Erasmus: The Praise of Folly

The problem with the blissfullnes of ignorance is that cognizance is a one-way street. Once aware, one cannot squeeze back through the keyhole to the gleeful land of Ignorasia, where there are no taxes and the streets are made of Turkish Delight.

Do not despair, though. Once one has become disignorant, there is still the option of being foolish. That is to say, one can still behave as if not knowing any better. Erasmus raises the question, "Is foolishness as blissful as ignorance?", and answers, "Yes."

Whether he means, in earnest, to suppose that the life of a fool is rewarding is open to debate. At times, his reasoning is so flimsy one has to assume he argues in jest. Most of this may be attributable to the conflation of natural fools, the ignorant, with those who act foolishly. This is no mean distinction; what is bliss for one is often secret death for the other. While the natural fool behaves foolishly, he does so through little fault of his own, and tends not to berate himself, perhaps not even recognizing the folly of his actions. The foolish man, as opposed to the fool, acts foolishly through conceit, laziness, fear, or hedonism. As such, his spirit withers on the vine every time the virtuous choice is before him and he ignores it.

Erasmus isolates the true issue when he asks, "Isn't it true that the happiest creatures are those which are least artificial and most natural?" (72). When he stipulates that fools are to be envied, he does not mean the stupid, but the simple. While it not possible for a cognizant person to behave foolishly without injuring his spirit, for the same man to live simply is not only healthy, but preferable. This solves a difficult dilemma which faces those gifted with intelligence. Often, a little bit of wisdom (which is all any human can be had to say) is more dangerous than none at all. Awareness without understanding of the primal functioning of the universe could, if dwelt upon, drive a man into a cyclone of turbulent and circular thought. All such analysis does is confuse and frustrate the would-be sage, for he always reasons himself back to his starting point. "Those who have a foretaste of [wisdom]--and it comes to very few--experience something very like madness" (131). And what good would it be to understand completely, even if such a thing were possible? None whatsoever. Therefore let the truly wise man discard all wisdom, especially that labelled 'learning,' and pursue simplicity--not foolishness--as the highest of virtues.

Lamentations

I was right to dread reading this book. Although my Dad insists that the lament of the author is answered in the end by faith, such is clearly not the case. The book begins and ends with despair, which exactly mirrors my current state of mind. "They heard how I was groaning," I seem to hear myself say, "with no one to comfort me" (1:21). "Why have you forgotten [me] completely?" I ask (5:20).

It is only for the briefest of moments that the writer's wail is lifted long enough for him to realize, "The Lord will not reject forever" (3:31). For a mere seventeen verses of the book, hope shines through the desperate circumstances of Israel at that time, and the lesson is an interesting one. Although the recurring message is that the affliction of the nation is due to the fact that they "have transgressed and rebelled,"(3:42) the author stops feeling sorry for himself long enough to recognize that, even though sins must be repaid, once they are there is no need to reconsider them. The mercies of JEHOVAH "are new every morning," he insists (3:23). Once one has paid for his sins, there is a new moment granted, and new choices can be made to reach a different outcome. I don't happen to subscribe to the ideas of atonement and retribution for sins, but what the author of Lamentations suggests rings true: beat yourself up until midnight if you must, but once a new day arrives move on.

Sin-Leqi-Unninnĩ: Gilgamesh

There are two parts to this review, and they could not disagree with one another more. To begin with, I would like to voice my frustration with the choices of the editors, Gardner and Maier, who have managed to turn a vibrant, exotic story completely sterile. The edition I chose to read was so needlessly scholarly as to be nearly unreadable.

Fortunately, enough of the story's beauty and passion made its way through to spite the editors that I fell completely in love with it. I want to find (or create) a version which conflates the Babylonian, Sumerian and akkadian versions of the story to create a flowing narrative uninterrupted by missing fragments or editorial commentary.

Of course, the theme I found most personally relevant was that of brotherly love. The connection between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the passion they felt for each other, was intoxicating. Likewise, I relate to Gilgamesh's quest for immortality, but do not agree with the editorial conclusion that he exhausted all means of escaping death and failed at each. Surely, his pursuit of love, conquest, offspring, worship and even his journey to the bottom of the abyss to retrieve a life-sustaining plant were all unsuccessful attempts to live indefinitely.

But if he can reach across the page and touch me, especially among general scholarly agreement that his story is based on actual events, does he not still live? Furthermore, are not his experiences reflective of Biblical stories--the flood, the life-giving plant stolen by a snake, etc.--and therefore practically still occurring?

Jeremiah

It is a real struggle to view this, or any revered religious book, with strict objectivity. In reading a novel or an essay, I expect the work to convince me of its merit. With the Bible, however, I choose to read on the assumption that the burden of proof lies on me, the reader. It is my task to sift through the archaic societal baggage, potential mistranslations and disjointed narative to walk away with a jewel of understanding.

