Thomas Merton鈥檚 life was tragically cut short in l968 at the age of 53 while he was in Asia for inter-religious meeings. This book of sixteen essays wThomas Merton鈥檚 life was tragically cut short in l968 at the age of 53 while he was in Asia for inter-religious meeings. This book of sixteen essays was published in l961 and reflected Merton鈥檚 growing interest in eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, and the similarities of some of its practices with contemplative aspects of Christianity.
In 鈥淐ontemplation and Dialogue鈥� he writes, 鈥淚n all religions, we encounter not only the claim to (divine) revelation in some form or other, but also the record of special experiences in which the absolute and final validity of that revelation is in some way attested. Both Buddhism and Christianity make that claim to contact with a transcendent reality., and much of the book discusses how humans make that contact.
To enter into an existence of transcendent reality always involves moving beyond the ego that operates almost all of the time in a world of objects to which the ego is attached in a subject-object way of perception. This 鈥漨oving beyond鈥� is difficult and requires much effort.
Paradoxically, though, at least in Zen Buddhism, the effort results in a simplicity which dismisses the effort. If one reaches this state of mind, a non attachment to any concepts , there is no longer any distinctions to be made. The effort is not to directly aim for this non-attachment, but more to put oneself into a receptive mood.
Similarly, the early Desert Fathers of Christianity talked about a 鈥渓ife in the spirit鈥� which meant a purity of heart and the avoidance of making conceptual knowledge an end in itself. Merton rises an interesting question which he leaves hanging. When a Zen Buddhist practitioner reaches a state of being called a riddle without an answer, he is aware of his own nothingness. Merton wonders if the Zen experience opens out into an unconscious demand for grace. In Christian terms, grace is a transforming gift from God. Buddhists don鈥檛 recognize any term such as grace, but the key word is 鈥渦nconscious鈥� 鈥� grace may be present in both traditions.
The biggest difference between the Christian contemplative tradition and Buddhism, is the presence of Christ in Christianity. Grace, a gift, cannot be separated from Christ. A definition of grace, in fact, is a merging or reconciliation in Christ with one鈥檚 true self, one鈥檚 neighbor, and with God. This would come about if one were a perfect practitioner of the Lord鈥檚 prayer and of the Beatitudes.
But aside from Christ and grace, Christian contemplatives and Buddhists share an enormous amount. In what culd be a conclusion, Merton talks about humanity in the west being increasingly attracted to idealized images such as sports, entertainment, or the acquiring of wealth. The attractions may not be the same in Asia where Buddhism is strongest, but any kind of images, whatever the culture, that stop at t his level and do not search for God, called the ground of being, is limited. To explore this commonality was no doubt one reason that Merton was Asia.. ...more
Pagels鈥� view of the New Testament is that it鈥檚 a tangle of fabrications, contradictions, myths, as well as true stories, with thousands of competing iPagels鈥� view of the New Testament is that it鈥檚 a tangle of fabrications, contradictions, myths, as well as true stories, with thousands of competing interpretations of what to make of the accounts of Christ鈥檚 time on earth. But rather than being a problem, she sees all of this as its great virtue. Through twenty centuries people have responded to the writings about Jesus, always grounded in their own experiences.
If there鈥檚 any one thing in the life and death of Christ that accounts for his influence through the centuries, I think Pagels finds it in the element of hope. It begins in the Hebrew scriptures where people are set free. There is always a way out of suffering, a transformation of suffering into joy. It may come about, , improbably, in this world, or more improbably, in a future dimension after death. Pagels concludes her book, 鈥淎s I see it, they [the gospel stories] give us what we often need most; an outburst of hope.鈥�
Pagels鈥� book is organized into seven chapters, beginning with the 鈥淰irgin Birth鈥�, followed by ones about Christ鈥檚 identify, the 鈥淕ood News鈥� that he brings, and then chapters on Christ鈥檚 crucifixion and resurrection. The last two chapters concentrate on historical theories about the divinity of Christ, and finally how Christ today has been re imagined in cinematic stories.
I think a crucial concept that Pagels makes is that Christ was not a figure that embraced the tradition of rationality, such as Socrates or the Romans espoused, but rather something the author calls Galilean Judaism, one that accepted the stories of the Hebrew testament which was full of spiritual beings (angels, for example) and myths (Adam and Eve, Noah, Tower of Babel, the sun standing still for Joshua, etc.) Much of this language is metaphorical, not literal, and is carried on in the narratives of Jesus鈥� life.
