
Friday, June 11, 2010
War and Peace

One of my new all-time favorites. Tolstoy's reflections on divine providence, the will of the people, and the idea of "the great man" are told first through the story of two of the Rostov kids, and then through his direct reflections on the Napoleonic wars. His essay at the end of the book was very interesting to me, though I did not understand it all, but the story itself is brilliant. Definitely worth the effort of 1400+ pages.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Augustine's Confessions

The Moviegoer
This 1960 novel by Walker Percy is intriguing and prophetic. Binx Bolling seems to live life through the movies. (How much more can we do that today, rushing through several seasons of a TV show with Netflix on-demand viewing in just a couple of weeks.) Much of this story is hard to follow because it is such an interesting portrayal of a confused mind caught in the grips of despair without any real self-awareness of that condition. The main character's life only comes together through an almost accidental commitment to a woman that seems more messed up than he is. An interesting twist...
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