The DaVinci Code

Posted on May 17, 2009 by smellincoffee

The DaVinci Code
© 2003 Dan Brown
454 pages

I don’t know that there is any point in introducing this book: given the controversy of its plot developments, I think it is safe to say that the whole of the English-speaking western world is aware of the book. It is controversial enough to merit books written about it criticizing Brown’s research, both from orthodox Christian and nonreligious skeptical circles. The book was turned into a movie during my first year as a skeptic, but I avoided reading it based on a bit of snobbery: I dislike reading books that are popular, having acquired an irrational pride in not being a trend-follower sometime in high school.

I disregarded that snobbery this week and read The DaVinci Code, it catching my eye while on special display the library. The imminent release of Angels and Demons, the movie version of The Da Vinci Code’s sequel, is undoubtedly what merited the book being put on display. As most readers are undoubtedly aware, The Da Vinci Code is a mystery/thriller novel that relies on Catholic and pagan symbolism as clues. The book and mystery begin in the Louvre, where the museum director has suddenly taken dead after arranging his body in an odd fashion and leaving behind a number of clues. The nature of the clues brings in Harvard religious symbolist Robert Langdon and Paris cryptologist Sophie Neveu. Both are quickly thrown into a conflict that is much larger and older than they are — a conflict that has been on-going for two thousand years. The mystery that unfolds and the thriller-esque story that is told will lead to a continent-wide manhunt of Langdon and Neveu, who are pursued by police authorities, Swiss bankers, and a fundamentalist Catholic cult, Opus Dei. The story ends in revelations that have the potential to shake the foundations of Christianity — namely, that Jesus married and had a child, and that his wife (Mary Magdalene) had been designated to lead his church before Peter ran her off to France. Brown combines this with the loss of the “sacred feminine”, or the replacement of nature and goddess worship with the more stern and penis-centered monotheistic religions.

As a mystery thriller, I must say I really enjoyed the book. Although I’ve seen the movie (my disdain for fads not withstanding, I enjoy Tom Hanks movies) and so new all of the plot twists ahead of time, Brown kept my attention and I enjoyed the book completely. I cannot and will not comment on Brown’s scholarship: I took this book as a mystery novel, not an expose of the Catholic church. What I will say is that I don’t understand the connection between Mary Magdalene and goddess worship. Even if she was the bride of Jesus, and even if he was a god-thing, the worship of her can’t simply translate to worship of an Earth-Goddess. The connection is tenuous at best for me. Beyond this, my only complaint was that the initial set of clues seemed to be entirely too thorough for belief. I find it hard to believe that a man shot in the stomach was able to think up a way to write three lines of clue that had double and triple meanings — but perhaps French museum directors are really clever.

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Islam

Posted on May 16, 2009 by smellincoffee

Islam: A Short History
© 2000 Karen Armstrong
222

This is the third or fourth book I’ve read in the “Modern Library Chronicle” series, which consists (I now realize) of brief but fairly informative treatments of given topics. I have not purposely been reading this series: I realized it only when looking at the back of this book and observing previous books I’ve read listed as part of the series (Richard Pipes’ Communism and Michael Stürmer’s The German Empire, namely).

My purpose for reading this book was twofold: one, to maintain what little Islamic literacy I have, and two, to read something by Karen Armstrong. I’ve heard a good bit about her but haven’t been able to finish anything of hers. (I recall trying to read A History of God, but losing interest very early on. This was before my interest in comparative religion, so perhaps I should revisit it.) This book is less a book on the beliefs and practice of Islam than it is a history of the religion, particularly its developing political expressions. The book is divided into five parts: “Beginnings”, “Development”, “Culmination”, “Islam Triumphant”, and “Islam Agnosistes“.

Commenting on this book is a little difficult for me, because I don’t have a working knowledge of Islamic history to judge Armstrong against. Assuming the facts are true and the judgements valid, the book is in my opinion quite well-written. She explains the subject matter well, and as Islamic history develops, she is quick to establish connections with material previously discussed. Given her skill at communicating, I found the book to be very informative. All criticisms of Armstrong I’ve heard have been from people who think she isn’t critical enough — that, in an effort to see religions from the perspective I myself have been courting recently, that most of them are attempts at ethical philosophy, she ignores brutality in either the religion itself or in its leaders. What comes to mind is how she treats Mohammed’s slaughter of the citizens of Mecca when he and his army of Muslims captured it. She writes that we “must be careful” not to judge him by our own standards, that in his time it would have been foolhardy to simply let them go. Given that by her account he killed all of the men and had the women and children sold into slavery, and given that his supposed intention and achievement was to create a society where even the weakest are treated with respect, I find that write-off a little lacking in courage.

