“I need another indulgence. In almost all these studies I have found the author himself more interesting than any character in his books, and his career more instructive than the imaginary world by which he revealed or cloaked himself. I varied an old motto, and told myself, Cherchez l’homme – search for the man.” – Will Durant, Interpretations of Life

In 1967, Will Durant published Rousseau and Revolution, his tenth and – so he thought at the time – final entry to his monumental Story of Civilization, a series of books published over nearly four decades, each aiming to capture and convey the essence of a significant era in human history. Eight years later he would give the world his eleventh and truly final volume, The Age of Napoleon. Between these books and before this realization that he had another Story to tell, Durant pivoted to biographize, analyze and reflect on twentieth century literature and its authors; the result is Interpretations of Life.

First published in 1970, the book is titled in appreciation of the widely varied works these authors produced while reckoning the nature of existence. It features seventeen chapters and a several authors more than that. Most authors are given their own chapters. Some are grouped together, such as Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and others in ‘The Philosophers’, and Sholokhov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Yevtushenko in ‘Literature Under the Soviets.’ There are three pairings of writers. John Steinbeck with Upton Sinclair had both passed in 1968 while Durant was writing Interpretations, and so the chapter is framed as a dual obituary: “Each of them fought throughout life against the cruelty of man to man or beast; each struck a lusty blow for justice by writing a book that stirred the nation…” Robinson Jeffers and Ezra Pound are two of the 20^th century’s most controversial poets and so are matched here. Sartre is paired de Beauvoir, being the most necessary dual-biography, as Durant argues that to “divorce” their lives and works is to not fully understand them.

Durant, formerly writing mostly on centuries past, here focuses on the era in which he was living. Several authors selected were still alive at the time of publication. Sartre would live one decade more, and he notes that Solzhenitsyn was working on, but had not finished The Gulag Archipelago. This shift proved to be a non-issue; from his lengthy historical works Durant had developed perspective enough to, as he would put it, “see the part in the whole” even as history was unfolding.The selections are, however, colored by an admission Durant emphasizes in the conclusion, wherein he acknowledges the nature of writing about his own era and the inherent, inescapable bias this comes with. These writers lived and breathed alongside him, and the great and terrible moments of the twentieth century that formed the perspectives of these authors formed Durant as well. It is this sentiment of a shared era that he emphasizes in his final, reflective chapter, and he goes on to thus conclude the book: “The twentieth century is the age of Nietzsche, as he predicted it would be: the age of dictators unmoved by any moral tradition, of wars made more deadly and devastating by the progress of science; the age of the “death of God” for those who lead the parade in thought and power…”

The book excels because it does not confine these great and influential minds to vacuums. Their lives, words and deeds are contextualized and their appearance in the world is framed as the events that they were. Here he repeats the style and format he used in his previous The Story of Philosophy (1926). The writers are provided historical background with thorough commentary on the time and place they inhabited. The major events of their lives are chronicled. Similar space is given to their significant works, wherein the nature of the work itself is discussed, significant themes and purposes are identified, and often retrospectives on the influence they later would enjoy. From The Story of Philosophy he also developed the skill of communicating philosophical ideas, works and arguments with clarity, and this quality is reflected throughout Interpretations.  

Durant is a fair critic. He does not fawn too deeply or dismiss too harshly, seeing both the parts and the wholes of a man’s life and career. The chapter on Hemingway provides an excellent example of this. When focusing on biography, he describes the man himself as “totally alive, and had vitality enough for a dozen matadors. His courage was all the deeper for having to fight fear…” He chronicles Hemingway’s remarkable life, experience and heroisms with such appreciation that the pivot to his writing is almost surprising, wherein he asks if any of Hemingway’s books were “…as rich in incident and character as his life? Excepting The Old Man and the Sea his novels were too timely to be timeless…” And yet, in the chapter’s conclusion, Durant provides the perfect synthesis of these themes and observations: “He left behind him a frothy wake of imitators who used his tricks of tough talk and staccato dialogue, of flashbacks and symbolism and stream of consciousness, but who never rivaled the simplicity, clarity, and verve of his style, or the stimulating challenges of his thought. The imitators fade away, but the figure of Ernest Hemingway remains… Voila un homme!”

