(Re-printed from the Barzun Centennial Site.)
All over the world, people are celebrating the Centennial of Jacques Barzun. I want to be part of that celebration by thanking him for the books and essays he has written over his lifetime.
I have never met Jacques Barzun, nor have I ever been to Columbia University. At UCLA I majored in Mathematics, and outside of school I was an artist. I didn’t study Art or the Humanities, and I didn’t come into contact with Prof. Barzun’s books until I had been out in the world for a while, dealing with the ambiguities and difficulties of adult existence. I’ve always read a lot, about mathematics, science, history, and the biographies of historic figures, and when I read Jacques Barzun’s Classic, Romantic, and Modern, I knew enough to recognize that I had something special in my hands.
There are moments in life when you come into contact with something, and many seemingly disparate items in your vast, jumbled collection of learned and experienced facts and insights suddenly coalesce into a connected whole. If you’re lucky you find this sudden expansion of understanding, not with an ephemeral trigger, but in a book, an object you can carry with you throughout life. That book becomes a treasured museum to which you can return again and again to enjoy the exhibits and to add to them. Moreover, when you reread a great book, you discover new ideas that you recognize because of things you’ve encountered since the last time you visited its ever-patient text. You’re even luckier if the author has written other books that are capable of engendering those same epiphanies of wonder and clarity.
Classic, Romantic, Modern was superb. For one thing, it was exciting to read. I had my first “Barzun Event” early in the book, when I read the section about what unifies an Historic Age. In discussing how it is that ideological enemies could nonetheless be described as exemplifying the Romantic Age, Prof. Barzun wrote: “Clearly, the one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve.” It exploded in my head. How obvious! — now that it was pointed out. An Historic Age is not defined by the ideas that rapidly become common currency at the time, but rather by the body of questions that have arisen at that stage in a culture — questions that have become crucial, that demand answers. It was a beautiful explanation, and with interesting modifications it fit a lot of territory even beyond the subject of historic ages.
The rest of the book was just as exhilarating. I learned so much! I came into contact with new names to look into and other books I could read about the topics discussed. There were layers of information and patterns of connection that I had never before imagined. I was hooked. I went to the library and took out the three Barzun books that were there at the moment. I read Darwin, Marx, Wagner, The Use and Abuse of Art, and Science: the Glorious Entertainment. I wish I could describe the delighted anticipation I felt as I opened each book to read it for the first time, or of the happiness with which I wrote a list of the titles to the other books by Prof. Barzun.
I’ve bought the books over time, savoring each one. Usually, when I read a book I own, I write my thoughts in the margins. I immediately found that it is impossible to annotate one of Barzun’s books with the ideas he engenders or the issues to look into, because the margins would then be even busier than the text. There is not a page that would go unmarked, so as I read I have to write in notebooks that have grown in number over the years.
Western Civilization is facing great challenges, internally and from without. If we are to escape the powers of darkness that threaten us, it will be in part because of knowledge gained from books such as those written by Prof. Barzun. This is not a facile statement. It is preeminently the words in books that have enjoined the battles that will decide the eventual outcome of this fierce world war. As never before, the Battle of the Books is all around us, and some major weapons on all sides have titles and publication dates. I believe that Jacques Barzun is a weapon of the highest caliber.
I also believe that it will come to pass that he was prescient when he wrote in the 2002 edition of The House of Intellect, that, “It is part of [the cultural critic’s] duty at any time to remind the world of the valuable things that are at risk. Even if the warning evokes no alteration in the present, it can happen that such a reminder . . . stands out as a marker a later age will use for the return voyage.”
Nothing could be more topical or more timeless than the life work of Jacques Barzun.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, Adam's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, The Amboy Times, Chuck Adkins, Conservative Cat, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Comments (4)
I've read your magnificent tribute to Dr. Barzun on the Barzun Centennial blog. I thought it was by far the most moving and sincere tribute I had read up to that point. (I'm reading the comments in reverse order.) I don't know how persons who have had the inestimable privilege of knowing him can write about him without losing their heads and raving on and on. To be fair, many of these admirers do a fairly respectable job of praising him, but you came closest to the mark--it seemed to me that you truly loved his books and were awed by them, which is exactly the way I feel. And you had taken them as living signposts to guide your way through life by, which is exactly how I have taken them.
To me, as to you, his writings are a repository of sayings, arguments, summations, and essays within essays that illuminate life and one's own thought infinitely. I honestly don't know where Jacques Barzun leaves off and Bill Sweetland begins, and I don't want to know, or waste time thinking about that mystery.
