And what to do about restlessness in humanist terms. In biblical terms, this answer is incomplete, but it’s still good.
All posts by Phil
Marilynne Robinson
A brief interview with the author of Gilead and Home, and someone, someone, had to bring up Michael Servetus.
Happy Birthday to H.G.Wells
Today in 1866, H.G. Wells, who said, “I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea,” who said, “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race,” was born. Wells had little imagination for submarines and also for hell. He said, “Sailors ought never to go to church. They ought to go to hell, where it is much more comfortable.” I suppose he was returning his eyewitness report from hell when we said that. Otherwise, how could he know?
For his birthday, here’s a collection of book covers for War of the Worlds.
Traders, Russian Forefathers
Delancey Place has an excerpt from Empires of the Silk Road about vikings in Constantinople.
What’s in Your Creative DNA?
Roy asks if you are a writer or an editor? “Are you more comfortable with writing, or editing? And what are some other ways we can describe our creative DNA?”
Another Spotlight Is On
Perhaps I missed the announcement. I just learned Andrew Breitbart has launched a new website, Big Government, edited by Mike Flynn. They are still talking about ACORN, of course. I hope that organization is thoroughly prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General and A.G. in various states.
Built as a Private Retreat
The Bavarian King Ludwig II wanted a little place of his own to get away, so he remodeled this old place.
It’s Coming
Cause nothin’ lasts forever . . . The End: By Matt Zoller Seitz and Richard Seitz
Book Titles, if they were written today
Originally it was called Walden, but had Thoreau written it today, he may have had to call it Camping with Myself: Two Years in American Tuscany. Matthew’s gospel might have been called 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss. Hamlet? “Grieving: A 5 part study of Danish family dynamics.” Read other silly titles from today and feel free to make up some of your own. (via Frank Wilson)
“Perelandra turned my life upside down”
Jeanne Damoff writes about Lewis’ gift for telling the truth in fiction:
Lewis does a great job of portraying the woman as intelligent but entirely pure. She entertains the Un-man’s ideas because she’s never had a reason not to listen to anything being said to her. Though Ransom tries to counter all the lies, the woman has no reason to trust one of them over the other. She’s never encountered debate, never required discernment. But occasionally the Un-man pushes too far. When he invites her to “make a story” about living on the Fixed Island–to imagine herself doing the forbidden thing–she says, “If I try to make a story about living on the Fixed Island, I do not know how to make it about Maleldil. For if I make it that He has changed His command, that will not do. And if I make it that we are living there against His command, that is like making the sky all black and the water so that we cannot drink it and the air so that we cannot breathe it. But also, I do not see what is the pleasure of trying to make these things.”
She follows up this post with another called “The post I do not want to write.”