like Nicholas Monsarrat, Hervey Allen, Margery Allingham and Trevanian, but who the hell are Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Richard Crompton, or Mary Cholmondeley? It will not be hard to find out.

The more interesting category is number two. It has prompted me to be honest with myself. After all these years of thinking I am going to, am I likely to ever read Henry Green or Anthony Powell? What are the odds that I might pick up a John Buchan novel? The clock is ticking on Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. On the other hand, Sutherland has reminded me that I do want to read Patrick Hamilton, really. Same goes for Thackery and Trollope.

Mary Chalmondeley

I like that Sutherland takes into account the publishing history of many of the authors and the influence film versions have had on both their reputations and the writing of their novels. His humor often falls flat, but other reviewers overreact to what they see as his arrogance. I am also baffled by reviews that fault this book for not offering more insights or some kind of middlebrow guide to how to appreciate The Novel. This is breezy stuff and lighthearted entertainment. Sutherland can be as dishy about Samuel Richardson as he is about Jacqueline Susann. I look forward to what he has to say about V.C. Andrews and Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. -- whoever Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., might happen to be.

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