Customer Reviews

Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul

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I cannot believe no one has reviewed Roy Porter's last book. It reminds me of the Metaphysical Club, but it is perhaps a bit more wry. I enjoyed it thoroughly and have added it to my collection of books on the Enlightenment. It was simultaneously funny and intellectual stimulating. Also, Porter makes the subject of the Enlightmentment exciting.

Flesh in the Age of Reason is wonderful. I mean, I cannot give this book enough credit. One can easily find books on various aspects of Enlightenment period philosophy. Adams, Hume, Locke, et al., are easy to find. But, put into context with their day, their battles with each other, and the growth of their ideas in that context is something not as easily found.

Roy Porter passed away just after finishing and publishing this work and it is a fitting end to his career. In fact, in retrospect, it seems a fitting exploration for one on the verge of death himself. Was Porter, aware that the end of his days was approaching, was he seeking to locate that final truth? I cannot say, but he certainly gave the rest of us who are still shuffling about this mortal coil a great resource to assist us in our own search.

This book neatly "historicizes" the ebb and flow of Enlightenment philosophy and gives us all something to think about.

Thanks Roy Porter and R.I.P.

At the tender age of 55, while enjoying early retirement in the county of Sussex, British historian Roy Porter fell of his bike and passed away. Apparently his overcrowded curriculum had gotten the better of him. He wanted to slow down and learn to play the saxophone. His output had been enormous, culminating in his two books on the British Enlightenment. He had just finished Flesh in the Age of Reason but not yet organized the notes. Simon Schama, who has written a moving preface, and the publisher decided to leave it at that instead of trying to untangle the rather disorderly annotations. There is, however, a massive bibliography. Maybe in part because there are no footnotes, the book has an even more literary feel to it and brims with uninterrupted narrative zest.
At the peak of his powers Porter was destined to thrill his readers for many years to come. "Thrill", because his style is filled with a warmth and wit seldom encountered in academia. His books shimmer with the pleasure of writing and this in combination with his vast erudition gave us something very special indeed. In his gargantuan appetite for life one sometimes gets the feeling that he wrote faster than we could read. Porter's writing on Laurence Sterne is hilarious and downright vertiginous; for a non-native reader a dictionary is probably advisory. Even though I haven't read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, it sounds as if it could have been taken right out of that novel.
In a panoramic sweep he also renders unforgettable portraits of Samuel Johnson (an "ideot" in the words of Hogarth), Erasmus Darwin, William Hazlitt, Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Boswell ("that pious drunk and godfearing lecher"), Edward Gibbon, who despite his corpulence and total lack of exercise actually became slightly older than Porter himself, and many others. Later chapters are interestingly devoted to two other idiosyncratic icons: Blake and Byron.
Being specialized in medicine, Porter has an eye for corporeal as well as spiritual matters, often giving the reader a glimpse behind the (sometimes!) shining surface. Without descending into voyeurism or gossip he describes his protagonists with their physical weaknesses and psychological peculiarities in full view.
LOCKE'S LEAKING SHOES refers to a rather shocking piece of advice offered by the famous philosopher on the blessings of early hardening of the young. Children should be systematically exposed to a bracing regime, including unheated bedrooms, cold-water bathing and wearing shoes that would "leak water" when it rained. Enlightened instructions, to be sure.
This book is, or can be seen as, a sequel to his Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (2000). His overriding idea is that the British contribution to the Enlightenment is underestimated. Pace Jonathan Israel, I'm prepared to believe anything he says. But first and foremost Flesh in the Age of Reason is a treasure trove. How many stars can one give?
Roy Porter is no more. We are all at a loss.

this is an exceptionally well written and entertaining survey of the major personalities of the 18th century english enlightenment and early 19th century romantics, and their individual places in the complex cultural tensions during that period -- between religious and secular, public and personal, classical and romantic, superstitious and scientific. All the big names are here (addison, boyle, byron, erasmus darwin, gibbon, johnson, locke, priestley, sterne, swift) as well as many lesser lights (godwin, hartley, mandeville, shaftesbury, willis), and their lives, opinions and writings are woven into an extended examination of mind and body, materialism and spirituality, individualism and identity, and the shifting definitions of man, humanity and gender politics. however the material is made accessible as relatively short, self contained or stand alone chapters that focus on a particular person or topic. the relatively large size and generous spacing of the typeface makes the book a brisk read, despite its bulk and length (573 pages).

this edition includes an extensive (80 pages, two columns) bibliography and a detailed index, but -- regrettably -- there are no endnotes or footnotes, so that all the facts, anecdotes, quotations and excerpts are completely unreferenced. the preface claims that this omission was necessary because porter died before the notes were compiled, and they could not be reconstructed because he used different editions of a single document (locke's treatises, boswell's "life of johnson", the various editions of the "spectator", etc.). given the availability of electronic (keyword searchable) editions of most of these classics, this seems to me a feeble excuse for editorial economy, but it does encourage a running rather than plodding engagement with the narrative.

i especially recommend this book as preliminary to a visit to the national portrait gallery (london), where portraits of most of the men described here are on display.