In hopes of spurring all you laggards to the finish line, I offer the following tale. I hold what I believe is the modern day record for "gradual student" sloth--finished my PhD 14 years after entering grad school in the masters program.
Note To Chuck: The Grundisse was the seven notebooks, later published as a book, that Marx used to write the volumes of Capital, which, of course, were never finished. I'm sure you know that, but it makes your point, doesn't it.
Moral of the story? Doug should find an Engels and keep writing.
RO ------------
Well, I didn't know that because I have only skimmed G and C, but have many of the Penquin editions of the other writings (which I work through piecemeal), plus an old Sonnenshein version of Capital. But see, like writing books, reading is never finished either. I'll note down M Perelman's books. I think I had read Valery's comment on poetry, because I read a lot of his essays a long time ago. I think he worked and re-worked La Jeune Parque(?) off and on for years. I found most of Hegel's work in nice Muirhead Library of Philosophy edition--which is another monster project, undone.
Here's a nice story on reading. Angela mentioned Alexandre Kojeve once during a discussion on Hegel. I noted it down, then a couple of weeks later, I was coming back from a bike ride and saw a guy loading several boxes of books into his car around the corner from were I live. I looked through one of the stacks and there was a nice copy of Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. So I asked how much, he said fifteen dollars, and I bought it on the street. I asked what he did. It turned out he had been a middle school history teacher, and had retired. He was taking these books up to Moe's to sell them.
So, what's this about passionate labor? Didn't I get a rash of shit for advocating something like that, just a few weeks ago?
Anyway I surely wish I could have managed a very long graduate career. But I was young and finally couldn't stand it any longer. My adviser wanted me to re-enter under another two year extension (after already putting in three) They had started a different program in the art department in a switch from MA to MFA. But working, marriage, draft dodging, protests, and the disability movement were too much to handle all at the same time.
My buddy in biophysics did a record for his department at eleven years---on top of a record seven years as an undergrad. The only reason he finished was because they were closing down the department. His first thesis adviser retired, so he changed over to the next guy in line, and he was getting ready to retire too. Nobody but the administration (fast track management types) was in a hurry.
Late for work again.
Chuck Grimes