I’m well aware of the need to view people in the context of their culture, but I’m also very wary of an explanation that seems more defensive than explanatory. I would have appreciated a more cynical, or not-as-romantic, view of the event. Thinking on this makes me realize how vulnerable history is to its authors’ unwitting subjectivity: was Mohammad an religious idealist who wanted to create a better world for his people, or was he a practical, ambitious, charismatic and concerned businessman who was able to create a kind of community that met all of his needs?

Regardless of problems in interpretation, I did find the book useful in its less controversial explanations. What most interested me was the Islamic idea of ummah, the spiritual community. What it means is that for Muslims, faith and politics cannot easily be separated. Political expression is part of religious expression. One of Armstrong’s strengths is that she does not get tied down in small matters: she looks at the big picture, spending a good bit of time comparing western civilization and Islamic civilization, looking at the way their histories have changed the way they view faith and secularism.

In the end, what I can say this: I enjoyed reading the book and found it both informative and thought-provoking. I think it merits recommending with the knowledge that interpretation plays an important role in evaluating the book. I am not certain at this point whether the book’s views are very open to interpretation, or if I’m just more consciousness of the interpretative nature of a controversial subject than I am of accounts that deal with more familiar subject material.

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Familar Poems, Annotated

Posted on May 15, 2009 by smellincoffee

Familar Poems, Annotated
© 1977 Isaac Asimov
272 pages

In reading I, Asimov, the good doctor made mention of his commentary work — including his Guide to the Bible, Guide to Shakespeare, and now Familiar Poems, Annotated. The book’s approach is quite simple: Asimov has collected thirty-seven poems that are or were broadly known in the United States of his time and regarded as classics of sorts. (The number includes Invictus, one of my favorites.) After each poem, Asimov has penned a few pages of commentary, focusing on historical, scientific, literary, or otherwise cultural allusions and context. In his introduction, he maintains that his purpose is not to comment on matters of meaning and meter, but to explain the “particular words and phrases used in constructing the poems”. He uses an excerpt from his commentary on Cargoes by John Masefield, focusing on the line “Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir“.

In connection with [this] first line in Masefield’s Cargoes, it may occur to you to wonder what the devil a quinquireme might be. And who is Nineveh and why does she happen to have a quinquireme? And where, oh where, is Ophir, since you won’t find it in the atlas. After all — once you have the answer to these questions, as I give them to you, you may then go back to the line, and, having lost none of the beauty of the sound, find you have gained an added appreciation of the sense.

The poems are arranged chronologically according to subject, not published date. The selection shows a definite American bias, with 19th century American history being especially-well represented. The commentaries themselves are up to Asimov’s usual stellar par. They read well, are quite detailed, and held my interest for the most part. I enjoyed the poems by themselves: although I’d read bits and pieces of most of them, I’ve never stopped to read them in whole, and this was an opportunity to do so. The Pied Piper of Hamelin and its commentary were especially memorable. My only knowledge of the poem was that it was about a man who played a pipe and cleared a town of its rats: I had no idea he took their children as payment, although having read the poem does make that “gotta pay the piper” utterance make sense. The greatest “A-ha!” experience for me was reading “Ozymandias”: having never read it, I tend it confuse “Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair” with that “I am become death , destroyer of worlds” line, having never read either the Ozymandias poem or the section of the Gita from which the ye-mighty-and-despair-line was. I don’t know if it was my attentive reading or Asimov’s commentary, but I “get” the poem now.

In short, it was an excellent read and I reccommend it. I am tempted to provide the full list of poems, but given that there are nearly forty I shall only list a few:

  • Ozimandias, Shelley
  • The Destruction of Sennacherib, Lord Bryon
  • The Vision of Belshazzar, Lord Bryon
  • Antony to Cleopatra, William Haines Lytle
  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Robert Browning
  • A Visit from St. Nicholas, by Celment Clarke Moore (Comments include origins of Christmas)
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred Tennyson
  • Battle-Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe
  • O Captain! My Captain! , Walt Whitman
  • Invictus, William Ernest Henley
  • The Modern Major-General, William Schwenk Gilbert (The commentary was informative).
  • The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus,
  • In Flanders Fields, John McCrae
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The Guns of August

Posted on May 14, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Guns of August
© 1962 Barbara Tuchman
511 pages

The Guns of August, like Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is work I’ve heard much of in my years as a history student. Used in my freshman textbook, quoted by a number of my professors, cited by Doris Kearns Goodwin as her inspiration for becoming a historian — a lot speaks for the book. I used it a year or so ago when writing a paper for a French history class and made a mental note to return to the book to give a proper reading later on — and this week, I have.