There is good news and bad news, therefore, in the reading of Jeremiah. The good news: The book has a recognizable line, a consistent tone, and seems to have been written primarily by one individual with one message. All of this makes it inifinitely more readable than its forbearer, Isaiah. The bad news: It is infinitely more readable than Isaiah. Whereas Isaiah's mixed messages actually contributed to the meaning and interest of the book, Jeremiah asks far less from the reader in terms of thought, and correspondingly is less interesting.

Which frustrates me, a reader determined to make some sense out of it. Yes, JEHOVAH is mad at Israel, and yes, he is then even madder at Babylon, but very little is revealed in the delivery of these judgement messages about his nature or personality. In fact, judgment is the one consistently interesting topic in Jeremiah. Perhaps most intersting is the presentation of the writer's judgment against the God he is worshipping. He actually dares to present a case against God, and God deigns to listen. "You will be in the right, O JEHOVAH, when I lay charges against you;" he acknowledges, "but let me put my case to you" (12:1). JEHOVAH's answer does much to explain the seeming indecision with which he was painted in Jeremiah. "After I have plucked them up," he says of evildoers, "I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again to their heritage and to their land: (12:15). God compares humans to "The vessel he was making of clay [which] was spoiled in the potter's hand." Instead of discarding it, however, "he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him"(18:4). The judgment of God is thorough; "JEHOVAH test[s] the mind and search[es] the heart, to give to them according to their ways" (17:10). Heart, mind and actions are all taken into account. This is appropriate, for God alone has the perspective that comes with physical expansiveness. "Who can hide in secret places?" he asks, "Do I not fill heaven and Earth?" (23:23). But his judgment is also fluid; fate is always in the hands of the judged.

Which is not to say that God is indecisive, as seemed to be the case in Isaiah. He acts with great pith and moment, if not absolute finality. It is significant that each prophetic utterance begins with the phrase, "The word of JEHOVAH came to me, saying . . ." or some variation thereof. It is the word of God, his very speaking, which contains his power and through which he levels nations. Repeatedly, God's judgment is expressed in terms of vocalization: "JEHOVAH will roar from on high, and from his holy habitation utter his voice" (25:30). And, perhaps more significantly, the power of God's word is a negotiable document; it is transferrable. "Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" (1:9-10). It is, therefore, not an act of scholarly ingenuousness to approach so-called holy books with a certain level of reverence and an assumption of value. The word of God--in any of its forms--is not only a thunder, but an electric current which runs through the spirit and activates it in ways human authors can only reflect, not capture.

Alexander Pushkin: Eugene Onegin

I can think of no other book that, while almost entirely free of plot and characterization, nonetheless manages to be an enjoyable and useful read. Pushkin skeletonizes his characters to the point where one cannot help but assume that he is making a point. They are more figurines than people, and by the same token the story itself is nothing more than a series of frequently and lengthily interrupted brief episodes--hardly enough to qualify as a plot. To summarize, Eugene refuses Tatyana and kills his friend Lensky. Years later, it is Tatyana's turn to refuse Eugene. That's it, the sum total.

What makes Eugene Onegin such a worthwhile project is the commentary of the Narrator, the only fully developed character in the work. Pushkin's narrator hovers aloofly over the story, more interested in talking about himself than about any of the characters. It is almost as if Pushkin is drawing a parallel between his narrator and the moon, who also dispassionately observes the goings-on at strategic places throughout the novel, as in 6.II:

"Only Tatyana does not sleep,
but at the window, in the splendid
radiance of Dian, sits in pain
and looks out on the darkened plain."

The narrator is either a renaissance man or a dilletante, and drops names with a heaviness that informs the reader of his concern with their impression of him. He talks far more about his life and opinions than anyones else's, and his expostulatory intrusions into the story are enough to make William Thackeray seem detached and aloof. As he refers to himself, he is "the sober head, detesting each / human reaction, every speech / as the translation of our being . . ." (4.LI).

Wherein lies the power of the (quasi) novel. Pushkin's removal from his characters--even though he claims personal ownership of them--gives him free rein to make commentary on their choices as types, rather than as individuals. Tatyana is a typical starry-eyed maiden, and Pushkin's authorial advice to her is really directed at the reader:

"Don't let a ghost be your bear-leader,
don't waste your efforts on the air.
Just let yourself be your whole care,
your loved one, honorable reader!" (4.XXII)

Pushkin's disdain for all forms of affectation, both from the disenfranchised poet and the society Grand Dame, serves as a cautionary tale. Tatyana's and Lensky's passionate romanticism lead to heartbreak and/or death. And Onegin's capricious life of leisure offers no better. The key to fulfillment lies in truth to one's own self. And concern for one's image--even an affected disconcern for one's image--is iron pyrite.