This tendency can be seen in the stories of Christ鈥檚 death and resurrection. It is a matter of historical fact that Christ was crucified. But accounts of his resurrection from the dead are not. What happened is not clear; the four evangelists, writing several generations after Christ鈥檚 death depend upon eye witness accounts of seeing the resurrected Christ, and this gives credence to their faith in Christ as a divine figure. Paul, though, writing much earlier, hardly mentions the details of the resurrection. His faith is based on a vision he had, and all that he wrote was a struggle to intellectually explain the significance of Christ鈥檚 life and death. What can be said with assurance about Christ鈥檚 rising from the dead is that something remarkable happened, and that it had a powerful influence on his followers.
It enabled his followers to embrace the notion of a 鈥渒ingdom of God,鈥� best summed up in the Lord鈥檚 prayer, and in the ideas, often paradoxical, expressed in the Beatitudes. It is a message of giving and of love, even in the face of injustice and suffering, and will lead to a kind of perfection. Whether the perfect 鈥渒ingdom鈥� comes now or later is open to debate..
If a reader is looking for definite answers to perennial questions about Christ, his identity and what exactly he taught, they won鈥檛 be found in this book. What will be found is the historical and mythical context in which these questions are raised. ...more
In today鈥檚 period of spurious and fake news, spawned by the internet where anyone can say anything, it鈥檚 a little startling to find that in many ways,In today鈥檚 period of spurious and fake news, spawned by the internet where anyone can say anything, it鈥檚 a little startling to find that in many ways, conditions were no better a hundred years ago. Macauley, writing in the aftermath of World War I, comments that people remembered an age of normalcy when 鈥渢he ordered frame of things was still unbroken, violence was a child鈥檚 dream. . .鈥�
鈥淏ut that world is gone, replaced by the age of melodrama, when nothing is too strange to happen, and mo one is ever surprised. That may pass, but probably will not, for it is primeval.鈥� Macaulay鈥檚 specific target in this world is the newspaper business , exemplified by a paper published by Percy Potter, personally a nice fellow, but who puts out a paper characterized by a greed for profits and a pandering to public opinion. It is most afraid of independent thought, social change, loss of power, and most of all, the truth. Seeking the truth would be hard work and would displease a public used to mental laziness,and sentimentality.
Ironically, Potter has two children, twins, Johnny and Jane, who react against what they call 鈥淧otterism鈥� and are involved in an anti-Potter paper operated by Arthur Gideon, a friend of theirs. Despite their differences, the family members are on good terms.
This is the opening section of the novel, but in the middle part the novel shifts to the death of Jane鈥檚 husband, under strange circumstances that lead to suspicion of a murder, and then the novel works out what really happened to the husband, including evidence given by a medium to Mrs. Potter, a slightly dotty writer writer of romance novels and a believer in the occult.
There are five separate parts to the novel, the first and last using an omniscient author, the middle three, dealing with the murder mystery, narrated by three separate characters. To some extent, this middle part of the book is a distraction from the larger issue of Potterism and is a separate story. At the end, though, when the mystery of the murder is resolved, the question arises of how the Potter press will deal with it 鈥� it would be sensationalized if it were not so close to home and in the family, so there is some hypocrisy in downplaying its coverage.
The farcical aspects of the novel鈥檚 title are particularly on display with the part narrated by Mrs. Potter and her busybody approach to dealing with the murder, especially in her faith in her medium who has contacts with the 鈥渙ther side.鈥� The tragic aspects appear in the last part when anti-Potterism advocate, Arthur, pays a steep price for his dedication to the principle of finding the truth.
The murder tilts the book toward whodunit fiction, but the novel rights itself by seriously examining how people compromise and justify essentially greedy and selfish behavior, both personally and in the media of the time. ...more
I found this book to be particularly engaging. It鈥檚 not just about the seventeen books that influenced Sweeney but how he happened to discover them, wI found this book to be particularly engaging. It鈥檚 not just about the seventeen books that influenced Sweeney but how he happened to discover them, what he was doing and thinking when he engaged with these books. They range from his interest in Hitler and history when he was a teenager to such writers as Tolstoy, Montaigne, and Thoreau. Both fiction and non-fiction are included in an eclectic mix. If any one area interested Sweeney the most, it would be religion, emphasized by sseveral of his own books on religious figures such as Francis of Assisi and Meister Eckhart
Because a good amount of his time was spent in book selling and publishing, Sweeney talks a lot about how he notices the physical appearances of books, nearly all of which he encountered in book stores. He writes, 鈥淏rowsing is a powerful thing. I wouldn鈥檛 have found any of the books that have carried me without the curiosity, freedom, and availability of bookstore browsing. And to have success with finding what you didn鈥檛 know you were looking for, is to learn how to browse more, and better, and with a seriousness that鈥檚 almost religious in anticipation of discovering. 鈥�
It鈥檚 a form of thinking, one that Sweeney sees as a road metaphor for his life, 鈥� . . .rambling, wandering, and indirect.鈥� Or to put a reading life in in terms of time, 鈥淒estination and purpose come in the morning with gratitude and hope, and in the evening with thankfulness and anticipation.鈥� Part of a passage from Wittgenstein help to further open up Sweeney鈥檚 approach to reading, and to life. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not that a piece of language says everything it means; you can鈥檛 read meaning off of words, and it isn鈥檛 in virtue of the fa ct that you simply understand words that you know all that鈥檚 meant.鈥�
Wittgenstein goes on to elaborate on what could be called context and connotation. Books are written by human beings in very specific circumstances, and the more a reader knows about these circumstances, the better able he is to appreciate and savor the books. In a similar way, anyone who reads a book does it in specific circumstances - a person鈥檚 life changes, one reason why Sweeney has read some of his favorite books many times. Each reading brings new enjoyment.
