The End of the Blog

I've made a rather sad decision. It wasn't easy to make, but I've come to realize in the last few weeks that it's the right decision. I've decided that I'm going to stop blogging. I've had the blog up for about three years now, and it's been enjoyable. But in those three years, I've also moved about four times, gotten a master's degree, bought a house, and (this being the biggest issue of all) spent way too much time on the internet. I also realized something that bothered me the other day when I was unpacking my books (again...). As I sorted through them, I saw so many books I loved, but then I thought, "Oh, I can't read that now, because it isn't something for the blog," or, "I can't read that again, because I've already blogged about it." In other words, my reading is revolving around the blog, and not the other way around. Were I blogging for a bigger purpose -- that is, reviews at the request of someone else -- that would be fine. But I blog just for my own pleasure. Apparently, I no longer read just for my own pleasure, and that's the exact opposite of a habit I've developed over a lifetime.

In addition, there are other things I used to do and enjoy that have fallen off a bit since I started spending so much time online. I cooked, baked, gardened, drew, played the piano, and so forth. Those are the things that make life beautiful (to me, at least), and I need to go back to doing them. It's not that I haven't done them at all, but they used to fill my spare time in ways that the web has come to do so recently.

So, as of August 1st, I'm putting the blog into private mode. I won't delete it altogether, because it does represent a lot of work on my part. And there might come a time in the future when I feel like blogging again. But for now, I need to find my equilibrium, and I don't think I can do that on the internet.

Quick Review: The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis

The Silver Chair was a slow start for me. I was a bit unsure of the character Jill at first, but she did grow on me as the book progressed. What stumped me, though, is that I couldn't figure out where the story was going until Jill and Eustace (good to see him again!) ended up underground. (I will point out, for no other reason than to be smarmy, that I totally pegged the non-speaking knight and lady as soon as they showed up. Not that it was tough to figure that one out.)

The journey element in this one wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the journey element in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but then again it's difficult to beat a book about a sea journey. The Silver Chair, though, reminded me a little of the first part of Fellowship of the Ring: the reason the hobbits wander for so long in the Old Forest is, quite literally, that Tolkien wasn't really sure what he was doing with the story. I think Lewis had a much better idea of what he was doing, but the story still feels rather lacking in direction at first. (This might just be me, because I was a bit burned out when I was reading it.) I would like to cast my vote, though, for Puddleglum being the coolest character that Lewis created. No doubt this would come as a surprise to Puddleglum.

And no doubt this is a lousy review, but there's really not much to say about The Silver Chair. It's a transition book, filling in the space between Dawn Treader and The Last Battle. It answers a few questions and paves the way for what is to come. Definitely an important part of the series, but probably not the most interesting part.

Chronicles of Narnia Challenge

Okay, I DID finish all seven books. Yesterday. But we also decided to start moving stuff to the new house, and I'm also trying to finish writing the part of a GRE, so my final reviews had to move to the back burner. I'll post them next week when I have some time.

Home Sweet Home

We finally closed! WE OWN A HOUSE!

Wait...hang on...

We own a mortgage!

I suppose that's something.

Quick Review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis

This book definitely took the place as my new favorite after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Lewis hit his stride with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the whole story flows smoothly and works beautifully. I really had no idea what to expect, but I will say that any book that starts as this one does -- "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it" -- is bound to keep me interested.

I hesitate to attribute too many allusions to Lewis, simply because it's difficult not to read an adventure-at-sea story and locate precedents in literature, but parts of this one really did remind me of The Odyssey and Gulliver's Travels. And Beowulf. I mean, how can you go wrong? It's great fun. I will say that I don't think Lewis ever fully worked out the way Narnia functions and the rules of fantasy in Narnia, so it occasionally feels as though he's making it up as he goes. But in the end it all pulls together. What's more, the end is beautifully bitter-sweet, and I liked the appearance of the Lamb and the way that Lewis begins to work out the details of his metaphors with respect to Christianity. And I seriously wish I could live in a world where there are Dufflepuds, if only to see them.