The Guns of August, while being “about” the Great War, focuses more on its beginning: the political maneuverings and stumbles that led to the war and the opening moves of the war itself in August of 1914, hence “the guns of August”. I’ve been actively studying the Great War specifically for a few years now. It seems to me to be the essence of War in its wastefulness and horror. I wish when people thought of war they thought of this one, instead of the easily romanticized World War* that followed it. The book can be divided into two general parts: the first part concerns the political build-up to the war following the death of King Edward VII of England, called “Uncle of Europe” owing to his families’ blood ties to the various royal families of Europe. If the late British king represented a unity of sorts, the first part of the book concerns the disintegration of the various European powers. This began before his death, of course, but perhaps accelerated following it.

Tuchman details why the alliances fell into place the way they did, and does it well — although I don’t recall reading about the Moroccan crises or the Italian-Austrian naval build-up. Much attention, deservedly, is put on Imperial Germany’s diplomatic blunders after the dismissal of Chancellor Bismarck. As the countries of Europe trap themselves in the quicksand of belligerance and mobilization, Tuchman switches to military history. She writes well, and for those interested in military matters the second half of the book probably reads as well as the former. Despite my disinterest in military accounts, I found the second part more informative than expected. I’d forgotten completely, for instance, about the Battle of the Mons: my perception of the war tends to regard the Marne as the first “real” battle, with the month of preceding conflicts mere unnamed brush-ups.

The book is quite readable, I think, and detailed enough to give a student of the period such as myself new information.I didn’t know, for instance, that leading intellectuals of the period predicted that extended wars of the past were far too expensive to carry on in the modern day, and consequently the next war would have to be sort. The Great War was of course not short and it was very expensive, undermining the economies of Europe for quite some time. It’s interesting that this happened despite the warnings. If I had to criticize the book, I found the abcense of air power’s role curious. Granted, few people are aware of the role of the British and French air forces in spotting the movements of the German army in August and helping to move the Entente armies into positions they might use to their advantage. I’ve used this lack of knowledge to my benefit as most of my student papers in university history classes have addressed the air forces of the European powers and the majority of those papers have included sections of aerial influence in the build-up to the Marne.

* Typically people refer to the two wars as World War I and World War 2, but I avoid using “World War 1”. Such a label makes it seem like the simple prologue to World War 2 instead of a great horror in its own right. It also seems a bit inaccurate to me, as the war was only fought (as far as I know) in Europe and the areas surrounding the Mediterranean. Regardless of that sea’s name, though, I don’t think the war qualifies as a “world” war.

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The Robots of Dawn

Posted on May 13, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Robots of Dawn
© 1983 Isaac Asimov
419 pages

I return to Asimov’s Robots series with the third mystery novel featuring plainclothesman Elijah Baley. Having established a reputation on Earth and elsewhere in the galaxy for his ability to adjust to new situations and earn the trust of “Spacers”, or humans who have lived on other words long enough to develop their own cultures on their various worlds, Baley is asked to travel to Aurora to investigate a case of robotocide. While en route, Baley is delighted to see his old crime-solving partner Daneel Olivaw — an android who was made to look and act human. Daneel is one of a kind, because as we will soon learn, the only other android has been rendered inoperative — and it is that crime which Baley has been called to invesitigate.

Baley and Daneel land in Aurora — the planet of the “dawn”, hence the name — where Baley learns that this case is more complicated than he had imagined. To render a robot inoperative is not a crime, particularly since its owner is the only man with the knowledge and skill sufficient to destroy the robot in the way it was destroyed — but that man, Dr. Han Fastolfe, is Earth’s lone champion on Aurora, the greatest of the Spacer worlds. The fifty “Spacer” worlds are all more technologically advanced than Earth, as Earth’s resources are tied in maintaining its massive population. Technological advances are also actively suppressed by the Spacers, who do not want Earth to begin colonizing space anew and saturating the galaxy with its aggressive and primitive billions. If Fastolfe is implicated in any legal embarrassment, his political opponents can use that to quiet him down and thus maintain Aurora’s policy of restraining Earth. Fastolfe insists that he didn’t do it, forcing Baley to interview both humans and robots in an effort to discern the truth.

