Gardeners Garden

• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris

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  Brilliant biography of one of gods own prototypes - too OP for mass production

• The Gambler - Dostoyevsky

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  This was a hack job he did for money while writing Crime and Punishment. He needed the money because he was horrendously in debt because he was a degen gambler. So he was well acquainted with the subject, and it's Dostoyevsky, so even though he wrote it in a rush it's still great. It's much shorter than the other Dostoyovsky/ Tolstoy greats, so a good jumping off point into that field of literature, and it also has a twisted saucy sadomasochistic sideplot as a treat.

• The Henriad - Shakespeare

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  For some reason we don't rate his histories as highly as his tragedies. In fact, aside from Julius Caesar, we practically ignore them. I reckon this is because our historical knowledge is terribly degraded. Whether you have the background or not these are great books. Alternatively, read Richard III, even though it is an absolute hatchet job.

• The Symposium - Plato

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  Interesting short one, about what romantic love should be. If you haven't read it it is hard to understand (a) how incredibly gay the Athenians were and (b) how incredibly, unbelievably, misogynistic they were. It's especially interesting from the point of view of our culture to see these two co-exist, completely reconciled, in the views of some of the characters.

“On Saturday morning, 26 October, the hunt met at Sagamore Hill, and after the traditional stirrup cup set off over particularly rough country. High timber obstacles of five teet or more followed one upon another at a frequency of six to the mile. Some of these barriers were post-and-rail fences, as stiff as steel and deadly dangerous: even Filemaker, America's best jumper, began to hang back nervously. Roosevelt, riding a large, coarse stallion, led from the start. Careless of accidents which dislocated the huntmaster's knee, smashed another rider's ribs, and took half the skin off his brother-in-law's face," he galloped in front for fully three miles. Eventually his exhausted horse began to go lame; at about the five-mile mark it tripped over a wall and pitched over into a pile of stones. Roosevelt's face smashed against something sharp, and his left arm, only recently knit after the roundup fracture, snapped beneath the elbow. Yet he was back in the saddle as soon as the horse was up, and rushed on one-armed, determined not to miss the death. After five or six further jumps the bones of his broken arm slipped past one other, and it dangled beside him like a length of liverwurst; but this, and the blood pouring down his face, did not deter him from pounding across fifteen more fields. He had the satisfaction of finishing the hunt within a hundred yards of the other riders, and returned to Sagamore Hill looking "pretty gay... like the walls of a slaughter-house." Baby Lee, who was waiting at the stable for him, ran away screaming from the bloody monster, and he pursued her, chortling. Washed clean that night, his cut face plastered and his arm in splints, he presided over the Hunt Ball as laird of Sagamore. Edith Carow was his guest, and took her first cool survey of her future home. At midnight, Theodore Roosevelt turned twenty-seven. With his daughter asleep upstairs, his house full of music and laughter, and Edith at his side, he could abandon himself to bliss rendered piquant by pain. Later he wrote to Lodge: "I don't grudge the broken arm a bit... I'm always ready to pay the piper when I've had a good dance; and every now and then I like to drink the wine of life with brandy in it.”

— Edmund Morris - The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

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