BooksOnTrial: Musings of a Mute Reader (2010) Part II

(Pat I thread)

2010 Author Theme Reads and Reviews:

These are the authors whose books I've enjoyed and will be reading more of in 2010, influential thinkers who made a lasting impact on history, and whose lives were an outgrowth of the ideas and ideals reflected in their writings.

1. Plato:
   
   • Timaeus and Critias (review)
     
   • The Laws (to read)
     
   • Statesman (to read)
     
   • Gorgias (to read)
     
2. Cicero:
   
   • The Nature of the Gods (review)
     
   • Letters to Atticus IV (review)
     
   • The Republic and the Laws (to read)
     
   • The Ideal Orator (to read)
     
   • Cicero: Classical Life and Letters (to read)
     
3. St. Augustine:
   
   • Confessions (review)
     
   • On Christian Teaching (review)
     
   • City of God (review)
     
   • Saint Augustine: Select Letters (review)
     
   • Letters of Saint Augustine (review)
     
   • Augustine: Earlier Writings (review)
     
   • The Trinity (to read)
     
4. Victor Hugo:
   
   • The Last Day of a Condemned Man (review)
     
   • Notre-Dame de Paris (review)
     
   • Les Misérables (review)
     
   • The Man Who Laughs (review)
     
   • The Toilers of the Sea (review)
     
   • Ninety-Three (review)
     
   • The Memoirs of Victor Hugo (to read)
     
5. Søren Kierkegaard
   
   • Fear and Trembling (review)
     
   • The Sickness unto Death (review)
     
   • Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing (review)
     
   • Either / Or (to read)
     
   • The Concept of Anxiety (to read)
     

Why Mute?

If you've seen the movie "Amadeus" (if not, I highly recommend it), you might remember a scene where Salieri, who was jealous of Mozart's genius, questioned a priest why God gave him the desire to make music but denied him the talent and made him mute.

I know what it is like to be "mute", because although I enjoy reading, I'm terrible with words, having no talent for writing whatsoever. It's frustrating not being able to express oneself adequately and share with others what one has read and enjoyed.

If you have any tips or suggestions on reviewing, I'd very much appreciate it. :)

A Personal Recommendation

I went grocery shopping today and bought some yogurt among other things. The lady at the checkout greeted me with a smile and said, "Have you tried the Greek yogurt? It's really good. I know you like yogurt. It's creamy, I think you'll like it. Try it, if you don't like it, I'll personally give your money back. I'll be here tomorrow." I laughed and said I'd be back tomorrow.

When I think about my LT book reviews and recommendations, they lack the kind of personal touch and the conviction that lady has. Often times I don't have a good sense of the book enough to know what type of person would like it. All I can say is whether I myself enjoy the book and why, although sometimes I can't even explain why.

After almost two years on LT, I'm still trying to learn what is a good book review and how to write one.

books, me too, on the still learning thing. I think your reviews do have a distinct personal touch, and that makes them interesting and worth reading. Keep at it.

And Greek yogurt is awesomely good, especially Fage with Cherry or Honey.

Had a Greek god, Hermes, for breakfast today. :) Don't know why they name the yogurt "Greek Gods". Whether the yogurt is food for the gods or the gods are in the yogurt, it IS good!

>3 dchaikin:: dchaikin,

When I was savoring the yogurt, your ISOLT quote on "lime flower tea" came to mind. It's not quite the same level of experience. But I wondered whether Proust had tasted Greek yogurt and how he would describe it.

I have not yet tried Greek yogurt. Guess I need to!

>5 alcottacre:: alcottacre,

It tastes like ice cream and cheesecake, very rich and thick.

The Sickness Unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard

It seems ironic to post this review on Halloween night, when everybody dresses up to be someone else, because Kierkegaard's message in this book is precisely the opposite, "If only everyone can be themselves!"

http://www.librarything.com/work/9852/reviews/65456878

       

It's been a while since I last read Tolstoy's works. LT marks today as the 100th anniversary of his death, i.e., November 7, according to the old style Julian calendar. Added The Cossacks and Childhood, Boyhood and Youth to my "To Read" list. Can't think of any other of his novels available in English that I haven't read already. Does that officially make me a Tolstoy junkie?

