"You will soon experience great happiness"

I quite like Jones Sugar Cane Soda, even though it's very expensive, relatively speaking. One of the things they do is put fortune-cookie-type phrases on the underside of the bottlecap, which is always entertaining.

Today, I treated myself to a bottle, and the cap read You will soon experience great happiness.

It might amuse you to learn that my response upon reading it was not to think, Oh, great, or Oh, rubbish, but rather Hmm. How does one define happiness?

What is happiness, after all? If we grant that it exists as a state, and is attainable, what does it comprise?

There are any number of philosophers (I've been reading them, as I once swore never to do, and actually finding them quite interesting) who would respond that happiness is to be found in striving towards the good life - and when a Greek philosopher says αγαθή ζωή, he doesn't mean the high life, he means the virtuous life, the life of philosophy.

Which begs the question, of course, what is virtue? And why should it lead to happiness?

Virtue, from the Latin virtus, manly excellence. Its equivalent in ancient Greek is ἀρετή, excellence of any quality. So virtue is excellence and - considered in particular - an excellence of moral quality.

What does it mean to be moral? And how does it lead to happiness?

(I prefer to say ethical, because moral is frequently used to refer to behaviour approved in sectarian and not universal contexts. But ethics can be both personal and universal.)

That's a serious question, by the way. I don't see my way clear to answering it.

So, you know. Bottlecaps lead to philosophical wonderments.

"You will soon experience great happiness"

I quite like Jones Sugar Cane Soda, even though it's very expensive, relatively speaking. One of the things they do is put fortune-cookie-type phrases on the underside of the bottlecap, which is always entertaining.

Today, I treated myself to a bottle, and the cap read You will soon experience great happiness.

It might amuse you to learn that my response upon reading it was not to think, Oh, great, or Oh, rubbish, but rather Hmm. How does one define happiness?

What is happiness, after all? If we grant that it exists as a state, and is attainable, what does it comprise?

There are any number of philosophers (I've been reading them, as I once swore never to do, and actually finding them quite interesting) who would respond that happiness is to be found in striving towards the good life - and when a Greek philosopher says αγαθή ζωή, he doesn't mean the high life, he means the virtuous life, the life of philosophy.

Which begs the question, of course, what is virtue? And why should it lead to happiness?

Virtue, from the Latin virtus, manly excellence. Its equivalent in ancient Greek is ἀρετή, excellence of any quality. So virtue is excellence and - considered in particular - an excellence of moral quality.

What does it mean to be moral? And how does it lead to happiness?

(I prefer to say ethical, because moral is frequently used to refer to behaviour approved in sectarian and not universal contexts. But ethics can be both personal and universal.)

That's a serious question, by the way. I don't see my way clear to answering it.

So, you know. Bottlecaps lead to philosophical wonderments.

Books 2010: " 'It rather looks as though I didn't know what I was talking about before, Socrates.' "

Books 2010: 112-114


112. Marie Brennan, A Star Shall Fall.


Before I say anything else, I have to say that I love the conceit around which this series is based. I am very fond of well-done historical fiction, and historical fantasy in particular, and Brennan's research and sense of time and place has been, till now, one of the things I love best about the series.

Also, spoilers.

A Star Shall Fall, while still a superior read, suffers a little in that the vast majority of its action takes place in the faerie realm, giving far less scope to the author's ability to evoke time and place than heretofore. It also suffers in that Galen is a far less compelling protagonist than has been previously the case for Onyx Court protagonists, and far less interesting than his counterpart Irrith.

Oddly, his position codes to me almost as feminine: he is far more passive and at the mercy of external forces in his personal life than other protagonists have been, he doesn't inhabit his authority well until very late in the novel, he's hopelessly in love with an unobtainable person, and he sacrifices himself to the Dragon. This is not a bad thing, but Galen lacks... what is this useful Americanism? He lacks a certain amount of awesome until very late in the day. His Crowning Moment of Awesome, on the other hand, is bloody brilliant.

Irrith, on the other hand, is made of win. And the secondary characters such as Cynthia, Delphia, Mrs Vesey, and Henry Cavendish, are sketched as whole people in a handful of lines.

