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A wonderful interplay between a lot of great themes: society's spectators and their objects of fascination, an artist and their art, an artist and their muse, naivete and cynicism, moralism and hedonism, the way we change through that which we consume and those with which we associate, one's pleasures and one's conscience, all that good stuff. The topics and their treatment were both engaging, and Wilde's writing was certainly lovely even if it did not pull me in the same way that others sometimes do. The half-star off of perfect is only for that. Some of my favorite moments would have to be our ever-quotable Lord Henry's "a saying for everything" manner of engaging with the world and Dorian's private moments of crisis. My least favorite would probably be some of the lengthy, indulgent descriptions of things (gems, flowers, etc.) found in the later portions; they may have illustrated well the extent to which Dorian was captured by these but did not capture me in the same way, and they were the only moments that I truly glazed over while reading.
A wonderful interplay between a lot of great themes: society's spectators and their objects of fascination, an artist and their art, an artist and their muse, naivete and cynicism, moralism and hedonism, the way we change through that which we consume and those with which we associate, one's pleasures and one's conscience, all that good stuff. The topics and their treatment were both engaging, and Wilde's writing was certainly lovely even if it did not pull me in the same way that others sometimes do. The half-star off of perfect is only for that. Some of my favorite moments would have to be our ever-quotable Lord Henry's "a saying for everything" manner of engaging with the world and Dorian's private moments of crisis. My least favorite would probably be some of the lengthy, indulgent descriptions of things (gems, flowers, etc.) found in the later portions; they may have illustrated well the extent to which Dorian was captured by these but did not capture me in the same way, and they were the only moments that I truly glazed over while reading.
I've been working through strategies to optimize my own work in this area, sparked on by recognizing the number of things I had seen, heard, read, or thought that had since left me entirely because they were not, in a sense, tied down to the rest of my knowledge by integrating them into a greater system or worldview. After reading about others using notes in the slip box style, I picked up an eBook copy of this and liked it quite a lot. I have been working in this fashion since, and though it is still early, I have found it very promising.
It's hard for me to assign a rating to this book because I feel that the information presented (the overview and explanation of the Zettelkasten method, the ideas for optimizing information storage for output, use, or retrieval rather than for ease of input, and the focus on the generation and output of new knowledge in the form of writing as the primary goal and measure of academic reading) this is all great, but the tone of the writing in some places and a bit of burdensome repetition of the same points made it a less enticing read. I would have rated it lower for the writing if I did not believe the ideas presented were of great value for those interested in leveraging slip box note taking for their own work.
I've been working through strategies to optimize my own work in this area, sparked on by recognizing the number of things I had seen, heard, read, or thought that had since left me entirely because they were not, in a sense, tied down to the rest of my knowledge by integrating them into a greater system or worldview. After reading about others using notes in the slip box style, I picked up an eBook copy of this and liked it quite a lot. I have been working in this fashion since, and though it is still early, I have found it very promising.
It's hard for me to assign a rating to this book because I feel that the information presented (the overview and explanation of the Zettelkasten method, the ideas for optimizing information storage for output, use, or retrieval rather than for ease of input, and the focus on the generation and output of new knowledge in the form of writing as the primary goal and measure of academic reading) this is all great, but the tone of the writing in some places and a bit of burdensome repetition of the same points made it a less enticing read. I would have rated it lower for the writing if I did not believe the ideas presented were of great value for those interested in leveraging slip box note taking for their own work.