There are worse kinds of junkies to be. At least with Tolstoy, if you do go all obsessional, all that means is the wearing of robes (in natural fibers) and giving all your stuff to charity.

>9 RidgewayGirl:: RidgewayGirl,

Where do you get those natural fiber clothings these days? Hopefully, it won't cost me a fortune that I don't have anything left to donate to charity. :)

booksontrial, I haven't tried them in several years, but I used to love the clothing from Deva Lifewear.

Robert

>11 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

Thanks. Those clothings seem quite comfortable, and the price is reasonable too. It looks like they could use some male models, though. :)

I mostly wore their shirts. They had one called a buccaneer shirt that I had in a few colors. I think that's shown on the unisex shirts page. They also used to have unisex caftans and similar robes that are not so obvious in their on-line catalog now, if they are there at all. The shirts are modeled by men, but I didn't see any lounge-wear modeled by men, although I only looked at one or two.

Robert

Oh, please get a unisex caftan! And then grow your beard hair out so that you can part it in the middle, adopt a righteous glare and then post a picture. Please?

I glare well enough with a short beard. If I had use for a caftan, I'd get one. I have more use for monk's robes, but getting them is not so easy, and I couldn't find my better one for last Sunday at church.

I'd just as soon booksontrial have the thread back.

Robert

>14 RidgewayGirl:: RidgewayGirl,

You mean like the one of Tolstoy above on the right? Long beard can be done with makeup, but not the glare from under the bushy eyebrows!

15: Mr.Durick,

Is it a common practice for the men to wear monk's robes in your church, or were you just showing off? :)

I'm bogged down in my reading anyway, some distractions may just be what I need.

I was going to show off. It was Halloween and there were some adults there in costume. I dug through my stuff and found a couple of not so good monk's robes, but not the Sunday go to meeting one. The minister's wife took a couple of pictures of me the last time I wore the robes to church, to cashier at a rummage sale; I may upload them to my profile one of these days, but not likely soon.

Robert

>17 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

One of my co-workers wore a dark red robe on Halloween, I thought he meant to be a monk, but he later turned out to be the Grim Reaper, with the hood and mask on, and a scythe to boot. I was reminded to never judge a man by his robe.

Which church do you attend, if you don't mind me asking?

I attend a Unitarian-Universalist church.

Robert

>19 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

I know practically nothing about it, and the Wiki page gives me the impression of an amorphous entity. I'm curious though, what do members of your church hold in common, in terms of practices and beliefs, etc.?

Unitarian-Universalism is non-credal and is not a people or church of the book. Practices are established by the individual congregations but typically include Sunday services and social service. The congregations, members of the Unitarian Universalist Association, by the by-laws of the association covenant to affirm and promote seven principals, but that binds the congregations (more or less) rather than the individuals.

I just dug up this page from the association which pretty much summarizes our position.

A recent poll of our congregation found that congregants want an intellectual non-Christian experience on Sunday mornings. I know that there are many who are happy to hear wisdom from Buddhists but will deny any wisdom in Christianity. I also believe that they want to believe that they are having an intellectual experience but are not ready actually to think about much of what they hear. Anyway, I think we are mostly people who want to congregate in the name of doing something churchish without being compelled to do things that are not justified. How deep we go, how responsible we are in exercising the fourth principle, is up to the individual. Our church has over the years had various kinds of adult religious education in which maybe ten people, in a congregation of maybe 100, participated.

My understanding is that congregations vary immensely but typically go from churchish on the East coast to fellowshipish on the West coast.

You won't be accosted if you visit a Unitarian-Universalist church for a Sunday service.

Robert

>21 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

Thanks for the information. I have to admit UU still seems like an undifferentiated, undefined mass to me. For example, what type of intellectual experiences do you get there that are not available say in a LT discussion group or a book club?

Part of what I get in intellectual stimulation is from what I bring to bear on what is said. As I suggested above, I think a lot of the participants don't bring much to bear except their prejudices. We have academic scientists in the congregation, for example, who can't understand that the bulk of evidence is that the Earth is the center of the Universe. We have room, however, for discussion about those sorts of thing, where there is no such room in a more fixed, evangelical church. That differentiates it.

