The Vulgar Eclectic

Vulgar: of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind
Eclectic: composed of elements drawn from various sources

definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster

recent blog posts

• Suppositions

  

• Lathyrus, wild pea

  

• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

  Book jot from April 2021:

  I just finished reading The Last of the Mohicans (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper. It’s one of his Leatherstocking Tales, and second in the internal chronology of the series, although it can be read as a stand-alone novel.

  A tale of adventure and action, it seems like a sort of precursor to much of romantic modern fiction, including fantasy and some kinds of science fiction.

  Cooper has a peculiar prose style, even for the time. Somehow, I like it. And he does a great job putting you in the setting—the woods, riverbanks, and shorelines of North American wilderness.  The reader doesn’t really get inside of the characters very much, although I felt closer to the protagonists than I did in The Deerslayer, the book that precedes it. The ending is quite dramatic, and the reader is left with a sense of the profound value of friendship and loyalty.

  “We are not about to start on a squirrel hunt, or to drive a deer into the Horicon, but to outlie for days and nights, and to stretch across a wilderness where the feet of men seldom go, and where no bookish knowledge would carry you through, harmless.”

  

• Chicken of the Woods

  I came across this beautiful mushroom the other day in someone’s front yard. I believe it is from the Laetiporus genus, probably Laetiporus sulphureus.

  

• Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz

  I recently finished reading Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz, an autobiography published in 1996. Horowitz was born into a passionately Communist family in the United States and followed in his parents’ footsteps as a young man.

  The narrative describes his childhood and young adult years in engaging and descriptive prose. As a young man, he becomes deeply involved in the politics of the New Left. His experiences during this time are quite interesting from a historical point of view, as they relate to the organizations, people, and events prominent in the history of the radical left and to the larger geopolitics of the time.

  There is a nice balance of the personal and political, as Horowitz details his family life, as well as his work and relationships in the world of politics. Eventually he begins to have questions about his worldview and the work in which he’s engaged. These “second thoughts,” as he sometimes refers to them as, end up deeply affecting his life and mental health and he undergoes a long and difficult transformation.

  I found this autobiography to be an engrossing and very well-written view into someone else’s experiences and, ultimately, their interior life. The historical details, written from a participant’s personal perspective, add another layer of understanding beyond a simple chronological accounting of an era in our country’s history, as well as offer a window into the life of a single individual.

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