Jeffrey Carduner, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

“This, Too, Comprehended at Last,” the new issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, is about a matter that has excited people, puzzled them, and also brought them much pain. The issue publishes Eli Siegel’s mighty essay “Why a Man Gambles”—an essay which, as it looks with critical compassion at the self of a person, is also profoundly philosophic. And there are poems by Eli Siegel, which are wonderful, surprising, and which the editor of TRO, Ellen Reiss, looks at in deep, subtle, comprehending sentences. You will be moved and educated as you read “This, Too, Comprehended at Last,” the latest issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

It is an honor to publish here a great, kind, very surprising and utterly logical essay by Eli Siegel. It is one of many essays he wrote in (I surmise) the late 1950s and early 1960s. And its title is “Why a Man Gambles.”

In Aesthetic Realism is the understanding of ever so much in human life—in the feelings and tumults of people—that had not been understood before. The present essay is an instance of that comprehension—wide, particular, sometimes humorous.

Throughout History

The drive to gamble has been throughout human history. And it does seem that, all in all, people have not been proud of having such a propensity. They might joke about it, or try to present it as part of a dashing lifestyle, but they have not been proud…Read more