That we have a free and responsible search for truth and meaning rather than prescription differentiates us from other religious bodies.

And I think I could go on about differentiation. If we could go on about those differences, we could probably generalize and reach a definition. I am not sure that that would satisfy either of us. I think my living experience of our church is what takes me back repeatedly to that congregation, to wash the dishes for everybody or to bring dessert to a small party of us, to discuss, a little, my relation to the universe.

LibraryThing discussion groups are not to be dismissed and, I think, have a value that cannot be found in casual conversation, but they are not with live bodies which I have found is often important to me; certain live bodies at church are congenial to me. Book clubs narrow their focus in a way that is not quite churchly.

I do get your point, however, and think maybe we don't attract people who don't find something early on to pin their relationship to the church on. I think a good bit of the emphasis is on association (my main interest is in my association with the universe, with a supported interest in feeding the hungry subordinated to it), but it may take awhile to find those associations in a group that one is new to. Until one finds such a reason for association there is no attraction.

We have a lot of members who were injured by Christianity and want to spend some time looking for an alternative. A lot of our younger adult members first having children are looking for a place for their children to learn religious kinds of things without having to swallow other people's systems of belief. I suppose we have some members who are looking for a pleasant club to belong to with club meetings on Sunday mornings.

Robert

>23 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

When you bring dessert to the gathering, is it homemade or store-bought? (Is it vegetarian by any chance?) Could you give an example of a discussion of your relation to the universe?

Store bought, but I usually try to do well. Church politics and a power play over the use of the freezer stopped me from bringing an adequacy of good ice cream. If I found a mince meat pie with real meat in it, I wouldn't hesitate to bring it, but I think most of the desserts, though not vegan, are vegetarian. We have had vegetarians come to our smaller pot lucks, and church wide events necessarily draw them -- there is, for example, a big pot of vegetarian spaghetti sauce at our fourth Sunday spaghetti lunch. One of our smaller pot lucks just sometime by its smallness turns out to be vegetarian; I have filled myself happily at such a thing although I am typically a meat eater.

I am taking cheese as an appetizer to our Thanksgiving dinner. I think that there will be plenty of pies without my adding to them.

By universe I mean, indulging in a sort of shorthand, what is ultimate and important, although that sometimes comes down to the succession of the sun and the moon in the sky. I try, when I am thinking about it, to relate everything I discuss seriously to my relationship to what is ultimate and important, but I don't unless feeling strong turn it into something burdensome. Preparing and serving dinner at a local homeless shelter is part of that relationship. The discussions can occur in meetings with the minister, discussions which we had for some time with our recently retired minister. They can occur in book discussion groups. They can occur in adult religious education.

Some of the atheists thought that they should have a look at the Bible with the minister, an excommunicated Baptist. I joined in on some of the groups after I retired. When we read Jonah I interpreted it as a story of a holy enough man wise to the ways of God; that is to say Jonah had God's number. Such a story speaks to the inconstancy of what is powerful, to the fickleness of fate. I think it speaks much more to that than to the love of God for righteousness, a difficult notion which we see apparently betrayed all too often. Learning to live with fate, acceptance, is an important life lesson that apparently a huge number of us have trouble with. Discussing fate's literature is an important part of learning acceptance for some of us.

We have achievers in our congregation, too. Sometimes I have to remind them that not all of us are captains of our fate. Sometimes I have to remind myself that at least it seems to be that there are people who are.

Robert

Read On Free Will by St. Augustine.

What struck me the most in this book was Augustine's reflections on existence and suicide, which were echoed perfectly in Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death.St Augustine could be regarded as the father of Existentialism. The more I read Augustine, the more I tend to think that he is to Christian thoughts what Plato, according to some, is to Western philosophy.

>25 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

I admire what you do at the homeless shelter. I have never done that myself. Do you get a chance to get to know some of them personally?

About Jonah: I think the story that speaks more to the fickleness or mystery of fate would be Job (one of my favorite characters in the OT), whereas the story of Jonah shows the mercy of God.

Sadly, the church is falling away from its participation at the homeless shelter, and my days as a servant there have grown fewer and will probably fade altogether. The service there does not bring us into contact closer than across a counter, but I have known some of the people I have served including one who was a congregant at our church; he has since disappeared.

