This was an introduction to modality in the philosophical sense. The first couple chapters were devoting to explaining and justifying such a study, as well as introducing the formal logics which are often used therein. The latter half is about comparing various viewpoints on the ontological status of modality. I thought the exposition of the book was fine but it left me very unconvinced of the necessity of considering "modality" as having some specific philosohpical existence at all. Statements like "there could have been more things than there actually are" seem to me to be obviously nonsense, but the author treats this as a motivating example, as something that we axiomatically accept as having some meaning. I would be interested in reading more detailed defenses of any time of modal realism.
Robert Stoothoff translation - published in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press)
This work was explicitly meant more as a memoir than as a persuasive or explicative piece, and it is more worthwhile on those grounds. I assume the philosphical content is given in more detail and more precise argumentation in his later works. The present work is slightly interesting in the same sense as any stories people tell about their own lives are.
Charlie spends most of his time writing like an elementary schooler, which matches pretty well with how he (apparently) acts, but sometimes he writes like a professional author wishing very much to show off his cleverness. The author is clever, and he has some good ideas, too, but he should have just narrated the story in his own voice, because that's what ended up happening anyway.