/lit/ - Literature

>>17427295
>>17427813
>>17428541
Here's your scholarship bro

>>16506968
>>16507425

If this is the level of historiography at work, then no.

>>16209404

>>14110155
>>14110173
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1906990944

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1906990944

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1906990944

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1906990944

>>13977115
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1906990944

>>13972848
Libido Dominandi is the first draft of a great work. As it is, it is a failure, suffering from shoddy writing, poor research, and a wandering and inconsistent thesis. What should be an erudite and compelling polemic against the the sexual revolution—Western culture’s death knell—is an inconsistent and often unreadable mess.

A bird’s-eye view of Jones’s thesis—that our inability to control our sexual drive has been used for the purpose of political suppression—is beyond reproach. Of course, Catholic leaders have been saying the same thing for years. Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus operates as a rough outline of the book, beginning with Augustine’s distinctions between the City of Man and the City of God, and going on to condemn freemasonry. Who know if Jones himself was actually aware of his debt?

Regardless, Jones is not exactly marking new ground here. For this book to be worthwhile, it must function as a polemic which inspires the vanguard, and provides grist for later scholars. Dr. Jones’s work does neither. I was hoping for a traditionalist version of Das Kapital, but instead got a book that was barely worth finishing, let alone carrying into the trenches.

First and foremost, his writing is very, very poor. The overall structure of the book—jumping from year to year, place to place, vignette to vignette—makes it hard to follow intellectual rather than a thematic elements. Given the fact that the book’s thesis is nebulous and has a tendency to change as Jones goes along (more on that below), reading the book is a major slog.

A inquiring reader can jump to any given page to witness Jones’s lame writing. More shocking is his plain sloppiness and failure to edit himself. Just one of many many examples: On page 88, the author quotes Abbe Barruel, ending with “for men may be turned into any thing by him who knows how to take advantage of their ruling passion.” ONE PARAGRAPH LATER Jones uses the SAME EXACT QUOTE, except he finishes with the word “passions”—not “passion.” In other words, Jones repeats the exact same argument by using the same quote in succeeding paragraphs—and cannot even get the quoted material right! To call this a first draft is too kind—it is a first draft seemingly written the night before it was due! This is simply unforgivable.

>>13494780
>Libido Dominandi is the first draft of a great work. As it is, it is a failure, suffering from shoddy writing, poor research, and a wandering and inconsistent thesis. What should be an erudite and compelling polemic against the the sexual revolution—Western culture’s death knell—is an inconsistent and often unreadable mess.
[...]
>First and foremost, his writing is very, very poor. The overall structure of the book—jumping from year to year, place to place, vignette to vignette—makes it hard to follow intellectual rather than a thematic elements. Given the fact that the book’s thesis is nebulous and has a tendency to change as Jones goes along (more on that below), reading the book is a major slog.
>A inquiring reader can jump to any given page to witness Jones’s lame writing. More shocking is his plain sloppiness and failure to edit himself. Just one of many many examples: On page 88, the author quotes Abbe Barruel, ending with “for men may be turned into any thing by him who knows how to take advantage of their ruling passion.” ONE PARAGRAPH LATER Jones uses the SAME EXACT QUOTE, except he finishes with the word “passions”—not “passion.” In other words, Jones repeats the exact same argument by using the same quote in succeeding paragraphs—and cannot even get the quoted material right! To call this a first draft is too kind—it is a first draft seemingly written the night before it was due! This is simply unforgivable.
[...]
>Let’s start here: Jones has habit of noting tacit connections between his characters rather than connecting the intellectual undercurrents which united them. This method moves along more like a conspiracy theory or a six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon game than scholarship. For example, in the early chapters, Jones repeatedly tries to unite the Marquis de Sade, William Godwin, Abbe Barruel. It really does not work; Jones is forced to use lame narrative devices such as speculating what Mary Wollstonecraft must have been thinking while she trudged through the blood-drenched Paris streets; speculations over how affected Percy and Mary Shelley were by Sade; huge leaps of faith over the effect the good priest Barruel had on later sex perverts. With regards to the English liberals, it is clear that Jones simply does not respect their work enough to learn it and refute it—Paglia's work would serve him well here. More than this, the idea that later sex-mongers were inspired by the Jesuit reactionary Barruel’s is largely speculation; even if it were true, who cares? There are countless secret societies; the question is why the secret societies promoting sexual perversion ended up so popular. Instead of adequately defining the relevant intellectual undercurrents, Jones is reliant on his vignettes and weak editorializing.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1906990944

>>13382641

>>13370593

>>13346284
Libido Dominandi is the first draft of a great work. As it is, it is a failure, suffering from shoddy writing, poor research, and a wandering and inconsistent thesis. What should be an erudite and compelling polemic against the the sexual revolution—Western culture’s death knell—is an inconsistent and often unreadable mess.

A bird’s-eye view of Jones’s thesis—that our inability to control our sexual drive has been used for the purpose of political suppression—is beyond reproach. Of course, Catholic leaders have been saying the same thing for years. Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus operates as a rough outline of the book, beginning with Augustine’s distinctions between the City of Man and the City of God, and going on to condemn freemasonry. Who know if Jones himself was actually aware of his debt?

Regardless, Jones is not exactly marking new ground here. For this book to be worthwhile, it must function as a polemic which inspires the vanguard, and provides grist for later scholars. Dr. Jones’s work does neither. I was hoping for a traditionalist version of Das Kapital, but instead got a book that was barely worth finishing, let alone carrying into the trenches.

First and foremost, his writing is very, very poor. The overall structure of the book—jumping from year to year, place to place, vignette to vignette—makes it hard to follow intellectual rather than a thematic elements. Given the fact that the book’s thesis is nebulous and has a tendency to change as Jones goes along (more on that below), reading the book is a major slog.

A inquiring reader can jump to any given page to witness Jones’s lame writing. More shocking is his plain sloppiness and failure to edit himself. Just one of many many examples: On page 88, the author quotes Abbe Barruel, ending with “for men may be turned into any thing by him who knows how to take advantage of their ruling passion.” ONE PARAGRAPH LATER Jones uses the SAME EXACT QUOTE, except he finishes with the word “passions”—not “passion.” In other words, Jones repeats the exact same argument by using the same quote in succeeding paragraphs—and cannot even get the quoted material right! To call this a first draft is too kind—it is a first draft seemingly written the night before it was due! This is simply unforgivable.

Interesting scholarship...