Isaiah

I can't escape the feeling that something here is inaccessible to me, and I worry that I am being somehow blocked from understanding it. "The vision of all this has become a sealed document. If it is given to those with the command, 'Read this,' they say, 'We cannot, for it is sealed'" (30:11). Nonetheless, I share what I glean from the margins of this seemingly inscrutable book with you, dear reader.

I like to think that Isaiah is either two different people, or else suffering from multiple personality disorder. He seems to have two diametrically opposed viewpoints on every topic. For instance, there is the subject of prophecy, central to the gravitas of the book. At one point, Isaiah seems to agree with Boethius that God's power of prophecy stems from his perception of time as simultaneous, instead of linear. It is thus that he is able to reveal the future to his prophet, as though withdrawing a curtain. "He will destroy on his mountain / the shroud that is cast over all peoples, / the sheet that is spread over all nations" Isaiah describes (though not necessarily regarding prophecy) (25:7). And by the same token, he is able to draw the curtain over the eyes of those who needn't see the whole of time: "He has closed your eyes, you prophets, / and covered your heads, you seers" (29:10).

Elsewhere, however, Isaiah presents an entirely different model of prophecy. At times, there is a distinct linearity to Isaiah's experience. When JEHOVAH declares, "I am God, and there is no one like me, / declaring from the end the beginning," it is because "[His] purpose shall stand, / and [he] will fulfill [his] intention" (46:10). In other words, the divine gift of prophecy comes from the inescapability of the divine will; "I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass," God declares, "I have planned and I will do it" (46:11). Both models are functional and give birth to different lines of philosophical reasoning.

This level of contradiction is not upsetting to me. I find the formation of a synthesis between the two models engaging and a worthy pursuit. And Isaiah even seems to acknowledge the paradox when he writes, "In its time, I will accomplish it quickly," highlighting both the agency of God and the influence of fate (60:22). What is more unnerving is the contradictory pictures in Isaiah of the personality of God. With the same breath, the God of Isaiah declares, " . . . there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom," and, "Through the wrath of JEHOVAH of hosts the land was burned / and the people became like fuel for the fire" (10: 7,19). Isaiah spends entire chapters explaining this seeming capriciousness of God, and comes up with several ideas:

Firstly, Isaiah seems to think that God alternatingly destroys Israel and rescues her for the sake of his name. "for my own sake, for my own sake, I do it," he exclaims. "For why should my name be profaned?" (48:11). Such a narcissistic god hardly seems worthy of worship.

Alternately, Isaiah paints a portrait of God that is capricious and whimsical in his treatment of his people. After he has used Babylon to ravish Israel, he turns around and ravishes Babylon through Cyrus, releasing Israel. And that is not even to speak of his constant reversals on the subject of "My people," which I don't feel up to delineating. Such an inconsistent god seems equally unworthy.

The approach that resonates with me is described in Isaiah 30:20. "Though the lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore." "See, I have refined you, but not like silver;" he consoles the reader, "I have tested you in the furnace of adversity" (48:10). The people of God experience alternating capture and release, not due to God's indecisiveness, but for their own purification. That which is difficult is also necessary for growth.

Which is a comfort to me, having recently been through the fire of adversity. "Look to the rock from which you were hewn, / and to the quarry from which you were dug," JEHOVAH reminds me (51:1). Perhaps he will manage to make a man out of me yet.

Gene Stratton Porter: Freckles

I can see without binoculars why my Mother and her Mother before her considered this book a personal favorite. Porter's charmingly spiritual model of the world is instantly compelling, and almost convinces one of the fundamental goodness of people. Almost. In addition to my natural resistance of such an optimistic paradigm, I found Porter's characterization lacking that edge which would have made her characters believable and sympathetic. As it is, though bald caricatures of human goodness, the population of Freckles is generally enjoyable company as long as one does not take them for more than allegorical archetypes.

The real sparkle of the book lies, not in the people, but in the plot. Porter's simple charm and ingenuous honesty deliver precisley the right tone for a story that came to me at exactly the right time. Freckles is, like me, an amputee, and, like me, does not allow his handicap to get in the way of his hard work, but is insecure enough to let it get in the way of his heart's desire. Feeling condemned to life as a demi monde, he must be forcefully convinced that life holds more for him than the bare necessities, let alone a tender and devoted lover. The moment at which he finally allows himself to be convinced of his worthiness deserves direct quotation, and I expect it to inspire tears on the second reading, as it did on the first:

"Now, here was another class [of people], that had all they needed of the world's best and were engaged in doing things that counted. They had things worth while to be proud of; and they had met him as a son and brother. With them he could, for the only time in his life, forget the lost hand that every day tortured him with a new pang" (161).

