Turlock I think it is entirely to Cheryl Strayed’s credit as a writer and as a human being that she can write a book which one reviewer – admittedly, not a very observant one – can reduce to the question “What do you have to say now, God?” while I find it religious in outlook and […]
Tag Archives: Dante
Cheryl Strayed’s Initiation.
30-Jan-15The Catholic Sex Problem, Ctd.
29-Jun-12Campo Verde I just finished The Body and Society, Peter Brown’s stupendously excellent book on early Christian views of the body. The book is filled with interesting excerpts from the saints. Here’s one of them: “The human ideal of continence, I mean that which is set forth by the Greek philosophers, teaches one to resist passion, so […]
Rereading Dante.
15-Dec-11I’ve been reading the Divine Comedy recently. It continues to astonish me. I remember reading it in college, as a freshman, and feeling quite certain that Purgatorio was better than the Inferno, and Paradiso was best of all. As time has gone on I have become only more aware that this is most emphatically a […]
The Life of the Spirit.
31-Oct-10One of the fruits of the past two and a half years in the woods has been a crop of writings about the inner life. I have spent a great deal of time alone in nature; this kind of introspection has been unavoidable. Mostly these reflections have taken the form of long-form essays. Often there […]
Helen Luke and Dante.
15-Oct-09Time spent among people reveals just how difficult it is, even for the most worthy and competent, to be capable of real love and relationship. Developing this capacity is in truth the sole bifocal commandment of the Christian religion, all others being mere ancillae; and it is also the goal of Jung’s school of psychoanalysis, […]
Happy New Year.
25-Mar-09The Twenty-Fifth of March is always a strange day for me. Traditionally in Christian countries it was New Year’s Day (England did not abandon this practice until the 1750s, which is why George Washington, born in February of 1731, was born, by our standards, in February of 1732). Since this is spring, it’s actually a […]
Dante Goes to Hell.
09-Feb-10So now there’s a video game “based on” Dante’s Inferno. Of course there’s been some toying with the plot: But for Dante’s Inferno (out today for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, $60, rated Mature for ages 17-up) to work as a game, the designers needed an amped-up protagonist. “The historical Dante is not […]