It's a little disappointing to read the Lucy and Edmund won't return to Narnia (although I get the impression that there's some kind of return in the last book?), but then again I really appreciate that Lewis is holding the reins closely, so to speak, and not dragging their returns to Narnia out more than is necessary. After a while, what is there for them to accomplish there? The time comes to pass the baton, and Lewis indicates this. Very smart move, if a slightly sad one.

I'm having a little trouble getting through The Silver Chair, but I should have the last two books finished and reviewed by the deadline for the challenge. Which is just as well, because we're finally supposed to close on our house. I hope.

Saint Calendar: Phêrô Nguyen Bá Tuan

15 July

Born 1766 in Ngoc Ðông, Hung Yên, Vietnam. Priest in the apostolic vicariate of East Tonkin. One of the Martyrs of Vietnam:

Between the arrival of the first Portuguese missionary in 1533, through the Dominicans and then the Jesuit missions of the 17th century, the politically inspired persecutions of the 19th century, and the Communist-led terrors of the twentieth, there have been many thousands of Catholics and other Christians murdered for their faith in Vietnam. Some were priests, some nuns or brothers, some lay people; some were foreign missionaries, but most were native Vietnamese killed by their own government and countrymen.

Record keeping being what it was, and because the government did not care to keep track of the people it murdered, we have no information on the vast bulk of the victims. In 1988, Pope John Paul II recognized over a hundred of them, including some whose Causes we do have, and in commemoration of those we do not. They are collectively known as the Martyrs of Vietnam (or Tonkin or Annam or the other older names of that country).

Martyred on 15 July 1838 in Nam Ðinh, Vietnam.

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See here for the list of Martyrs of Vietnam. I truly don't have any idea how to pronounce this poor gentleman's name, but I felt that his story and the story of his fellow martyrs in Vietnam should at least be remembered.

Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Art Study: Play of Light

I love the use of light in this particular work and the way it feels as though it's a sparkling, sunny day in spite of the clouds and in spite of the fact that the artist hasn't really made it bright. It's just the play of light against the portal and in the background, I suppose.

View of the Portal and Principal Entrance of the Cathedral of Palermo during the Festival of Sta. Rosalia

Artist: Louis-Jean Desprez

Pen and black ink, gray wash and watercolor, over traces of graphite.










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Derived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Quick Review: Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis

There were things that I liked and disliked about Prince Caspian. And the things I liked, I really liked, while the things I disliked left me feeling kind of meh. For some reason, the story as a whole didn't quite cohere for me -- and perhaps this is why the movie didn't quite cohere for me either. It lacked a certain punch that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has, but then again how do you repeat that kind of magic?

Once I got used to him, I liked the character of Caspian, although the whole story about how the Telmarines got to Narnia didn't quite work for me. Then again, it was nice to see Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy as children again. I think my enjoyment of Prince Caspian came from specific moments in the story. I love, love, love the moment when Lucy tries to awaken the trees. Of course, I love the whole concept of trees that move (off their roots, that is) and communicate. Tolkien did this as well, and I think he did it better, frankly. But it's not surprising that Lewis used the idea, since he and Tolkien were friends and colleagues. (Tolkien's motivation was pretty interesting, though: as a child, he had seen Macbeth and became excited about the idea of Birnam Wood literally moving to Dunsinane, only to be disappointed that Birnam Wood in Dunsinane was merely soldiers using tree branches from the wood to conceal themselves. Later on, Tolkien created trees that really could relocate.) On that note, and because I'm in a rambling mood, I find it interesting that both Tolkien and Lewis used the idea of music for creation (Lewis in The Magician's Nephew). I don't really know what this means, nor do I feel like thrashing it out right now, but there's something hauntingly beautiful about creation in connection to melodies and harmonies. Not that I have any problem with the way God handled things, i.e., through the spoken word.