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

It took me three years to get around to finishing this beast, and I'm glad to be able to cross it off of my list. I had read it many years ago in modern English, but my natural fastidiousness would not let me consider it done until I had read it in Middle English. And who would have known it would be such an undertaking? Anyway, I really don't have much to say about it, largely, I'm sure, because many of the niceties were stopped by immigration at the language border. In addition to that barrier is the fact that my personal taste does not seem to lie in Chaucer's line. Some of the tales were enjoyable enough--I was impressed by The Knight's Tale and The Franklin's Tale, and The Prioress' Tale actually brought me to tears--but the vast majority were either too stuffy or too crude to merit my endorsement. The fabliaux, especially, seemed beneath a poet of Chaucer's reputation. It should come as no surprise, however. Chaucer evidently "borrowed" much of his material from Boccaccio, for whose work I didn't care either.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott and Other Poems

I love structure. Love it. Free verse is alright, but if I am to bother reading something that somebody else wrote, I want it to be better than I could write myself. Any guttersnipe can write passable free verse (and no doubt some would argue with me, but this is my blog, ha ha). Anyway, the best poets in my mind are those who use form as well as content to deliver their message.

Hence, my interest in Tennyson. Although his work is a little more visual than auditory, I still like that he bothers to think about meter and rhyme in his work. For this reason I read In Memoriam, and was so pleased that I subsequently picked up this item. Though this particular anthology was grouped according to period, not according to merit, and thereby included a few really forgettable stinkers, there were enough thought-provoking, insightful selections to keep me happy and make me want more.

It is not simply his style that draws me to Tennyson, however. That was just the initial draw. I find it curious to look inside the mind of one whom I trust to be completely honest and precise, but who has experienced things I have not. I can follow Tennyson up to a certain point, when he talks about isolation, longing and regret. It is when he touches on what may be his special topic, friendship, that I grow most unfamiliar and correspondingly most interested. Tennyson seems to have tapped into a source of deep and priceless emotion which I have not, and I am intensely curious to experience it.

You see, I don't have lifelong friends to whom I am closer than a brother. I suppose Sherri and Chad are the closest things, but even they have been around a comparatively short time. What Tennyson describes are friendships so deep and unifying that they cannot be severed. Not only mind and heart are vibrating in unison, but spirit as well. I crave such an intimate bond of love, for I know that I can hold up my end. I simply have yet to meet someone who can bear up under the experience for an extended period of time.

But enough about me, back to Tennyson. The keystone of the collection is, of course, The Lady of Shalott, which I found to be a compelling allegory of human experience. Tennyson borders on the philosophical here, leaning to the Cartesian side a little, as he describes a lady who strives to capture life, but can only manage to do so twice removed: once by reflection and once by representation. When she finally experiences the fact of existence, stepping out of her isolation, the experience is so treacherously beautiful that she dies. Tennyson manages to capture a ponderously difficult idea and pin it to the page with aplomb and sympathy that I'm not sure I could manage. Also worth note is, of course, The Lotos-Eaters, which nicely complements The Lady of Shalott's sense of weariness, but presents the other side of the experience. My personal favorite, however, is The Palace of Art. Although a bit awkward in places and lacking the artistic merit of the aforementioned two, it reminds me of my own tendency to cerebral isolation and admonishes me to allow others into my well-decorated interiors. It is with this in mind that I have finally given out the address of this Blog to a few select friends so that I, too, may ". . .hear the dully sound / Of human footsteps fall" around my inner sanctum (275-6).

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature and Selected Essays

I almost didn't finish this book. In retrospect, to have given up after the first essay would have been a mistake and a tragedy. Never have I related so personally to an author's perspective, style, and taste as I now do to Emerson's. Often his thoughts and conclusions are identical to my own, although we arrived at them without each other's input. And on at least one occasion, I was startled to find that the passage I was reading reflected my own questions and corresponding answers from earlier that very day. What is most spooky to me, however, is not that the content of Emerson's essays reflects my own ideas. It is a source of fondness that his style, usage, and sentence strucure are similar to my own. I even noticed that he uses italics the way I do. It is a providence that I did not trust my first impression.

That impression comes from the fact that "Nature," the cornerstone essay of the collection and possibly his most heavily anthologized, turns out to be one of his worst. I thought so little of it after reading that I put the book down never to be finished. Out of fairness, however, I gave it a second chance and was impressed by what I read in the essay, "The American Scholar." I then decided to finish and became rapturously delighted with most of the remaining essays, including "Man the Reformer" and "Circles," to identify a few of my favorites. I notice that I most enjoy those essays that began life oratically, as opposed to those that were intended primarily for publication. It is no surprise to me that Emerson found success as an itenerant speaker; his thoughts progress in each case from sensibly engaged to passionately emphatic with a crescendo that seems well suited to public delivery.

And then there is the substance of his essays, the content. Suffice it to say that they served as a mordant to my own burgeoning theology, setting the dye indelibly in my person. It is pointless here to iterate each point on which I agree with him; they are so numerous as to be nearly unanimous. In the interest of objectivity, however, allow me just to offer the criticism that he could stand to be a little less poetic. I can't discount the impression I get that, although he frowns on courtesy of all sorts, he is trying to impress the reader with his floridity. It is this fault which nearly cost him my readership, as "Nature" is the most saturated offender. In fact, although I found nothing to disagree with in thst essay, I also found nothing to agree with. It was so nauseatingly sentimental as to be nearly devoid of content. Yes, Ralph, the sunsets are beautiful. We get that, but move on already! Sheesh.

