Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)

I'm finding it a very good brain workout to clamber through Johnson's magisterial Augustan prose and figure out his meaning; usually still very apt and wise. Human nature doesn't change much; Johnson appears to have predicted Brexit:

"How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice;
How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress'd,
When vengeance listens to the fool's request"
(Vanity of Human Wishes)

and the downside of social media:

"That the highest degree of reverence should be paid to youth, and that nothing indecent should be suffered to approach their eyes or ears..... the same kind, though not the same degree, of caution, is required in every thing which is laid before them, to secure show more them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous combinations of images"
(The Rambler, 31 March 1750)

and the rise of Trump:

"The Roarer....has no other qualification for a champion of controversy than a hardened front and strong voice. Having seldom so much desire to confute as to silence, he depends rather upon vociferation than argument, and has very little care to adjust one part of his accusation to another, to preserve decency in his language, or probability in his narratives. He has always a score of reproachful epithets and contemptuous appellations, ready to be produced as occasion may require, which by constant use he pours out with resistless volubility."
(The Rambler, 3 August 1751) show less

Nobody reads [a:Samuel Johnson|22191|Samuel Johnson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1209488222p2/22191.jpg] anymore. There are a lot of misconceptions about his conservatism that tend to make moderns think his scribbles irrelevant nowadays. This is unfortunate because a lot of what he says is sensible and the way he states it is still lively even today. I guess I'm used to archaic language so that makes it easier for me sometimes.

The present volume contains selections from journalism, the Dictionary, Shakespeare, Lives of the poets, poetry, journals, letters. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if the selection is truly "the best."

The main thing about Johnson is not so much what he is saying but how he says it. I wish I show more could wrap my feeble vocabulary around things as concisely and as incisively as Johnson does. The real pleasure in reading it is the words themselves and how they are constructed as much as the message. Admittedly you have to be into the language as language itself to appreciate Johnson in this way and it is true that many of his notions are irrelevant or old fashioned by today's standards.

The only problem with a book like this is it only gives a taste of each aspect of Johnson's life and writings. The complete longer pieces: London and Life of Savage whet the appetite but the rest of the book is just excerpts and leaves one longing for the entire. I would say that in this volume the most interesting piece is the excerpt from [b:A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides|341292|A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides|Samuel Johnson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389141282s/341292.jpg|679562] and I would seek out the complete edition plus Boswell's [b:A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides|341292|A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides|Samuel Johnson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389141282s/341292.jpg|679562] companion volume of the same journey.

The only other criticism I have is there is nothing from [b:The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia|1941055|The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia|Samuel Johnson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1349059844s/1941055.jpg|920095]. show less