A Watcher's Reading Club. Any interest?

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peter
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Post by peter »

Interestingly, came upon this in the book I am currently reading, A N Wilson's The Victorians in which he quotes from Roger Scruton's A Short History of Modern Philosophy,
The crisis that Hegel was struggling to describe was the crisis of a civilisation that has discovered the God upon whom it depended to be also its own creation.
I wonder if this is fair comment, from Hegel's point rather than that of Victorian society of the late 1850's, which in the face of Darwin's 'Origin' and the influence of other cultural and political factors was certainly going through a crisis of faith. (Pusey had earlier noted that "in the alleyways of London the Gospels are as little know as in Tibet", a comment regarding the fact that although outwardly the society of the day was still upholding a Christian face, beneath the surface there was a definite questioning of the doctrine, if not an outright disinterest.)

But putting this aside, I'm more interested Wos, in what you as presumably a committed Christian, made of the Chrons at that first encounter? I can only imagine that your reading of it could only have been very different from that of many, if not most, readers, for whom Christianity was quite possibly not such a big part of their lives?

Forgive me if this is an impudent assumption on my part - I was a notoriously 'surface reader', never really even getting that what was happening to Covenant was in reality an externalisation of his own inner demons - but I make it in all the innocence of a genuine interest.

I mean, what was it like? What can it have been like, reading about this difficult hero (to put it mildly) from a staunchly Christian belief? Did it require a temporary suspension of the ethics you were steeped in, in order to empathise with this man? Or did you simply read a different book, holding on to your code? For me, despite what he did, Thomas Covenant was a hero. I worshipped the ground he walked on (in the innocence of my youth). I can hardly see how it could have been different.

How in goodness name did you reconcile it?
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

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Wosbald
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Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+
peter wrote:[…]

But putting this aside, I'm more interested Wos, in what you as presumably a committed Christian, made of the Chrons at that first encounter? I can only imagine that your reading of it could only have been very different from that of many, if not most, readers, for whom Christianity was quite possibly not such a big part of their lives?

Forgive me if this is an impudent assumption on my part - I was a notoriously 'surface reader', never really even getting that what was happening to Covenant was in reality an externalisation of his own inner demons - but I make it in all the innocence of a genuine interest.

I mean, what was it like? …

[…]
Taking your "impudent assumption" at face value, I nonetheless hafta say that it was like reading the same book as anyone else. And, at least in a general sense, making the same thing of it as anyone else.

If you prick me, do I not bleed?

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peter
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Post by peter »

:lol: Okay.

A quick tale. I went out today clutching my 30 pound (35 dollar) Christmas book vouchers (a traditional gift from the younger members of my family who have not the faintest idea of anything else I might like) and headed toward the best bookshop in town all fired up about what I might find.

Perusing the new releases (fiction and non fiction) I could find nothing - nothing - in which I had the slightest interest. There was huge amounts of material telling me that as a man, I was responsible for holding back all the four billion females in the world, as a white I carried the collective guilt for all of the bad ***t that had ever happened to non white people for the hundred thousand years of human history, and as an English white old man I was the NHS closest thing to Sauron that had ever been seen outside of TLOTR.

Feeling a sinking feeling as I perused the shelves, I realised that there is nothing left in this world for me, excepting to return to the classics that were born of an age before it all seemed to get so difficult. Classics, history and fantasy. That is all I shall read from now on. I'm not that interested in science anymore - what I need in this direction I shall take from the media. (And the only thing that will interest me there will be if life is discovered elsewhere in the universe or fusion power is successfully generated at a level that can qualify as commercially viable.)

Accordingly, I went off around the shop and, given the time constraints my wife had placed upon me, made a snap selection. (As an aside, I believe I have read that there is no evidence that deliberating over such decisions actually results in better judgements being made, so its probably all of a muchness.) In short, I came away with, The Brothers Karamazov by Fedor Dostoyevsky, Troy - a new version of the story of the Iliad by Stephen Fry and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshanna Zuboff.

Okay - the last book doesn't fit my criteria but hey, don't you think it's about time we got to know the enemy?

;)

PS. I'm starting with Troy but if anyone wanted to get armed with a copy of Karamazov I'd be up for reading it in concert.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Wosbald
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Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+
peter wrote::lol: Okay.

[…]
;) :lol:


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