I haven't said anything about what happens - but then, what happens is less important than how.

I enjoyed it, and I strongly recommend it.



113. Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight.


The thirty-eighth Discworld novel, and the fourth to star Tiffany Aching, witch. Like all Pratchett novels, it is deceptively simple on the surface, but with deeper currents running through it. It's generous, and humourous, and all-around brilliant. I find Pratchett's work very hard to talk about, because it speaks to me on levels deeper than articulated thought. He gets at something primordial and human, something essential and true.

Anyway. Go. Read it. Preferably read Wintersmith first.



114. Plato, Symposium. Translated by Robin Waterfield, Oxford, 1994.


I keep saying this. But if someone had told me the classics were funny, I would've read them years ago.

The Symposium is a very short book, in which a group of ancient Greeks sit around at a drinking-party and eulogise the god of Love. Aristophanes' "Love Speech" is perhaps the most famous (I am sure some among us might admit to hearing an adapted version of it a long time ago, in a universe far, far away, on a television show starring Lucy Lawless), but the other speeches are interesting - both in themselves, as considerations of the concept, and as exemplars of their time.

Also, it has a doctor in it. Eryximachus. So it was, indeed, useful research.

---

I keep hearing good things about Sherwood Smith's Coronets and Steel - or hearing about it, anyway. Should I investigate more closely? My pocketbook advises that I should wait for it to come out in paperback, and so I solicit your opinions.

Books 2010: " 'It rather looks as though I didn't know what I was talking about before, Socrates.' "

Books 2010: 112-114


112. Marie Brennan, A Star Shall Fall.


Before I say anything else, I have to say that I love the conceit around which this series is based. I am very fond of well-done historical fiction, and historical fantasy in particular, and Brennan's research and sense of time and place has been, till now, one of the things I love best about the series.

Also, spoilers.

A Star Shall Fall, while still a superior read, suffers a little in that the vast majority of its action takes place in the faerie realm, giving far less scope to the author's ability to evoke time and place than heretofore. It also suffers in that Galen is a far less compelling protagonist than has been previously the case for Onyx Court protagonists, and far less interesting than his counterpart Irrith.

Oddly, his position codes to me almost as feminine: he is far more passive and at the mercy of external forces in his personal life than other protagonists have been, he doesn't inhabit his authority well until very late in the novel, he's hopelessly in love with an unobtainable person, and he sacrifices himself to the Dragon. This is not a bad thing, but Galen lacks... what is this useful Americanism? He lacks a certain amount of awesome until very late in the day. His Crowning Moment of Awesome, on the other hand, is bloody brilliant.

Irrith, on the other hand, is made of win. And the secondary characters such as Cynthia, Delphia, Mrs Vesey, and Henry Cavendish, are sketched as whole people in a handful of lines.

I haven't said anything about what happens - but then, what happens is less important than how.

I enjoyed it, and I strongly recommend it.



113. Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight.


The thirty-eighth Discworld novel, and the fourth to star Tiffany Aching, witch. Like all Pratchett novels, it is deceptively simple on the surface, but with deeper currents running through it. It's generous, and humourous, and all-around brilliant. I find Pratchett's work very hard to talk about, because it speaks to me on levels deeper than articulated thought. He gets at something primordial and human, something essential and true.

Anyway. Go. Read it. Preferably read Wintersmith first.



114. Plato, Symposium. Translated by Robin Waterfield, Oxford, 1994.


I keep saying this. But if someone had told me the classics were funny, I would've read them years ago.

The Symposium is a very short book, in which a group of ancient Greeks sit around at a drinking-party and eulogise the god of Love. Aristophanes' "Love Speech" is perhaps the most famous (I am sure some among us might admit to hearing an adapted version of it a long time ago, in a universe far, far away, on a television show starring Lucy Lawless), but the other speeches are interesting - both in themselves, as considerations of the concept, and as exemplars of their time.

Also, it has a doctor in it. Eryximachus. So it was, indeed, useful research.

---

I keep hearing good things about Sherwood Smith's Coronets and Steel - or hearing about it, anyway. Should I investigate more closely? My pocketbook advises that I should wait for it to come out in paperback, and so I solicit your opinions.