Gao Xingjian: Soul Mountain

This book treads a very thin line between brilliant metaliterature and slovenly experimental trash. It ends up coming out slightly on the former side, but it was a close contest all the way through. I enjoyed it greatly, but I am a literary masochist. I love books that hold up to and demand deep scrutiny. And, while I enjoyed it, I can't think of a single person to whom I would recommend it.

Anyone wishing to read this book would be well served to read chapter 52 before diving in. It is not until this point that Gao's gimmick becomes clear, namely that, although parts of the book are narrated in the second person, "you" is really an extension of "I," the author. It is chiefly this literary conceit which gives the novel its weight. With this understanding, the book transforms from an asymmetric jumble of vignettes into a treatise on the nature of the self. It is especially beautiful that the idea holds up to multiple perspectives. At times Gao seems to be saying that memory is so fickle as to make all but the most poignant moments in our lives seem as though they are happening to someone else. At other times, he seems to be pursuing the Buddhist idea that the self is to blame for all suffering. And elsewhere Gao clearly intends to foster the idea that each man is every man, a la Emerson. All of these ideas work simultaneously, and this is not even to touch on the inticacies of his play with gender.

The problem is that Gao's central idea is not strong enough to carry a book of this magnitude. At 506 dense pages, the book cannot help but seem to belabor the point a bit. The blurry scraps of stories which make up the bulk of the book run together, are unmemorable and do little more than provide an arena for Gao to shuffle pronouns in. He could have gone so much further than simply to play around with point of view. I, for one, would have liked to see him develop the theme of being trapped in the mountains by so-called "Demon Walls," or the meaning of the eponymous Lingshan.

What finally tips the scale in Gao's favor is his wonderful patterns of imagery, which are, at times, the only thing holding the book together. It is a delightful confluence that Gao is also a visual artist specializing in black and white ink drawings. This book was truly written in black and white. Everywhere the reader turns there are patterns of black shingles, black scales, black feathers, and, especially, black footprints. It is not simply that many things in the book are black; black is quilted into the book. There are rhythmic sequences of black shapes all over it. It is only this thematic consistency, in fact, which can convince me that Gao didn't accidentally send his publisher a shuffled manuscript.

Don Miguel Ruiz: The Four Agreements

A friend visited me while I was bedridden a few months ago, and noticed that I was reading The Celestine Prophecy. She suggested that this book was a nice follow up to that one and mailed it to me. Jane is, by the way, the sort of person who follows up on things she says. So I started reading it and, sure enough, there was a remarkable confluence between the messages of the two books. I was, therefore, expecting to enjoy The Four Agreements as much as I did The Celestine Prophecy. No such luck.

To distill my experience into one phrase, my overall impression was that of listening to a string of vaguely memorable semi-aphorisms mumbled in no particular order by a mildly retarded hillbilly. The author claims to be a master of Toltec wisdom, a fact which reduces my respect for the Toltecs considerably. In fact, it almost feels like he was actually a Los Angeles native who claims to be a Toltec so that his otherwise less than memorable book will have some sort of mystical allure.

Which is a shame, because if the book was reduced to a list of its chapter titles, it would actually be greatly useful. The four agreements themselves are a great distillation of functional living. The problem is that Ruiz goes into such painfully rambling detail about what each of the agreements means. I choose, therefore, to take away from this book the names of the four agreements, and to discard the rest.

Keep Your Word
It's Not About You
Don't Make Shit Up
Do Your Best

Toni Morisson: Song of Solomon

I have only one complaint with Toni Morisson's work, and until I read this book it was just a vague impression, but I now percieve it to be a pattern. She clearly has few peers when it comes to inventive characterization that skillfully treads the line between the mythological and the possible (much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Similarly, she creates stories that feel as though they have existed for for generations, and have simply been passed on for her to transcribe. Nonetheless, I always leave her books a little bit dissatisfied. While the stories that compose her novels are themselves are juicy and indisputably alive, they have the feel of being strung together haphazardly, and the novel as a whole suffers.

Song of Solomon, for instance, seems to have three verdant threads running through it. Milkman and Pilate each have a clear line running through the book, and it is my personal opinion that Guitar's story is separate from either of them, even though it is not as elaborate. Each story is, as I cannot state clearly enough, the sort of story that is so alive, one wonders if some version of it might have happened. It would make this book a masterpiece of craftsmanship instead of a delight, though, if all three stories came together in the end to some sort of resolution. In short, I love Morrison's books until they end. I always feel like there should be more, that something clever should have happened to make the reader satisfied. Instead I am left feeling like I followed a trail at length, only to be left standing abruptly at the edge of a cliff. "Where do I go from here?", I ask myself. In fact, I think I'll stop right now to show you how it feels.

