Somber Seer

Somber Seer ANTHONY LEJEUNE

HERE ARE SOME books which it is- better to know about than to read. Just as a misquotation, having been polished by many minds, may be bet- ter than the original, so the valuable ideas in an unreadable and, in other respects, wrong-headed book may, by the mere spinning of its reputa- tion, be sorted from the sludge, like gold-dust in a miner’s pan. Some- times, of course, the process works just the other way—the gold is lost and the sludge remains: but not, I think, with Spengler. “Oswald Speng- ler’s The Decline of the West,’ says his translator, ‘is a book more talked about than read.” Which, on the whole, is a bit of luck for Spengler.

AL

About the Author

Anthony Lejeune

Somber Seer ANTHONY LEJEUNE

HERE ARE SOME books which it is- better to know about than to read. Just as a misquotation, having been polished by many minds, may be bet- ter than the original, so the valuable ideas in an unreadable and, in other respects, wrong-headed book may, by the mere spinning of its reputa- tion, be sorted from the sludge, like gold-dust in a miner’s pan. Some- times, of course, the process works just the other way—the gold is lost and the sludge remains: but not, I think, with Spengler. “Oswald Speng- ler’s The Decline of the West,’ says his translator, ‘is a book more talked about than read.” Which, on the whole, is a bit of luck for Spengler.