I thought one the best examples of changing circumstances was Sweeney's discussion of Leo Tolstoy who moved from the huge social scale of WAR AND PEACE and ANNA KARENINA to writing seemingly simple folk tales. Tolstoy鈥檚 comment was that stories of any kind tell of events that happen. What they mean and how they ae interpreted is a entirely different matter. Sweeney agrees, and has read these tales over and over again. He finds heir wealth of meaning is inexhaustible; there is no simple understanding that says everything. There is always more to explore, and that鈥檚 what Sweeney urges in this book. It鈥檚 not just HIS life in books, but it could be anyone鈥檚 life in books.
Carr鈥檚 book is a followup to his earlier THE SHALLOWS, How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember (2010) where the prognosis wasCarr鈥檚 book is a followup to his earlier THE SHALLOWS, How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember (2010) where the prognosis was not good . Essentially, he contended we were outsourcing our brains and diminishing its critical capacity. Fifteen years later, things are worse. The current title comes from his description of poppies. They are 鈥渓ush, vibrant, and entrancing. They鈥檙e also garish, invasive, and narcotic.鈥�
The key word is 鈥渘arcotic鈥� in that the new technologies are habit-forming and addictive. One we began using them, it is impossible to stop, and users become victims. He sees them as extensions of power, political as well as social and gives a history of how we communicate, beginning with the printing press and the expansion of reading. The 19th century brought the invention of the telegraph, followed by the telephone. With the development of radio and television, there was an effort in the early 20th century to use these new media to promote the public good, and legislation followed with the result of the controversial 鈥渇airness doctrine,鈥� which disappeared in the l980鈥檚.
Today, Google, Facebook, and all of the other apps are mostly free of any civic responsibility, their chief aim being to make money. Facebook鈥檚 introduction of the News Feed in 2006 removed the necessity of the viewer to seek out their own sites; through its algorithmic filtering provided a customized stream of posts and updates.
The effect of such processes is to speed up communication. Email was appealing at first because it did away with postal mailing of messages and provided instant contact.. Carr writes, 鈥淎s email exploded, habits changed. With new messages pinging into mailboxes every few minutes, no one had time to write or read long missives. The discursive, carefully composed email fell out of fashion.鈥�
The trend continued at an even faster pace with the coming of the smartphone and the mobile app. Words could even be dispensed with with emojis. Messages could be instantly copied, and best of all, the phone was portable and went wherever the owner went. Texting became increasingly popular, one reason being the elimination of time-consuming pleasantries in a telephone call and resulted what鈥檚 called textspeak. It鈥檚 streamlined, easy to skim, ubiquitous, and used by all platforms, whether Instagram, Tik Tok, X, WhatsApp, or whatever.
What鈥檚 wrong with all this? Reading and writing, practiced with care, slows down the mind, makes it think about unfamiliar topics. But all of this new media speeds up the mind, with little time for sorting out thoughts or thinking for oneself. It could even be called 鈥渁utomatic thinking.鈥� Ironically, then, greater media efficiency increases the flow of information so much that any kind of reflective thinking becomes impossible. People are locked into their private communication worlds, seeing and hearing only what they want to hear, and it鈥檚 all made easy.
The result of all of this new comminication is ominous for a democracy which requires a thoughtful and deliberate electorate, if it is to function well. Most of the latter part of Carr鈥檚 book looks at all of the implications of the new media鈥檚 effect on thinking. Carr鈥檚 conclusion, not a panacea by any means, is to try for a process of 鈥渆xcommunication,鈥� a deliberate effort of getting beyond the reach of the new communication鈥檚 鈥渓iquefying force.鈥� It won鈥檛 be easy. ...more
Edwin Frank, a New York Review of Books editor, assembles and discusses a list of 32 novels of the 20th century that he finds significant. He divides Edwin Frank, a New York Review of Books editor, assembles and discusses a list of 32 novels of the 20th century that he finds significant. He divides the 20th century into three personally impressionistic periods, 鈥淏reaking the Vessels,鈥� 鈥淎 Scattering of Sparks,鈥� and 鈥淭he Withdrawal,鈥� roughly corresponding to experimentation in the novel, reactions to World War I, and a grimly realistic view of the later century. But these are loose categories and overlap with novels reflecting and mirroring influences of other novels and to read this book is hugely rewarding as so much of it is a product of a discriminating and creative mind, and it鈥檚 almost enjoyable in a fiction-like way to see where Frank is taking you as he navigates his way through the century.