Yann Martel: Life of Pi

This is the best book I've read so far this year. Even as I was reading it, I understood why it was so widely acclaimed. Up until the last fifty pages, I was convinced that it was a brilliant psychotheological allegory, and treated it accordingly in my mind. After finishing it, however, I was left dumbstruck with the brilliance of its culmination. Without the final few chapters, this book is a wonderful, thought-provoking read. The ending makes it an enduring masterpiece of literature.

To begin with, I related to and agreed with Pi's religious discoveries and conclusions. The way he describes his simultaneous practice of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity reminds me of a set of concentric circles. Christianity is the religion of the self, surrounding which is Islam, the religion of society, which is in turn encircled by Hinduism, the religion of the universe. This model is vaguely mirrored in his description of the carnivorous island later in the book. So much time has elapsed between my reading of the book and writing of this reaction that it is difficult to capture the glow I recieved from it, and I regret that I find myself unequal to the task of relating it to you, gentle reader. Suffice it to say that I found myself reconnecting with my spiritual side after a lenghty period of dulled senses.

In the final analysis, however, the book transformed from a religious allegory to a practical manual on life. I was left wide-mouthed by the realization that Pi and Richard Parker were one and the same. To survive, as we are, adrift in the universe, we must not only be in touch with our profound, spiritual humanity, but with our inner tiger. We must simultaneously be zen and aggresive. Lao Tze and Dr. Phil both have a place in functional humanity. Each needs the other to live, and to believe otherwise can only cause us to hate ourselves.

James Redfield: The Celestine Prophecy

Well, I suppose I better get around to updating this blog, or else forget about it forever. I actually read this book months ago, but haven't been feeling particularly motivated. As a result, my impressions have dulled a little bit and I don't expect this post to be very long or informative.

I read this book on the strong recommendation of a respected friend, and, as it happens, many of my friends are familiar with and recommend it. Several times, as I was visited in the hospital, friends would notice what I was reading and and express their general approval. And understandably so; the first half of the book is nothing short of visionary, and I find it remarkably well-fitted to what I have come to believe on my own. The idea that our unseen energy fields interact as described in The Celestine Prophecy is a conclusion I have come to on my own, based on personal impressions and the occasional striking experience. That the book is a thinly disguised theophilosophical treatise is a mixed blessing for the reader; Redfield is not a strong prose writer, and his characterization is so weak as to be painful. Nonetheless, the tone of the book is far less didactic than one might expect, and the narrative format generally makes the clearly evangelical message more palatable.

Up until the midway point of the book, in fact, I found myself agreeing with the author point for point. It is when Redfield crosses the line from philosophical to psychological that I began to have a problem with his premise. It is one thing to delineate a model of the energetic universe, and another to superimpose on that nicely functional model an explanation that feels oversimplistic and false. I have this problem with most so-called new-age thought. Whereas I agree with their descriptions of the way the universe functions, most feel the need to explain in detail why it does so, either with alien intervention, marginally Christian theology or faux science, and such explanations always feel post factum; they come up with the explanation to fit the experience. I do not happen to think that human experience needs a "why;" I am perfectly happy to know and trust how things are and to live in line with that information without tacking a story onto it to make me feel better. In short, the what of existence is more imprortant to me than the why or how.

I guess I had a lot to say after all.

Dorothy Allred Solomon: Predators, Prey and Other Kin

This book has been on my list for quite a while, due to my personal acquanitance with the author. I respect her enormously, and was not not dissapointed by either the content or the style of the book. Unlike most memoirs I have read, this book does not follow a chronological pattern, but instead jumps around in the author's personal timeline. The reader gets a feeling of being told the story orally, with details related as they occur to the teller instead of in order. The result is a very comfortable, engaging setting and a nice, easy read.

Joseph J. Ellis: Founding Brothers

This book has been on my "to read" list for years, and now that I've finally gotten around to it, I question whether it was worth the effort. It just goes to show that the Pulitzer doesn't always go to a work of genius. This is not to say that the book was poorly written. On the contrary, Ellis has a winning style and an enjoyable way with sentences. It is simply a shame that he does not seem to have had anything to say with them.