Job is not one of my favorite characters, much as I sympathize with him, but his story is one of my favorite stories.

In Jonah, the mercy of God, in word count, is short although a key component. Jonah's flight from the call to prophecy and his indignation after God's mercy is shown make it plain that God might want to reflect a little longer before he promises to wipe out a city. He could have sent Jonah to warn Nineveh rather than condemn it. But, no, Johan had to be forced to try to sneak off to Cyprus, or wherever, then to reflect on subjection to power in the belly of a fish, and finally knuckle under to tell a people that they would die. Then he was embarassed. He didn't want to carry that message.

Anyway, it is an important part of Unitarian Universalism that I look into these matters with some care, not necessarily the Bible, but matters of importance. I think I have brought care to it even if I have reached a conclusion different from yours. Your conclusion, by the way, would be just as welcome as mine in our church.

Robert

>28 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

St. Augustine is attributed to have said, "There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future." I think the story of Jonah speaks to that as well.

Jonah fled from the call to prophecy because he knew God would relent. As he prayed to God, "Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm." (Jonah 4:1) If Jonah knew what God would do, surely God Himself knew what He was doing.

There is always hope for someone who is willing to turn to God, even at the last moment, like the robber on the cross beside Jesus.

To commemorate the 1656th anniversary of St. Augustine's birthday (November 13, 354), I'm posting two popular quotes attributed to him, just what I need as I look forward to my upcoming vacation. :)

""The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."

"People travel to wonder
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves
without wondering. "

I love the quotes you posted. Thanks for those!

>31 alcottacre:: alcottacre,

I got those quotes from Goodreads. One of the things I like about it is that you can browse quotes by your favorite authors, find great quotes and their origins easily, although the origins are not always verifiable.

What better way to celebrate Tolstoy than to watch "War and Peace"? I sure am glad to find it on YouTube!

This 7-hour film adaptation of War and Peace has to be the best ever. I need to get the DVD for this film.

Just noticed that I've been "reading" Thus Spoke Zarathustra for three months. Somehow I find it hard to get into Nietzsche. I started Kierkegaard at the same time, and read three books by him already. I'd be interested in talking with fans of Nietzsche and find out what they like about him.

Whoever lumped Kierkegaard and Nietzsche together as forerunners of Existentialism must have had a wicked sense of humor. I suspect Kierkegaard would have vehemently attacked Nietzsche's philosophy if the circumstance had presented itself. It's a pity the former died before the latter reached the age of accountability.

Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing by Søren Kierkegaard

This is a great book for Christian self-examination, dedicated by the author and recommended by this reviewer to "that solitary individual" who desires to commit himself to One Thing and guard himself against double mindedness, hypocrisy and mediocrity.

Like Socrates, his role model, Kierkegaard excels, not so much in establishing the true religious or philosophical belief, as in distinguishing falsehood from truth, thereby prompting the reader to reflect and re-examine his own beliefs and practices.

In his books, Kierkegaard not only gives an incisive diagnosis of the human condition, but also makes confessions about himself, his sufferings and struggles. Reading his books is almost like getting to know the author, even to the extent that the reader might feel an affinity for him.

(Read full review at booksontrial.wordpress.com)

#35: I have never read any Kierkegaard, but you are inspiring me to try!

>36 alcottacre:: alcottacre,

Four books by Kierkegaard are available online (I've read and enjoyed the first three). Now is there anything left that's keeping you from reading Kierkegaard? :)

Fear and Trembling

The Sickness Unto Death

Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing

Philosophical Fragments

Tomorrow, December 23, is the 2 year anniversary of my LT membership. I've read 100+ books since joining LT. Come to think of it, it's quite an achievement! :) I enjoyed reading all (except for a handful) of the books.

Thank you all for your support, comments and book recommendations! Hopefully we'll meet again in 2011.

Happy Holidays!

Started a new LT group (just because I haven't done it before):

50 Western Canon Book Reviews in 2011.

You're all invited to join me in reading and discussing the "Great Books of the Western World".

I'll be posting in that group starting January 1, 2011.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/105839