Narnia
Shelly and I have been reading The Chronicles of Nania aloud to each other for the past few weeks, so it was with interest that I read a review of Laura Miller’s The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventure in Narnia.
From the NY Times:
“If the Chronicles had worked according to Lewis’s plans,” Miller writes, “and in the way many of his Christian admirers believe them to, I would have reassessed my attitude toward my religion. I would have realized that Narnia and Aslan represented another face of Christianity, a better one than the Church had ever shown me, and that in turn would lead me back to the faith. ‘This was the reason you were brought to Narnia,’ Aslan explains to Edmund and Lucy . . . in a scene whose heavy-handed imagery (a lamb, a meal of fish) had gone utterly over my head, ‘that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.’ ”
Miller goes on: “Can a book win over a soul who is fundamentally disinclined to believe? If any books could have persuaded me, it would have been these, yet I didn’t budge.” Miller defines herself as a soul instead of a child, a reader. I can’t help wondering: Could it be that a reader can grow a sense of a soul by reading, even if one rejects the religious aspect of such a fanciful figure as a soul? [...]
“The author who can make a world for a reader — make him believe that the people, places and events he describes are, if anything, truer than his real immediate surroundings — that author is someone with a mighty power indeed. Who can forget the first time they experienced this sensation? Who can doubt that every literary encounter they have afterward must somehow be colored by it?
The Ten Commandments and Political Identity
Usually we only hear about the Ten Commandments as they relate to whether or not they may be displayed in such-and-such a courthouse, or recited in a state-funded school, and the like, which is why I always enjoy encountering more charitable assessments. (Chris Hedges’ memoir based on the commandments, for example, is excellent.)
I enjoyed the following piece by David Bodanis, in which he examines the ten commandments as the socio-political statement of formerly-enslaved refugees (with a few digs at Christopher Hitchens as a bonus). Some of the historical details are a little murky, and his conclusions about texts aren’t exactly conclusive, but the rest is pretty good.
From Prospect:
…The point should be clear: the fire and brimstone can be avoided simply by sticking to the commandments themselves. Their consistent message is not one of repression, but of freedom: freedom from fear of your possessions being taken; freedom from relentless work; freedom from chaos. Refugees today would seek little more.
Einstein once said that he felt the truths of the universe were like a series of thick, closed volumes waiting in a dimly-lit library. Very occasionally one of us is allowed to step forward, lift one of the age-old books, and get a glimpse of what was written on just a single page. Very little has crossed the dust of 30 centuries to shape us today. The ten commandments have.
Brokers with hands on their faces
How to tell you’re in a recession…
[ht: Andrew Sullivan]
On the Kindle
From a comment on Alan Jacobs’ blog:
…I don’t think the contemporary world is so furiously enamored with the written word that we can regard an innovative way to access it as a suspicious luxury rather than an urgent necessity.
Publishers and book reviewers have been lamenting the death of books for years now.
Perhaps, as this commentor suggests, new media by itself (like the Kindle, Google books, and other forms of electronic reading) won’t solve the problem, only delay its inevitable consequence.
Combining blogs
I just imported my feed from my other blog—o1mnikent.tumblr.com—where I’ve been posting for the past year or so. Many of these posts are links to articles, pictures, video, and other content I find while trawling the web.
Pardon some of the posts that didn’t import properly.
Leaving Literature Behind – ChronicleReview.com
From Leaving Literature Behind – ChronicleReview.com:
Reading literature can change their lives — and ours. The thing is, we don’t quite understand how this process works — nor will we ever understand. Certainly we can’t predict it past a certain point. That’s why reading literature can’t be a discipline. I, a straight white American male, can see myself in a black character or a female one, understand a point made by a dead Russian or a living Albanian, meditate on an abstract point made by an anonymous author. But that equally means that an X reader (say, black, gay, Albanian) need not read an X author (or character?) to get something from a work. Reading literature doesn’t require us to check our list of identifying adjectives to see if we’ll understand. Instead, we just have to dive in. Maybe we’ll sink, maybe we’ll swim. Nobody can tell beforehand. That’s the beauty of books.
Interaction with literature can never be the basis of a systematic undertaking: It’s all too scattershot. All we can do is describe the sense of looking up from a page full of little black and white squiggles with the feeling that suddenly we understand our own lives, that names have been given to things that lacked them, and that the iron filings that hitherto were scattered about have configured into a clear pattern. Things are different now — somehow. Maybe that will cause us to act differently, maybe not.
Brands and Social Networking
From Digital Domain – Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites – NYTimes.com:
“All brands want consumers to be their ‘friends.’ Oh, boy, do they!” But speaking for himself, he said he had reservations about the very premise. “I don’t want to be best friends with a brand,” he said. “It’s just stuff.”
[ht: Bethany]
Co-evolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans, by Robin Dunbar
If you’re like most people, the number of people with whom you can carry on meaningful relationships is probably 148.5, give or take a few.
Unless, of course, you have a larger-than-normal neocortex. Read the whole thing:
Co-evolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans, by Robin Dunbar
Fast Friends? – The Smart Set
From The Smart Set:
There is, to be sure, lemonade to be made of living next to Wendy’s. Because this one was built in the classic Wendy’s architectural style, and not in any way that acknowledged its dense urban surroundings, it has one of those greenhouse-like dining rooms with windows that look out over two streets. I’ve always found the Wendy’s solarium to be a nice touch for diners, but, against a sidewalk, it means that pedestrians have the pleasure of an up-close look at what people are eating. I like seeing what people eat. I also get to see how people treat a space like a Wendy’s dining room, which can be equally interesting. Some will sit there for a while after eating, reading or doing crossword puzzles below plastic ivy in hanging baskets. I’ve seen some who sit there for hours and just stare out the window. A lot of these people are recurring characters in the Wendy’s tableau.
