The Quality of Nock

Snoring as a Fine Art and Twelve Other Essays (Richard R. Smith, Inc., West Rindge, N.H., $3.00) is a collection of essays by Albert Jay Nock, now made available in book form, with an introduction by Suzanne La Follette. The subjects Nock chose to write about—from women to travel, from literature to politics—were as varied as one would expect from a man of letters of the old school. In his tastes and interests he was quite cosmopolitan. But, no matter what his subject, he brought to bear upon it a subsuming philosophy, not something that he would deign to spell out as in a textbook, but something that was in him. It could be called, although he might object to its being labelled, the philosophy of individualism.

For a full appreciation of this philosophy one is compelled to digest a number of his books and essays, though Memoirs of a Superfluous Man can give the careful reader a fair outline. Nock was such an individualist that he could never bring himself to be didactic about it, being convinced that no one could be a votary of his philosophy unless nature had so arranged “the furniture of his mind.”

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About the Author

Frank Chodorov

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Snoring as a Fine Art and Twelve Other Essays (Richard R. Smith, Inc., West Rindge, N.H., $3.00) is a collection of essays by Albert Jay Nock, now made available in book form, with an introduction by Suzanne La Follette. The subjects Nock chose to write about—from women to travel, from literature to politics—were as varied as one would expect from a man of letters of the old school. In his tastes and interests he was quite cosmopolitan. But, no matter what his subject, he brought to bear upon it a subsuming philosophy, not something that he would deign to spell out as in a textbook, but something that was in him. It could be called, although he might object to its being labelled, the philosophy of individualism.

For a full appreciation of this philosophy one is compelled to digest a number of his books and essays, though Memoirs of a Superfluous Man can give the careful reader a fair outline. Nock was such an individualist that he could never bring himself to be didactic about it, being convinced that no one could be a votary of his philosophy unless nature had so arranged “the furniture of his mind.”