Frank begins with Dostoevsky鈥檚 NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, and while it appeared in the l860鈥檚, it is a key to 20th century novels. It has a character, hard to pin down, who talks about philosophy, literature, politics, progress, and in the end, all aspects of life. He is often detached and self-critical, though, of what he talks about. His voice is 鈥渟upremely equivocal and not just unreliable, radically unreliable. But real. This is the voice of the 20th century novel.鈥� These novels are off shoots of Dostoevsky, throwing a long fictional shadow forward.
One thing I appreciated in reading Frank鈥檚 discussion of these books is the inclusion of details of their lives, giving texture to the novels and making them more interesting, especially as some of the novelists knew other personally as well as through their works. The novels are by such well-known writers as Joyce, Mann, Woolf, Hemingway, Lawrence, Nabokov, Faulkner, Ellison and Naipaul as well as lesser known writers such as Wells and Kipling. Frank ranges across both novels written in English, as well as European writers such as Musil, Perec, Gide, Kafka, Grossman,, and Sebald. Included, too, are African writers particularly Achebe. Latin writers like Marquez, several Asian writers, and he closes with W. G. Sebald who at the beginning of the 21st century with his anticipates the graphic novel with his inclusion of photographs.
In many of these writers鈥� novels, a good example being V. S. Naipaul鈥檚 1987 ENIGMA OF ARRIVAL there is a 鈥渉unger for a higher meaning that the world itself seems helpless to provide.鈥� There seemed a brief period of hopefulness that came with the collapse of Soviet communism, but with the advent of the 21st century and its grim realities of climate change, poverty, wars, there is more than ever that hunger for higher meaning found in 20th century novels.
I think Frank does well in one of his interesting generalizations that tries grasp the 20th century novel, 鈥�. . . a defining feature of the 20th century from the start: it has been on a mission to find out what it is, to show itself for what it is, and to tell all t he world, and that this is important, all important, a matter of life and death.鈥�
Macaulay who wrote most of her seventeen novels in the early 20th century, still speaks to readers a hundred years later, and this early novel is a goMacaulay who wrote most of her seventeen novels in the early 20th century, still speaks to readers a hundred years later, and this early novel is a good example of that relevance. Its concerns are about class distinctions but principally about the disillusionment of youths as they age.
The title comes from a story that is told about putting base metal into a fiery furnace, and of course it all melts away except for a small portion which is pure gold. The woman who tells the story is an elderly Mrs. Venerables who interprets it for a younger Tommy, 鈥� Life, you see, is a smelting furnace, a crucible for the testing of ultimate values.鈥� Tommy is not impressed.
Tommy and his sister, Betty, are two young Brits who are leading carefree lives in Naples. Tommy has a small job as a illustrator for a local paper, and they could be called Neapolitan loafers, enjoying the food, socializing with f riends, taking in cultural events of the city. For them, 鈥渢o sit by the harbor and talk, if the day were fine and the company agreeable, was an excellent afternoon鈥檚 occupation.鈥�
Into their lives come tourists, Mrs. Venerables, her son, and several other family members. They stay on for months, and the young pair capture Mrs. Venerables鈥� interest as she remembers their eccentric parents from England. Mrs. Venerables. is a dilettante who is described as a woman who lives to capture impressions and 鈥渓et the waters of experiences fill her. Later, she squeezed them out.鈥� She sees the brother and sister as 鈥渋nteresting鈥� bohemian types and cultivates a friendship with them, sightseeing, taking them to dine, and to events. They are happy to accommodate her.
The novel progresses, each is friendly enough, but with reservations. Tommy and to a lesser extent, Betty, see a failure on the part of the Venerables in that they don鈥檛 know the real Naples, one that accepts poverty and the grittiness of day to day living. And gradually, the Venerables, especially the skeptical son, Warren, come to see Betty and Tommy, not as free-spirited artists, but as low lie hanger-on, 鈥渞otters,鈥� they are called. This attitude hardens as they prepare to leave Naples, leaving Betty and Tommy behind.
What about the furnace analogy on which the book relies? Time and circumstance have tested and melted away this friendship. Is there any small 鈥樷€漡old鈥� nugget of value left for the discarded brother and sister? Betty still clings to a slight notion of 鈥渇un,鈥� but it鈥檚 lost most of its meaning for Tommy. They have each other, that鈥檚 all. ...more
![The Furnace / by R. Macaulay. 1907 [Leather Bound]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1699365518l/128605065._SX50_.jpg)
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