Returning to the pertinent point, I enjoyed Prince Caspian, and it certainly won't go down as the Narnia book I could barely finish. I think Lewis did better with the details in this one than with the story overall, but it still works in the end. And Caspian has much more potential by the end of the story, so I was glad that he makes another appearance -- more mature and better developed as a character -- in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Quick Review: The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis

The Horse and His Boy was something of a delightful surprise. The story was completely unfamiliar to me, and I didn't know what to expect, but it proved to be a page-turner. The one real hindrance in the story was that the boy's name is "Shasta": my mind kept associating it with cheap cola or the mountain in Northern California (which then made me think of the travel program I watched about Mount Shasta and the host who road llamas while there, but kept referring to them as "yamas"; sure, that might technically be correct, but it came across as obnoxiously pretentious). With a mind that wanders like mine does, it's a miracle I ever finish any book.

Moving on...

I think my primary appreciation for the story was that it was just nothing like I expected. It started out in a place that, to my surprise, was neither Narnia nor post-war England, and that threw me. It definitely took me a while to figure out just where Lewis was going with this one, and why the characters seemed to be living in some bastardized version of ancient Persia and Turkey. But I got caught up in Shasta's adventures (and I'll admit to enjoying the talking horses), and I found myself rooting for a young hero like Shasta: honest, courageous, completely unaware of his potential and not really looking out for self-promotion. It's works out a bit too nicely for him that he's really the eldest son and that his (slightly) younger brother doesn't want the throne after all. But Shasta/Cor does deserve it, after what he's accomplished. And there is that prophecy after all. Regarding the prophecy, I liked the reverse Oedipal implication of the son who is fated to save the kingdom instead of destroy it. (With none of the psychological associations here, fortunately.)

My one gripe might be that the dialogue just doesn't fit the mood of the story in places. Shasta referring to someone as a "brick" is more than a bit out of place. I could totally see Digory saying that in The Magician's Nephew, but then Digory was born in post-Victorian England at a time when such an expression makes sense. Again, though, I hesitate to get too bent out of shape about this, because I know that Lewis did it on purpose. He sometimes links his seemingly timeless world of Narnia to the modern world through speech patterns. I don't really know why, but I'll just leave that up to Lewis's prerogative as a great story teller.

Prince Caspian might be a little delayed, but I'll get to it as soon as I finish it.

Quick Review: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis

And now to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Even though I haven't yet completed all of the Narnia books (and I still haven't gotten through Prince Caspian yet...), I suspect that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will always be my favorite. It was the only Narnia book that I read as a child -- I wasn't much a fan of fantasy in my childhood, preferring histories instead -- and despite the fact that I remember seeing a particularly creepy live-action film version that scarred me for years and left me unable to face the story for a while, I still associated something pleasant with the book (though certainly not with the movie that I saw and hated; thank goodness there's a new film). I'll make the argument that it's the best of the books, which shows some definite chutzpah on my part since I haven't read all of them, but I think that Lewis really produced something magical with this book. Sure, it's great to read about the adventures of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy in later years and to see that their years in Narnia were successful, there's something wonderful about the discovery of it all.

And here's a little confession: I can't read the book now without seeing the little girl from the movie as Lucy. She is Lucy to me. In fact, all of the children fit the characters nicely, and I find it rather comfortable to visualize those faces as I read the book. But not just the children. For me, Tilda Swinton is the White Witch. And James McAvoy is Mr Tumnus (although he's not bad without the faun legs as well...and I totally loved him in Atonement...and I'm starting to forget what point I'm making...). I realize that this is one of the arguments against making movie versions of popular books; when the movie versions are particularly good, they actually limit a reader's creativity by making it difficult for readers to see anyone else in the role. But isn't that also an argument in favor of a very good film adaptation? After all, for me no one else will be Mrs Bennet in quite the same way as that lady from the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, an adaptation that ranks high on my list of successful films from movies.

