Reviews for Sartor Resartus

The average rating for Sartor Resartus based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-03-31 00:00:00 Marcelo Fernandez At another point in my life, this would have gotten a full boat. Alas, ensconced within books as I am, ever enveloped with the urge to move on to something new, I'm afraid I became a touch impatient with Carlyle towards the end'but the fault is entirely mine. The age in which he composed this beautifully, lushly written work of great and subtle meta-sartorial humour'satirical, metaphysical, biographical, Goethean, liberally populated with phrases of a poetic entanglement whose surface appeal captivates you sufficient to pry and/or puzzle through unto the thoughts encased within'was one less hurried when it came to the written page: though folk back then do not appear to have overly cared for this particular iteration of Carlyle's prolix, demi-feudalist beard-stroking either. It is what Moldbug vainly aspires towards to this day, without promise'but, then again, precious few could wield a pen with Carlyle's degree of lustrous ribbons and exaggerated flourishes in the era of Twitter.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-06 00:00:00 Bjarne Dyrlie They simply don't make 'em like they used to... Sartor Resartus is one of Carlyle's supreme creations, to be sat alongside the towering achievement of his French Revolution. It's a sort of novel-cum-philosophical-treatise-cum-satire, a lumbering behemoth full of ideas and overheated prose. Did I mention that it's also rather funny. This is a great book to read drunk as, presumably, many in the 19th century did. From out of a cloud of pipe smoke comes Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, a professor of "Allerley-Wissenschaft" (Things in General) at the University of Weissnichtwo (Who Knows Where) who has affected to form a "Philosophy of Clothes" (Kleider). The narrator has discovered this work, and presents key passages with digressions, as well the story of Professor Teufelsdroekh himself. As the work progresses, the elements constituting a Philosophy of Clothes are only gradually revealed until nearly the end of the book, when, in high satire, we encounter the dandiacal body: What Teufelsdroekh would call a 'Divine Idea of Cloth' is born with him; and this, like other such Ideas, will express itself outwardly, or wring his heart asunder with unutterable throes. But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his Idea an Action; shows himself in peculiar guise to mankind; walks forth, a witness and living Martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. We called him a Poet; is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereupon he writes, with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow? Say, rather, an Epos, and Clotha Virumque cano [ha! -ed], to the whole world, in Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read... Is it a skewering of a sort of materialism? I am not very well-read in philosophy, and therefore am perhaps unqualified to evaluate this work as it pertains to that discipline. It would be a pleasure to enroll in a seminar on Carlyle and German idealism and truly tease out all the references in this dense work. My opinions of this work, and undoubtedly those of other readers as well, are perhaps best summed up by Carlyle himself. It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very Sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid its effulgence,--a mixture of insight, inspiration, with dulness, double-vision, and even utter blindness.