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Snoring as a Fine Art, and Twelve Other Essays

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Albert J. Nock was a libertarian anarchist who entitled his autobiography "The Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" because he acknowledged that he did not fit in the 20th century. Little is known of his private life; he followed a maxim of Epicurus: "Live unknown," but his ideas were legion. He grew up in Michigan, played semi-pro baseball, graduated from college with a class of four, developed a felicitous prose style, and wandered back and forth between America and Europe discussing and writing about ideas for 30 years before retiring to Brussels, one of the last "civilized" refuges available. Nock was a clarifying thinker. He never presented his ideas as being new, hot off the press. It was his forte to give the known a new twist, a slant on things which usually conflicted with the stereotypical thinking of his contemporaries. Nock was also a "radical" thinker, insistent on getting to the root of the matter and not being satisfied with supreficial explanations. His desire in every instance was to find the reason of the thing, to get wisdon, to get understanding. What is remarkable about Nock is that he helped the truth along without encumbering it with himself. "The Art of Snoring" is a collection of dozen essays with titles as varied as: "Utopia in Pennsylvania: The Amish," "Henry George: Unorthodox American," Bret Harte as a Paradist Wtih a Note on Nationalism in Literature," and "Alas, Poor Yorick! An Apology for the Human Race." A veritable treasure chest of of provocation delivered in a warm, spare style which never loses the reader however complex the idea. The title essay is a discursion on the discovery that Tolstoy's portrayal of General Kutusov, the leader of the Russian army at the time of Napoleon's invasion, was correct, even though the study disagreed with most military histories of the conflict. Kutusov's strategy was to ignore the advice of his subordinates and the Tsar, who hungered for distinction and a battle, and to do nothing and let the Russian climate drive Napolean out. As Nock put it: "Even the Tsar had to bottle up his chagrin in the face of the fact that, even if his old general's management had not been exactly stylish, it had nevertheless somehow turned the trick in the cheapest and most effective way." When's the last time you heard a general described as stylish? Nock tells the story of Kutusov and draws the lesson that under certain circumstances, "snoring should be regarded as a fine art and respected accordingly." He concludes by noting that too little snoring is done - quite the opposite. I can recommend without reservation any book Nock wrote. He's largely unknown to readers, but as one of his admirers said: "To him Henry George and Thomas Jefferson were quite as unassailable as Montaigne and Rabelais, and he reserved the right to be their exclusive interpreter. . . .A man who writes like an angel deserves to be loved for that; but Nock was to be even more admired for his ideas which never failed him." He was a man too rare today, a writer willing to defend his prejudices, immoveable, ineradicable, Gargantuan, buttressed on every side with warehouses of learning pigeonhold for immediate and triumphant service. Try him. You'll never look at the world the same way.