WhereAreWeSeeing

I went in not expecting much, but this is honestly his most vital early theoretical writing. His concept of political vs civil emancipation is utterly invaluable for analyzing social movements.

The Poverty of Philosophy is where Marx breaks decisively with utopian socialism, and clarifies the difference between moral critique and scientific critique. Socialists have a recurring ideological pattern that attempts to deduce socialism directly from bourgeois political economy without critically transforming its categories.

One of his best works, more people need to read his actually political writings, because this answers a lot of questions one might have from reading his theoretical works in a direct way. He lays out how class conflict took place, and why things played out the way they did. He also makes a lot of still relevant criticisms of the socialist party.

I went in expecting it to be dry like his book on the working class in England, but this was a fascinating account of a time period I knew little about. Muntzer had so much aura. And the statements about general praxis he makes are invaluable in clarity.

I really like arctic fiction because I enjoy cold weather, and it's a unique setting with unique challenges. This entire novel is always slipping in and out of dreams. It's a story of obsession and missed opportunities at the end of the world, I think. The writing quality is very high and there is very powerful imagery.
I think the main reason to read this is because of how unique it is, especially for the time. There are definitely a lot of proto-feminist themes in the writing, and questions about identity. The pacing is also very unique and refreshing. Entire weeks can go by in a few sentences, there is a total mastery of this aspect, on a level almost no other writer has. What is important is imagery and themes, not raw plot details, and a book that prioritizes the former is excellent.

I don't really know how to rate this, it's not nearly as interesting as the first novel, albeit if you pay attention, it does answer questions about economics. But I have been in a marxist book club for economics, and the books in it so far are like this but modern and shorter, and I probably wouldn't have been able to understand this well without reading them in tandem. I will give it a 3.5 just because it's a dry read and hes has like 2 or 3 chapters on why Adam Smith is wrong and also 2 or 3 chapters on gold, so it gets redundant.

Maybe the best book I have ever read, it checks every box of what I love and does them all perfectly. It's almost like a series of essays on the nature of man, but in the form of riveting dialogue & monologues. Every elements is utilized masterfully. Truly great writing can establish a universe without lore, and deep characters, without spilling out everything. There is a constant sense of subjectivity in the writing, where a careful reader can insinuate the true nature of what is being perceived has more nuance to it than the individual can grasp. We encode our engagement with the world through a human lens, and this is at the forefront of the writing here. There is also amazing satire of academia as well, that does say profound things about it that hit really hard for me too. A+

You really don't need to read anything but this. It looks daunting, and the start is very difficult, honestly you can just feed the first two sections to an LLM and have it explain them to you, but by the time you get to chapter 10, it comes together, and you can ride that high to chapter 15. Then you're almost done. Comprehensive and powerful. A+

I have read half of it so far, it is full of good information, but mostly historical and not theoretically relevant. He seems to be an orthodox ML.