He is harshest on Ezra Pound, the target most deserving of criticism out of the authors featured, both for his compensated contributions to Mussolini’s propaganda machines and for his undisciplined literary style – the former clearly the more grievous sin than the latter. Preparing to outline Cantos, Pound’s most controversial poem that was published gradually throughout his life, Durant produces one of the sharpest criticisms to be made on some schools of 20th century literature: “Art ceases to be a communication in significant form, and becomes a crossword puzzle for the leisure class.” He characterizes the lengthy poem as reading “like Socialist pamphlets, and become poetry only through typography.” Nevertheless, Durant still sees Pound as a complicated man, and despite his transgressions in life and literature, he is granted a dignified sendoff: “He was often absurd, even as you and I; but we forget our blunders and hide our sins, while Pound spread his follies over the mercuries of the air…”

He handles a century of diverse literature well. There are many genres, ideas, themes, styles and schools of writing discussed and, while he treats them with fairness, it is impossible to read the many works these wildly differing authors produced without adopting clear preferences. Durant is open about his prejudices and how his responses were formed. He occasionally adopts a confessional style – he wants his biases known and understood. He opens the chapter on Jeffers and Pound: “I have given up the attempt to understand contemporary poetry. I am too old, too bound to prose, to puzzle over the built-in obscurity of twentieth-century verse.” Yet in other chapters he does display a great appreciation for recent poetry, and such statements largely seem intended to not wholly cut down the literary contributions of a man like Pound. He makes a similar admission when he praises Camus in the beginning of his respective chapter: “I confess to a personal prejudice in preferring, for these studies, those authors who have dressed in fiction, drama, or poetry the problems of philosophy, rather than those who sought, by sensitivity, imagination, and artistry, to give some passing beauty a form that could be caressed by generations yet unborn.” These statements do not read like deflections from criticism that seek to turn ignorance or humility into an advantage; rather, Durant is inescapably authentic. He is open about his literary inclinations and how these may have formed his estimations. His honesty is refreshing.

As is his wit. The book could not be called “dry” by any means. Durant’s style is consistently charming and often funny. When writing about William Faulkner’s Sanctuary (1931) being adapted into the Hollywood Film The Story of Temple Drake (1933), Durant states: “The film makers responded, the picture prospered, and a critic called the book ‘one of the finest novels in modern literature.’ It is terrible.” And, concerning Joyce: “In July, 1920, Joyce and his family went to Paris for a week’s stay; they remained there twenty years.” So too is he gifted at finding wit in others, again concerning Joyce, specifically the United States censorship boards deliberation of Ulysses – “The ban against it in America was removed by U.S. District Court Judge John Munro Woolsey on December 6, 1933, on the ground that “whilst in many places the effect of ‘Ulysses’ on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.”’

Interpretations of Life is, perhaps, not as interesting or memorable as his other works – but that is through no inherent mistake; titans of literature though they are, the subjects here largely cannot match the depth or importance of those captured in his various Stories. It is easier to reflect on a few leaders, minds or events that time has concluded held the most influence on an era, and move on, than it is to focus on one type of thinker in an era that time is still deliberating. But the book’s theme was chosen, treated with intelligence and care, and succeeded exceptionally well in fulfilling its purpose. There is some lapse of consistency of form and length, and some may find an injustice here, finding that their preferred authors were allotted a few brief pages where others were given nearly fifty; but this quality too makes the work more honest. There are far more books from interesting people than there is time to read them, and even one as well-read as Durant is no exception.  

There is now some distance between us and the twentieth century. Looking back, it is easy to agree with Durant’s conviction, quoted earlier from the final paragraph of Interpretations, that it was “the age of the “death of God” for those who lead the parade in thought and power…” Yet Durant was not a pessimist, for the quote continues, and the book ultimately concludes: “…But the poets and artists and dreamers are not dead; they will tell new stories, paint new pictures, of our heroes, our achievements, and our possibilities; we shall be inspired and strengthened again; and we shall go on to add to our heritage.”

“To put an end to the spirit of inquiry it is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is leave them unread for a few generations.” – Robert Hutchins, The Great Conversation

The shortest and surest road to wisdom is to understand it by its near synonym – perspective. Wisdom is to see beyond fad and fashion – beyond modern, postmodern; wisdom is historical. If you desire wisdom, and thereby perspective, you must necessarily join the Great Conversation. Perfectly titled, The Great Conversation is Encyclopedia Britannica’s introduction to the company’s ‘Great Books of the Western World’ set. Written by Robert Hutchins, the Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopedia Britannica at the time of publication in 1952, it serves as ‘Book One’ of the set and – despite some awkward decisions, it nevertheless serves as an excellent invitation to the definitive history of Western intellectual thought.

The overarching theme of the book stems from the title itself as it refers to what the set of books is intended to be – humanity’s shared progress in understanding life seen through the lens of a conversation; that is, progressive books in the set appear to know of, converse, debate, and build off those that came before. This conversation is the story of Western intellectual history.

The book is comprised of ten chapters, each seeking to emphasize the importance of The Great Books of the Western World set through a different point and argument. It provides an excellent perspective for the reading of classics through these different approaches – that education should be considered a life-long journey, that this sort of liberal education is on its decline – and so on. Its chapters largely seek the same goal overall – but there is a considerable overlap of points. The overall thesis is to persuade the reader of the value of these books and to convince you to continue reading further into the set. So too do they want it understood that these works are timeless – and the editors do not see themselves as mere “…tourists on a visit to ancient ruins or to the quaint productions of primitive peoples.”

