Customer Reviews

The Waste Books (New York Review Books Classics)

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Lichtenberg truly observes and thinks, forgive my cliched phrase, with a child's wonder. Thinking and Observing are, for him, downright entertainment not, as for most of us, labour-work. Even such strict critics as Schopenhauer and Nietszche have to off-hat to this unusual man.

One point to note for this translation: Mr. Hollingdale sometimes omits some part of an aphorism without obvious reasons. Take the first aphorism as an example: the translation reads:'the great artifice of regarding small deviations from the truch as being the truth itself is at the same time the foundation of wit...'; while the original is 'Der grosse Kunstgriff, kleine Abweichungen von der Wahrheit fur die Wahrheit selbst zu halten, worauf die ganze Differentialrechnung gebaut ist, ist auch zugleich der Grund unserer witzigen Gedanken...'; why the phrase 'worauf die ganze Differentialrechnung gebaut ist' is not translated? Sometimes Lichtenberg's idea just keeps rambling, and it makes sense on the translator's part to cut it short, but in some cases Mr. Hollingdale's chopping puzzles me.

All the same, this edition is a valuable one, supplementing the "Lichtenberg Reader" translated, edited and introduced by Franz H. Mautner and Henry Hatfield. Readers who have German can consult the 4-vol. "Schriften und Briefe" edited by Wolfgang Promies (with 2 useful vol.s of "Kommentar"; Hanser Verlag, 1967).

I guess any lover of Lichtenberg would often murmur to themselves: 'May this wonderful man be better known!' And I think this translation has served well to make Lichtenberg better known in many parts of the world.

"The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery." This is a cynic notation considering the fate of the Red Indians. "A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments..." sounds like George W. Bush - but is written down by Professor (not Condoleezza Rice), by Professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799. He has been a philosopher, but his writing-style was more comfortable to any reader, than the work of the other German genius of that time: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Lichtenberg loved the ideas of the French Enlightenment and he tried to explain the ideas of empiric science with humor. He was critical against Christian dogmatics. He once shortly noted: "An Amen face." Or longer: "Nothing offers me such clear proof of how things stand in the world of learning than the circumstance that Spinoza was for so long regarded as an evil, worthless person and his opinions as dangerous." Lichtenberg has been a philosopher - but writing with esprit. If you can tolerate his bile, buy his book: "Who has two pairs of trousers turn one of them into cash and purchase this book." But bear in mind: "A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, - an apostle is unlikely to look out!"

"The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery." This is a cynic notation considering the fate of the Red Indians. "A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments..." sounds like George W. Bush - but is written down by Professor (not Condoleezza Rice), by Professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799. He has been a philosopher, but his writing-style was more comfortable to any reader, than the work of the other German genius of that time: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Lichtenberg loved the ideas of the French Enlightenment and he tried to explain the ideas of empiric science with humor. He was critical against Christian dogmatics. He once shortly noted: "An Amen face." Or longer: "Nothing offers me such clear proof of how things stand in the world of learning than the circumstance that Spinoza was for so long regarded as an evil, worthless person and his opinions as dangerous." Lichtenberg has been a philosopher - but writing with esprit. If you can tolerate his bile, buy his book: "Who has two pairs of trousers turn one of them into cash and purchase this book." But bear in mind: "A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, - an apostle is unlikely to look out!"