Asimov maintains his “unadorned” style and smoothly incorporates information from his Robot stories (“Liar!” and “The Bicentennial Man”) into the plot of his book, having his characters treat them as legends of the past. The Robots of Dawn seems to rely on more characters than The Naked Sun or Caves of Steel. Although this is a perfectly enjoyably mystery novel, what I find most interesting is Asimov’s replication of culture, particularly cultural taboos. Robots of Dawn was as enjoyable as ever, although I think I still prefer The Caves of Steel at this point. I’m interested in reading the final Robots book, Robots and Empire, but don’t have access to it presently.

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This Week at the Library (11/5)

Posted on May 11, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update

  • Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality, John Shelby Spong
  • Return of the Black Widowers, Isaac Asimov
  • Spartacus, T.L. Mancour

Last week was a short but busy week for me, as I entered into finals week studying for exams, writing papers, and preparing to pack up a years’ worth of life into only a few boxes. Consequently, I only read one book from the library and finished off two others that I’ve read a little from all semester. Episcopalian bishop John Spong’s autobiography constituted the bulk of my reading. Although the book is the autobiography of a very interesting man — a man who challenged his traditions and tried to humanize his religion — it also serves to give the reader a look into the Episcopalian church’s innards. I’m always captivated by stories of people grappling with their most cherished beliefs, although Spong didn’t go into as much detail as I would have liked. The reader doesn’t get the step-by-step retelling that Infidel provided, although Hirsi Ali was writing for different reasons and her change of worldviews happened faster. Still, Spong kept my interest while telling the story of how he sought to bring Christianity in accord with science and the human heart.

This week I also finished Return of the Black Widowers, the last in Asimov’s Black Widower collections — books compiling his Black Widower mystery stories, in which a club of men with the titular name meet monthly for dinner and are presented by a guest with a mystery to solve. This collection is special, because it was published a decade after the maestro’s death and combines uncollected Widower stories with Asimov’s personal favorites. There are seventeen stories in all (five more than usual), including one (“The Last Story”) written by Harlan Ellison. As usual, I loved the collection — but I did miss Asimov’s characteristic comments. Ellison tries to provide this with an “afterword’ extracted from Asimov’s autobiography that does the job a little bit, but doesn’t seem quite as personal. Excellent as always — I particularly enjoyed being able to revisit old favorites, like “The Obvious Factor”.

Lastly, I finished a Star Trek novel called Spartacus. Those familar with Roman history, or perhaps just depictions of Roman history in popular media, can probably discern that this book’s plot is driven by a slave revolt. Specifically, a planet outisde Federation space called Vemla has been engulfed in war after the androids that provided the Vemlan’s standard of living revolted, guided by the more sentient “Alpha” androids. A few androids take over a ship and attempt to flee the brutal war, but a storm in space disables their vessel temporarily, at which point the Enterprise-D comes to their rescue. They tell Captain Picard that they are refugees, but soon after a fleet of Vemlan ships arrives and informs Captain Picard that they intend to bring their escaped property back with them — and he would do well to not interfere. Although Picard and his crew — and most of all, Commander Data — want to help the androids, they are bound by Federation regulations, philosophical questions, and the haunting fear that these androids are not the peaceful refugees they claim to be. I found the book quite readable.

Pick of the (Update): Return of the Black Widowers, Isaac Asimov

Next Week:

  • The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman. I’ve used this book in research papers before but have never actually read it despite it being used in my western civilization textbook. I will remedy that this week.
  • The Robots of Dawn, Isaac Asimov
  • Familiar Poems, Annotated, Isaac Asimov. Asimov mentioned this in I, Asimov and it sounded interesting.
  • Islam, Karen Armstrong. I’ve never finished any of Armstrong’s work before, and so in the interests of cultural literacy I’ll be lighting two candles with one flame. (I googled for more peaceful variants of the “kill two birds with one stone” variant, and I like that one the most.)
  • The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown. Yes, I’m finally getting around to it.
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Spartacus