I suppose an argument could be made that Ellis is trying to use anecdotes from early American history to make a point about the nature of history in general. He seems to have some bone to pick with the common practice of reading history retroactively, of attributing our knowledge of how something turned out to the people who, at the time, had no clue. But the book does little to create any sort of cohesive argument to this effect; it simply drops the idea in from time to time as a reminder. What the reader is left with, then, is a sampling of situations and anecdotes from the period between the revolutionary war and the deaths of Adams and Jefferson, none of which would be terribly interesting or revealing were it not for Ellis' knack for narrative. In short, I didn't learn anything from the book, but at least it wasn't painful to read.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: In Memoriam

In the interest of actually reading all the books I pretended to have read during college--some of which I wrote papers on--I picked up this rather imposing item. It was slow going, and hopelessly obscure in points, but altogether worth reading again. Tennyson seemingly sets out to capture the overwhelming loss of his bosom companion, but realizes in the telling that "words, like Nature, half reveal / half conceal the Soul within" (V). Tennyson consistently acknowledges that he is only drawing from the "topmost froth of thought", but doesn't seem to be bothered by the inescapable inadequacy of his writing (LII). He writes, not to explain or to justify, but because it is impossible for the geyser of sorrow he holds to remain unexpressed.

Tennyson fails, therefore, in successfully conveying his desperation to me. By dwelling meticulously on several key things that point to that which is itself unrecordable, however, he succeeds in conveying something more valuable. In his effort to at least adumbrate his grief, he paints such shiveringly lyrical pictures of Love, Friendship, and God that I find myself caring as little as he does that grief remains unexpressed.

I have coined the term "thoughtgasms" specifically to describe my experience while reading In Memoriam. Some passages are so plangent and alive that I experienced a physical shudder while reading them. For example:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At least he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds (XCVI).

If I were to die at this moment, this is what I would choose for my epitaph.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude

For the first 200 pages of this book, I prayed that it would go somewhere and such intoxicating, compelling images and characters would not simply be tossed in the dungheap of my memory for want of relevance. I worried that I was reliving the reading of Villanueva's Rain of Gold, an experience which I enjoyed at the time but of which I cannot recall a single detail. For the third quarter of the book, I was heartened by the foreshadowing of a profound and tidy truth that would only be revealed at the end of the book. For the last quarter, however, I abandoned myself completely in the indelible details of this masterpiece, and only then did I receive the message. Not only does the book not go anywhere, it does so purposefully and pointedly. The book is a wheel on which Marquez spins an elaborate shroud, and on which he then spends just as long unravelling it. It is this trait which, in my mind, defines the most masterful works of literature: Each scene is a microcosm of the book as a whole, and each character does to themselves what the author does to the universe which he creates.

Which is not to say that I am entirely on board with Marquez' message. From the title to the tiniest detail, he demands that the reader accept that the human experience is inescapably solitary. What is compelling is that each character is alone in his or her own way. The women especially are so clearly drawn, so simultaneously fantastic and human, that one is struck by the vast and inexhaustible variety of solitude that exists in the town of Macondo. Each of them, Fernanda, Remedios, Amaranta, Ursula, Pilar, and even the minor female characters are so crisply created that one is never in danger of confusing them. The same cannot be said for the male characters, which fact might be a literary device and might equally be a lapse in authorial attention. The copious and varied populace of the novel careen into each other like depraved bumper cars in a praody of human existence that invokes the perspective of Virginia Woolf, who seems to have shared Marquez' faith in the fundamental isolation of the human spirit. I simply do not concur. The human spirit is undoubtedly adrift in a social sea. But one can authentically, if briefly, touch and hold the spirit of another. The experience has more than once driven me to weep with an emotion that is neither sorrow nor bliss, but simply the neutral, flavorless emotion which serves as the canvas on which all other emotions are painted. But that's just my experience. Even though I cannot endorse Marquez' theme, I will never escape the image of Rebeca eating earth to escape her animal passion, of the locket with a strand of hair locked in a suit of armor at the bottom of a river, of Amaranta's black bandage, or of the myriad other burning images with which this novel almost carelessly overflows.

John Shelby Spong: Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism

Despite my attraction to his message, I was feeling rather ambivalent about Spong's style until an inspired passage more than halfway through clarified it all for me. I can think of no better endorsement of this message than to quote it directly:

Both the Sacred Scriptures and the creeds of the Christian church can point to but they can never finally capture eternal truth. The attempt to make either Bible or tradition "infallible" is an attempt to shore up ecclesiastical power and control. It is never an attempt to preserve truth . . . Only truth that can constantly call out new words capable of lifting yesterday's experience into today's mind-set will finally survive.The formulations of today or tomorrow will be no more eternal than the formulations of first-century people. this is not a plea to give up inadequate ancient words for ultimately inadequate modern words. It is to force upon us the realization that all words are, in the last analysis, inadequate (169).

Spong, despite a slightly muddled delivery, succeeds in communicating several important perspectives: first, that the Bible cannot possibly be taken literally. I would add that nobody even believes in a fastidiuously literal Bible, no matter what they might say. Even the most ardent fundamentalists can appreciate the beauty of the Bible's copious figurative and metaphorical language. Furthermore, a Bible that was delivered word for word from the mouth of God with no iota of filtration through human perspective would have no need of four gospels. The fact that the four gospels differ by so much as a single word (let alone other clear stylistic elements that are attributable to human authorial influence) is evidence enough that they are told through a human perspective. The fact that they differ by more than a little and are, in places, contradictory, only strengthens this position. Secondly, Spong argues that enshrinement of the Bible as infallible and verbatim Divine revelation is nothing short of idolatry, and that God is far too expansive to be thus described. All the Bible can do is give us a second-hand account of God through the pens of those who had an intimate experience of the God-essence. Once we recognize this, and release the Bible from chains of literality, the message is accessible to thinking and credulous persons alike.