What do you do now? Are you a mathematician at a university? What is your favorite Barzun book? Mine is the House of Intellect, followed by Science: The Glorious Entertainment, followed by Berlioz and the Romantic Century. But I agree with you about the astonishing dramatic effect and the sense of intellectual excitement aroused by Classic, Romantic, and Modern. It's like reading a classic murder mystery: What is the lethal sickness of the modern intellect?
My name is Bill Sweetland; I'm married, no children, and I work in downtown Chicago at a company that gives editorial advice to persons who edit and write corporate publications.
Like you, I discovered Barzun by picking up the House of Intellect and starting to read, in a bookstore here in Hyde Park in Chicago. This was 41 years ago. I'm 63, a graduate of the University of Chicago, an All But Dissertation (I decided after reading much Barzun that I had neither the character nor the scholarship to be a university teacher) who received his master's degree in American History in 1972 from the university.
I'm eagerly awaiting Dr. Barzun's next book. May I say that I relish the feeling of my own ridiculous littleness and insignificance next to Dr. Barzun? It's really a source of laughter and joy to me to think of how wonderful he is, how supremely great he is, what a prodigious thinker and artist he is, and how my whole life has been enlarged and filled with joy because I happened to pick up the House of Intellect in Powell's Bookstore in l966.
You really needn't feel bound to reply to this: I just wanted to let you know how touched I was by your sincerity and, truth to tell, by your child-like wonder and gratitude. Your post was worth all the rest, in my opinion.
Bill Sweetland
Posted by Bill Sweetland | December 15, 2007 10:26 PM
Posted on December 15, 2007 22:26
I've read your tribute to Dr. Barzun on the Barzun Centennial blog. I thought it was by far the most moving and sincere tribute I had read up to that point. (I'm reading the comments in reverse order.)
I don't know how persons who have had the inestimable privilege of knowing him first-hand can write about him without losing their heads and raving. To be fair, many of these Centennial admirers do a respectable job of praising him, but you came closest to the mark--it seemed to me that you truly loved his books and were awed by them, which is exactly the way I feel. And it seemed to me as if you had taken them as living signposts to help guide your way through life, which is exactly how I have taken them. What am I going to do when he's gone?
To me, as to you, his writings are a treasure chest of heart-and-mind-piercing sayings, lucid, elegant arguments, vast and resonant summations, and essays within essays that illuminate life and one's own thought infinitely. I honestly don't know where Jacques Barzun leaves off and Bill Sweetland begins, and I don't want to know, or waste time thinking about that mystery. (Minta Morze, I’m going to have to send you this post in parts, because the Moveable Type software won’t let me post its whole swollen text all at once.)
Posted by Bill Sweetland | December 15, 2007 11:02 PM
Posted on December 15, 2007 23:02
I've read your tribute to Dr. Barzun on the Barzun Centennial blog. I thought it was by far the most moving and sincere tribute I had read up to that point. (I'm reading the comments in reverse order.)
I don't know how persons who have had the inestimable privilege of knowing him first-hand can write about him without losing their heads and raving. To be fair, many of these Centennial admirers do a respectable job of praising him, but you came closest to the mark--it seemed to me that you truly loved his books and were awed by them, which is exactly the way I feel. And it seemed to me as if you had taken them as living signposts to help guide your way through life, which is exactly how I have taken them. What am I going to do when he's gone?
To me, as to you, his writings are a treasure chest of heart-and-mind-piercing sayings, lucid, elegant arguments, vast and resonant summations, and essays within essays that illuminate life and one's own thought infinitely. I honestly don't know where Jacques Barzun leaves off and Bill Sweetland begins, and I don't want to know, or waste time thinking about that mystery. (Minta Morze, I’m going to have to send you this post in parts, because the Moveable Type software won’t let me post its whole swollen text all at once.)
Posted by Bill Sweetland | December 15, 2007 11:02 PM
Posted on December 15, 2007 23:02
Dear Minta Morze:
Well, apparently it did finally let me post all of the content at once. I made some improvements in the fragment I posted the third time. The first two posts had elicited messages from Moveable Type to the effect that I was too wordy, and could I try posting again later when their software would feel more like dealing with my logorrhea? I hate Web software. It's always full of these kind of surprises. Sorry for the posting in triplicate.
Posted by Bill Sweetland | December 15, 2007 11:08 PM
Posted on December 15, 2007 23:08