Posted on May 9, 2009 by smellincoffee

Star Trek the Next Generation: Spartacus
© T.L. Mancour
276 pages

It seems only appropriate that I read a Star Trek book on the weekend that its newest movie comes out, hopefully revitalizing the Franchise. A number of years ago, someone donated a large number of Star Trek paperbacks to my local library, and they were consequently sold in its bookstore for a a nickel a piece, or something like that. I bought $5 worth, meriting me a large bag full of Star Trek paperback novels. I haven’t read most of them, but I like knowing they’re in my closet for whenever I want to experience some new Trek. Spartacus is one of those novels. You may be able to surmise from the book’s title what the plot is generally about — a slave revolt and resulting war, with the Enterprise-D caught in the middle. While exploring beyond Federation space, the Enterprise comes to the aid of a ship making repairs. The ship, as Enterprise crewmen discover, is staffed entirely by androids. Although the soon-to-be-called Spartacans and the Federation crewmen get along well, the arrival of an alien fleet makes Captain Picard realize that there is more going on here than a ship having been damaged by an interstellar storm. The androids once served their creators, the Vemlans, dutifully, and Vemlan society grew to become dependent on the androids even as the droids themselves were becoming more sentient.

When androids began to be used as gladiators, “Alpha”, or completely intelligent and sentient androids, led a revolt. The resulting war partially destroyed Vemla, and now a Vemlan fleet has come for revenge. The androids would rather be destroyed as free beings than return to Vemla, and there seems to be no peaceful alternative. The Vemlans are intent on recovering the androids to put them on trial (ironic given that they deny the ‘droids sentience) or destroying them, and Captain Picard is unable to come to the defense of his new friends owing to Federation law. And then, Commander Data has an idea — one that may present a peaceful solution, or which may thrust the Federation into war with the Vemlans. The book was a breezily fun read that shows a good bit of character development on Data’s part, as well as insight into Federation procedures. I think both the Spartacans and the Vemlans are fleshed out enough for the book’s purpose. Assuming readers are Trek fans who can actually find the book used on Amazon somewhere, I’d recommend doing so. It’s not a deep read, but it’s a fun one.

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Here I Stand

Posted on May 9, 2009 by smellincoffee

Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality
© 2001 John Shelby Spong
48o pages

On YouTube, I somehow stumbled across two Christians (Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong) whose beliefs are definitely not in line with orthodox Christianity. I find their attempts to humanize their religion in the face of criticism and death threats to be somewhat noble. It takes guts to challenge one’s traditions. This book is essentially an autobiography of Spong, giving the reader what it was like to grow up in the Deep South during the Civil Rights movement, as well as insight into the Episcopalian Church, which I personally knew little about. Although Spong emerges as a very interesting man, I was somewhat disappointed that he did not delve into the details of why he changed his thinking on theological subjects. The reader can see Spong’s southern culture — patriarchy, racism, homophobia — melting away, but I couldn’t really get a firm “Ah, that was it” handle on why his mind would change beyond basic descriptions of his meeting theologians who challenged him to reevaluate orthodoxy. Although I’m not sure what I think about the book just yet, he merits listening to on YouTube for those who are curious. His religion as expressed in the videos I’ve seen is very basic: he seems to only retain Christianity as part of his culture, lacking belief in Jesus as deity and so on. I find the humanization of religion to be a very interesting subject.

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The Return of the Black Widowers

Posted on May 6, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Return of the Black Widowers
© 2003 Isaac Asimov, ed. Harlan Ellison
304 pages

As regular readers know, I greatly enjoy Isaac Asimov’short story collections, and in particular his Black Widower series. The Black Widower stories are “cozy” mysteries, in which a group of intellectuals from disparate fields meets once every month at a local restaurant. Each month, a different member plays host and is entitled to bring a guest. After dinner, one of the Widowers “grills” the guest, and a mystery of sorts will arise from the guests’ answers. The story is driven by conversation, as the Widowers talk amongst themselves and attempt to find some conclusion. The books are very appealing to me, for a number of reasons, but particular to the Widower books is the ability of the reader to revisit the characters again and again.

This collection of Widower tales is special. Released nearly a decade after his death and introduced by Harlan Ellison, it consists of Asimov’s favorite Widower stories as well as uncollected stories that don’t appear in the previous books. The book is divided roughly in half, with an homage to Asimov appearing in the middle. The “homage” is a story written in the same style as Asimov’s stories, with a group of friends meeting monthly and who find themselves presented with a mystery — much to the delight of one of the characters,who has read Asimov and realizes the similiarity. Eighteen stories in all, the book ends with two pieces: one last Widowers story, but one not written by Asimov, and an ‘afterword’ by Asimov that has been taken out of one of his autobiographies in which Asimov writes about the series.

