David James (7) (1966–)

I have never not finished a book. And by that I mean I have always never not finished a book. A combination of high-level reading-while-walking-fu and just being really fast with my verbal cortex or whatever has allowed me to grow to adulthood and function with this ridiculous injunction my bookly OCD forces me to put on myself. There are exceptions, like the dictionary and stuff you flip through in the store and books you take one article from for a paper, but mostly this is it, my only claim to fame.


Until today, when I cracked the spine on this pile of ugly. Not only did I not never not finish it, I quit trying to not never not finish it after like forty pages. And I skimmed most of those. This book purports to make Hegel easier for you if you are "perplexed", and I am no friend of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich's, but in fact it actually makes him more confusing. Somehow.


And usually I would give a book that's merely monumentally worthless one star and save 1/2 for books that are actively vile/evil/inimical to life, but maybe the irony in the guidebook-fail and the fact that this is the first book I've ever not finished justify the lower rating. A celebration of sorts.


So yeah, I dropped it. I'll try not to make it a habit, but it's important to try new things.… (mais)