Goodreads Review: Self-Reliance by The Domino Project
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
While I appreciate their effort to bring Emerson’s essay to more readers, I’m not a fan of this particular edition done by The Domino Project. There’s some irony here: The Domino Project has desensitized our ability to read this with self-reliant comprehension.
[Note: Selected this edition based on ISBN, and the cover is incorrect, see it here.]
I don’t feel there’s much added value in the pull quote comparisons the Domino Project has added in, and they feel somewhat gratuitous, as if done purely to stage their favored club of contemporaries, doing so at Emerson’s expense.
This may present better in hardcover, but I felt a bit robbed in my Kindle reading, denied of the opportunity to read Emerson’s essay purely, and on its own merit. The Domino Project distractions became increasingly annoying, and I resented the presumption despite admiring many of the individuals showcased: I wanted to highlight my own takeaways.
I did read a second time in the attempt to do so, but I suspect the return to try again was too soon, and I’ll have to tuck this away for awhile, returning to Emerson’s essay — and only his essay — during a quiet weekend sometime in the future.
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