This is not to say that I support Spong wholeheartedly. I endorse his perspective of the Bible, but it leads him to an impassioned plea for rengagement of the Christian community. I cannot deny that the Bible is "alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb 4:12). I have frequently been laid low, abased, and pierced to the very bowels by the words of this electric book. I cannot, however, wrap my mind around the declaration that it and it alone is an authentic, notarized expression of the Divine. I percieve that Spong is setting his sights too low by trying to breathe inclusivity and expansiveness into the Christian community. It is my fervent belief that the more organized a religion becomes, the more it must, by necessity, stifle dissent and indiviual epiphany. This is not to say that organized religion has no place, simply that the second it becomes organized it loses something personal and alive even as it gains power and stability. This is especially ironic, because the very epiphanies and revelations that make any dissenting opinion possible were at one time necessary to the establishment of the church; it is only now that the church has something to lose that they must be labelled heretical and dangerous. The key, then, is to maintain constant contact with the dangerous and heretical for only there can exponential growth of understanding be experienced, but also to keep ones spiritual feet on the ground, and to have some harbor of doctrine to return to after a period of expansive and revealing postulating. This is the only way for organized religion to have any merit to the honest individual.

Zora Neale Hurston: Dust Tracks on a Road

This was exactly the book I needed right now. I relate very closely to Hurston insofar as I, too, have gone through my youth as an alien in this world. Now that I am leaving adolescence at last, it is a source of comfort and inspiration to read the autobiography of one who came to find her niche and touched the world in the process. In fact, Hurston entered the world with both fists at the same approximate age I am now. As a bonus, Hurston is more than up to the difficult task of making me laugh out loud when nobody is around to witness it.

As a side bar: so clear and passionate is her writing, she accomplishes the remarkable task of rebutting the objection raised by Maya Angelou in her otherwise glowing foreword. Angelou hints that Hurston is an apologist, and thereby something of a coward. Hurston's position is far more compelling, however, than Angelou's accusation, though the latter has the advantage of writing after the fact.

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

It is very tempting to buy into Marcus Aurelius prescription for content living: "To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing--here is the perfection of character." (VII.69) Upon reflection, however, it occurs to me that this approach is phenomenally depressing. Aurelius seems to typify what Kierkegaard calls the "knight of perfect resignation," that is to say, he subsumes himself to the universal, and finds contentment in the understanding that the individual is but an insignificant fraction of it. The logical conclusion of this approach, however, is such morbid and counterproductive statements as, "In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable boy's. Either both were recieved into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms." (VI.24) It is no wonder that Kierkegaard found ultimate resignation unsatisfying; it leaves one with little motive for action or hope for improvement. To take the next step and say, by virtue of the absurd, "although the individual is subordinate to the universal, nonetheless the universal serves the individual" seems to be the step that escaped Marcus Aurelius, and which even Kierkegaard could only admire from a distance. Indeed, if the individual has no claim on the universal, if--insignificant though I am--God has no investment in my welfare, why continue to live? My passing would be of no more import than that of a film of dust.

Soren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling

Kierkegaard's Panegyric for Abraham is, as I have written elsewhere, one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. His philisophical conclusions are less interesting to me, simply because I don't share his fascination with the questions he poses. Nonetheless, the work is filled with awe-inspiring turns of phrase that occasionally gave me chills and often served to crystallize my own thoughts.

C.S. Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet

Although I am not quite sure how to apply the allegorical elements of this novel to human society, the prose was compelling and (unlike The Magician's Nephew) the more pedantic elements were not off-putting. All in all, a refreshing read.

William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience

A more accessible and relevant version of Kant's The Critique of Pure Reason. James makes his point with force and style, although he spends twice as long as necessary to do it, and doesn't go nearly as far as he might. In the end, I was left with the sensation of having learned something, although I would be hard pressed to say exactly what.

Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

John (the brother of my soul) said that this was the best book he ever read, and I like other Nabokov I've read, so I gave it a whack. To put it succinctly, style:9, contents:6. To think that so many beautiful words and passages were wasted on as thoroughly detestable a character as Lolita is irritating.

Spencer Reese: The Clerk's Tale

A book of mostly forgettable poems by an entirely forgettable poet. Interestingly, I bought the book because I could tell from the cover (with no real evidence, just one of those natural knowing things) that the author was gay, and I suspected he might have some interesting insights. He was. He didn't.