The book was very enjoyable: I read it in bits and pieces all through the school year, typically when my library reading was exhausted. It’s definitely a favorite. I have now read all but one of the Widowers collections — Casebooks of the Black Widowers.

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This Week at the Library (4/5)

Posted on May 4, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update:

  • A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
  • The Great Journey: Peopling the United States, Brian Fagan
  • Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, Wayne Dyer
  • Wicca for Beginners, Thea Sabin

I began last week by reading the biggest book first — and at over seven hundred pages, Howard Zinn’s history of the underdogs was definitely the biggest. After acknowledging that all historical accounts — be they notes scribbled down by Spanish friars, US Army army reports, college textbooks, or popular narratives — are written from a biased perspective, he owns his own bias and states that this book is intended to be a history of the losers in American history, meaning a history of almost everyone except white, male landowners. Beginning with Columbus’ treatments of the natives and ending with the invasion of Iraq, Zinn takes the reader through a very bloody and unpleasant history of the world’s self-titled “first democracy”. Although I knew much of its contents already, Zinn still manages to leave me reeling at parts. Obviously, a book like this isn’t going to appeal to people like my high-school self, whose feelings are better cared for when reading a history about America the Beautiful, constantly striving forward to more freedom and prosperity. As I’ve learned since high school, material prosperity always comes at a high human price.

I continued reading history with my next book, although it was not a narrative. Brian Fagan’s The Great Journey is more of a summary of what archaeologists and historians now believe about the arrival of humankind to the Americas. Fagan discusses the problems with finding out anything about the earliest human settlements — environmental factors that don’t lend themselves to the preservation of artifacts, for instance. What few artifacts survive — stone tools, for instance — are discussed at length. I’ve not read this much about flint knapping since the Earth’s Children series. The book is arranged chronologically, and Fagan tries to present it in terms of being a play — labeling the chapters as “acts”, for instance. Although it could be a bit dry at times, interesting information would surface unexpectedly — after page after page on stone-shaping, I found myself reading about an archaeologist who witnessed an Indian elephant die and immediately decided to test reproductions of stone tools by butchering it. I was then informed of the best method to strip an elephant of its meat — can’t say I was expecting that.

Through the week, I read bits and pieces of Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, a devotional using the Tao Te Ching as its source. The book consists of 81 essays, each written on a verse from Lao Tzu’s book of mystic wisdom. Dyer draws from various translations of the book for his essays, but always includes a verse in the text for the reader. He also connects Taoist thoughts to other religious and philosophical teachings as well as attitudes expressed in poetry. After initial comments on the verse, he distills it into one or two statement, and then comments on those. He ends each essay with a “Do the Tao Now” section, in which he makes suggestions to the reader for putting the thoughts into practice. I found this book to be more helpful than The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu, although sometimes it felt too…prescriptive. I have something of a distrust for intuitive “statements”. I was chagrined to find an advertisement of Sylvia Browne in the back of the book.

Lastly, I read Wicca for Beginners by Thea Sabin. My interest in this, like my interest in architecture and various other topics, stems from a PC game I play as a hobby — The Sims 2. (It’s not the first time a PC game has given me new interests, and it won’t be the last.) Although I was initially reading out of curiosity’s sake, I quickly connected it to my comparative religion studies. Sabin begins by explaining what Wicca is, hoping to shake the reader from his or her Hollywood- or church-given notions. I’ve heard a few sermons on the evils of Wicca in my lifetime: fundamentalist sects, like the one I was raised in, are quick to connect Wicca with Satanism. My own understanding of Wicca before reading the book was that it was a ritualized form of earth-goddess worship, but I found to my surprise that it has two deities as well as plenty of ritual. What I found most intriguing is that unlike most religions, Wicca is not built on philosophical or ethical practice, although it has an ethic component. The Wicca described in this book is very much about the power of symbols, rituals, and spells, and Sabin goes into great detail explaining what means what. I wasn’t expecting to find that brooms had symbolic significance or that witches wear special robes to rituals depending on the season, but these are some of the things I learned. The book was very informative, even though it is written to the potential initiate. (The “Mr. Spock” portion of my brain that Sabin urges the reader to turn off several times is far too implacable for me to be an initiate in any tradition.)

Pick of the Week: A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn.

Quotation of the Week:
The poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, which Dyer quoted in his book.

Next Week:

  • Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality; John Shelby Spong
  • Fates Worse than Death, Kurt Vonnegut
  • World Religion: Opposing Viewpoints, various authors
  • The Return of the Black Widowers, Isaac Asimov
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