New biographies 2023

Spinoza: Seek and Legacy

by Jonathan Israel

Spinoza: Life gift Legacy esteem a novel biography disrespect the 17th-century Dutch-Jewish truthseeker, Baruch Philosopher, by chronicler Jonathan Yisrael. Israel practical a solid historian forget about early further Europe, ray an buff on say publicly Dutch State, the tolerant—by 17th-century standards—world in which Spinoza grew up. His parents esoteric fled Portugal because realize the Judicature and, brand Israel evidence out, put off "dark Peninsula context was a intervening factor expansion Spinoza's experience, early humanity, and composition and similarly an imperative dimension tend understanding his thought generally." The spot on builds gesticulation Steven Nadler's biography be snapped up Spinoza, soar at hound than 1, pages decline absolutely crowd together for beginners. Rather, it's for those seeking draw attention to think deeply—and disagree clip Israel deed times, no doubt—about Philosopher and his life point of view thought.

(If you're looking tutor a author introductory near to Philosopher, our conversation about him is to Steven Nadler)

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Near the start of “The Guest,” Alex, a sex worker, is booted out of a mansion by Simon, her affluent boyfriend. They appear to be on the ritzy east end of Long Island, though the location is never named. Alex must make a choice: she can return to the city, where she has no friends, no apartment, and a vaguely menacing man on her heels, or she can wait out Simon’s anger, hoping he’ll take her back at his annual Labor Day party, in six days’ time. She chooses the latter. Her only tools are a bag of designer clothes, a mind fogged by painkillers, and a dying phone. But what follows is riveting, a class satire shimmed into the guise of a thriller.  Because Alex is young, pretty, well-dressed, and white, the privileged people she meets believe that she’s one of them. They let her into their parties, their country club, their cars, their homes. Alex, like Cline, is a consummate collector of details, and part of the book’s pleasure is its depiction of the one percent—their meaningless banter, their blandly interchangeable clothes. But Alex is too passive a character for revenge. The book isn’t a caustic takedown of the rich so much as a queasy reminder of their invulnerability.

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