Hutchins too addresses common concerns about the reading of classics. Many were written when men held slaves. Some pre-date the scientific method. How can they possibly be applied to our current society? Hutchins calls the dismissal of the timelessness of these works a kind of “sociological determinism.” That is, the books are not meant for one age alone. Hutchins’ childhood dreams were to become an “iceman” or a “motorman” – occupations dying in his era, completely extinct in ours. He argues – “No society so determines intellectual activity that there can be no major intellectual disagreements in it. The conservative and the radical, the practical man and the theoretician, the idealist and the realist will be found in every society…” – and so too are they found in this set.

I do wish more of the book followed the theme of the preface, explaining more of the methodology and overall process in creating the set as opposed to the ‘preaching to the choir’ sentiment other chapters of the book assume – but a middle chapter, titled ‘Experimental Science,’ is an interesting pinnacle of the book. We naturally grateful for the efforts of Ptolemy, of Kepler, of Gilbert and Huygens – but it is a common question to ask – what use are they to me now? Is it not a better use of my time to simply read the most modern textbook as opposed to these dated works riddled with antiquated knowledge? This is the perspective the editors seek to correct: “…[we] do not agree that the great poets of every time are to be walked with and talked with, but not those who brought deep insight into the mystery of number and magnitude or the natural phenomena they observed around them.” Reading the works of these ancients is not necessarily about learning what is true – it is about conversing with one of history’s greatest minds while it thinks as clearly as possible with the facts it has at its disposal. It is this precision of thought and language that makes the reading of these works worthwhile: “As far as the medium of communication is concerned, they [scientific books] are products of the most elegant literary style, saying precisely what is meant.” In our age, it is not hard to see how many treat science as a kind of faith – ignoring the scientific method and accepting whatever pleases them if it affirms a pre-existing bias. This is another reason why these works are so valuable, so Hutchins states: “The facts are indispensable; they are not sufficient. To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect… Those who have condemned thinkers who have insisted on the importance of ideas have often overlooked the equal insistence of these writers on obtaining the facts. These critics have themselves frequently misunderstood the scientific method and have confused it with the mindless accumulation of data.”

The editors are well-enough aware of how “intimidating” the set of books can feel. The authors and their texts are not condensed or edited – and being presented with the totality of such monumental works can feel insurmountable to understand. But Hutchins counters this sentiment perfectly – “The question for you is only whether you can ever understand these books well enough to participate in the Great Conversation, not whether you can understand them well enough to end it.” And it is this sentiment of uneasiness of being able to feel as though you conclusively ‘finished’ a Great book, understanding it in its totality, that the author wants you to see cannot be done and should not be your goal: “There is a simple test of this. Take any great book that you read in school or college and have not read since. Read it again. Your impression that you understood it will at once be corrected. Think what it means, for instance, to read Macbeth at sixteen in contrast to reading it at thirty-five… To read great books, if we read them at all, in childhood and youth and never read them again is never to understand them.”

My issue with the work largely rests with the book’s ambiguity of purpose and the extent it seems to pamper anyone pre-emptively in agreement. The final chapter, ‘A Letter to the Reader,’ opens thus: “I imagine you are reading this far in this set of books for the purpose of discovering whether you should read further… The Editors are not interesting in general propositions about the desirability of reading the books; they want them read. They did not produce them as furniture for public or private libraries.” The point is noble enough, but it is again attempting to convince those who would never read this collection of works– and thereby has immediately dated itself, betraying a lack of perspective. Who would go out of their way to purchase ‘The Great Conversation’ alone? Yes, there are many who would purchase the set for an unearned appearance of worldliness, but was it worth partly framing the work with them a target audience? What of the rest who jumped in, to phrase it rather arrogantly, with caution to the wind? I can appreciate this catch-all approach to formulating a theme, but such passages can make the book feel over-long, even at a very modest 82 pages. If you are in early agreement with the of majority of the author’s points, you would quickly become suspicious at the degree to which you are being catered to.

Lovers of great books will likely hold Hutchins’ posed truths to be self-evident. Being so ardently coddled would put any decent mind on guard – and cause it to ask what it is being sold. And yet, Hutchins nevertheless presents one of the rarest encounters – where there is no snake oil – and the author is genuinely handing you the keys to the universe. One only wishes they were dealing with a better salesman. In spite of these flaws, I would argue it a worthy read independent of the context of the set of books. More than anything, its intention is to “arm” the reader – to go out and be strong advocates for the reading of great books. It is a work born out of a sense of mourning, and if Hutchins was dismal about the state of liberal education over half a century ago, one could only imagine what he would feel today. Yet my estimation of the faults is likely hyperbolic. Did the editors rise to the occasion of making a satisfying introduction to the set? Yes, but with clauses. Could they have done more? Absolutely. Are their causes one of the most important and noblest in the world? Unequivocally.