MMMD Week 1

Pages 1-25

It’s time!!! I hope the new year finds everyone happy, wealthy and healthy!

Announcements - I believe I need to post these a week in advance for the readings. I’m going to try and make them short and accessible? but there is so much and even I am finding new things in the story during my 5th read through! This book is a life long endeavor (sorry, not sorry to anyone who feels otherwise).

Synopsis of Chapter 1 & 2 - To All My Darlings Volume 1 pg 7-38

Shaviro’s notes - Prof. Shaviro has graciously allowed me to share links to his notes on MMMD from his Facebook group which read the novel in 2019. You will need a Dropbox account (free) to access the epub and text files.

EPUB - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mel29968k3ftft9rpw5cs/Miss-MacIntosh-reading-notes.epub?rlkey=58ma1wdn8wjtqfcf5oaupbp7h&dl=0

TEXT - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cxawcqj6mmo08vy6ieduc/Macintosh.md?rlkey=9dtg0de6ezbqmrwipkgzayhpp&dl=0

• things have worlds and worlds inside (the whole philosophical system as a circle of circles - Hegel) Young in an interview described the structure of MMMD as spokes of a wheel with Miss MacIntosh in the middle.

• Phenomenology is a philosophical study and movement largely associated with the early 20th century that seeks to objectively investigate the nature of subjective, conscious experience. It attempts to describe the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe phenomena as they appear to the subject, and to explore the meaning and significance of the lived experiences.^[1]

• Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. Informal logic examines arguments expressed in natural language whereas formal logic uses formal language. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a specific logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Logic plays a central role in many fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics.

• Other Philosophical Subject Matters - in Volume 3 of To All My Darlings I have included a chapter on all the philosophy that I think is included in MMMD.

• the soul is “inexactitude” pg 202-208

• the individual is the one illusion

• rhetorical questions pg 167-196 and pg 268

Dialectic

1. the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions

2. inquiry into metaphysical contradictions and their solutions

Hegel’s Dialectics - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/

Hegel’s Dialectical Method - https://www.literatureandcriticism.com/hegel-dialectics/

What the heck is dialectics? https://bayareadbtcc.com/38-what-the-heck-is-dialectics/

I liked these two graphics about dialectics as well -

And we also get our first taste of intertextuality with a mention of the white lady which can be taken from The Woman in White.

Fate - the development of events beyond a person’s control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. Among early Christians fate was approached in different ways. One approach is “divine omnicausality” where the assumption would be that God causes every creaturely event that occurs and in this way exercises comprehensive control over the minutest aspects of his creatures’ activities.

Audio discussion of pages 1-25