Moving on, I really enjoyed reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this time around, but I was surprised -- purely from the perspective of a literary scholar -- at how very little happens in the story. And then it happens all at once. And then it's over. A bit too smooth perhaps, and lacking in some of the dramatic intensity of the movie. It's kind of like Lewis dithers in getting to the action, and then breezes past it quickly. But then again, perhaps the battle wasn't intended to be quite the climax moment in the book as it becomes in the movie. The story really isn't so much about a battle as it is about the journey that each of the children takes in discovering things about himself and herself. The battle is just the final step in that journey.

Additionally, I was also surprised by now much I liked Aslan, which is kind of a stupid thing to say. After all, he's Aslan. He's a big, gentle lion who represents Christ. What is there not to like? But I really liked the character -- in the sense that I expected to like him in theory but was surprised to like him in actuality. I wanted to be there when the stone table breaks, and he reveals himself to Susan and Lucy. When he arrives in the battle to help the boys defeat the White Witch. When he patters off quietly at the end. He is a very memorable character and a very likable one. He was kind of flat as a character in The Magician's Nephew, but he's full of life in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And, of course, it was nice to see him again -- with more depth and more nobility -- in The Horse and His Boy.

So, with that in mind I'll wrap up my rambles until I get around to posting on The Horse and His Boy.

Music: From Late Victorian to Early Modern

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

--Intermezzo in A flat major
--Nocturne no.4 (in unknown)
--Nocturne no.1 in C major


performed by: Pascal Roge

Saint Calendar: Mirdat, King of Kartli

08 July

King Mirdat (408–410), the son of Varaz-Bakur, was the first martyred king of Georgia. He was raised by his maternal grandfather, King Trdat.

The faithful grandfather taught the future king to love God and his nation, and the young prince mindfully preserved his grandfather’s wisdom throughout his life. Mirdat was endowed with the greatest of a nobleman’s virtues: wisdom, discretion, physical prowess, fearlessness, valor, and courage. He liberated Klarjeti from the Byzantines, abolished the tribute system (by which Georgia was required to pay taxes to Persia), and prepared for war against the Persians.

The Persian king gathered an enormous army to punish the Georgian nation, and King Mirdat courageously marched toward Gardabani (in eastern Georgia) with his much smaller army. But the selflessness and bravery of the Georgian soldiers were no match for the multitude of Persian warriors. The Georgians suffered defeat, and the Persian conquerors captured the young king.

The Persian king demanded that Mirdat renounce the Christian Faith, but he was firmly rebuffed. Neither intimidation nor fear of persecution would break the will of the king. After torturing him for his love of Christ, the Persians bound him in chains, tormented him almost to death, and cast him into prison, where he gave up his soul to the Lord.

The martyrdom of King Mirdat took place at the beginning of the 5th century, in the year 410.

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Text derived from The Lives of the Saints.

Art Study: A Jar with Tentacles

Well, sort of.

This one is titled "Terracotta Stirrup Jar with Octopus." Mycenaean, dating from 1200-1100 BC, it's survived a very long time and still looks to be in good condition. And the octopus looks as though it belongs in Sesame Street. So, I thought it was kind of adorable.

The text at the source reads as follows:

The shape takes its name from the configuration of the spout and the two attached handles. Such jars were commonly used to transport liquids. Mycenaean artists adopted the marine motifs from Minoan antecedents.









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Derived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Quick Review: The Magician's Nephew, by C.S. Lewis

I've decided against doing a full summary/review of the Narnia books, in part because many people are already familiar with them and in part because I'm (for lack of a better expression) knackered right now. So, I'll offer a quick review of each of the books, primarily with my impressions of them. It sells the books a bit short, I suppose, but then again there are seven of them. Reading them in full and providing long reviews just isn't on my to-do list at this time.

As for The Magician's Nephew, I was pleasantly surprised. The only Narnia book I'd read in the past was (not surprisingly) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so I didn't know what to expect from the others. I started with this one, because it's supposed to be the first book chronologically, and it certainly did provide a degree of context for the stories that follow. Now, if I were to read this like a lit scholar, I'd admit that it feels a bit like C.S. Lewis had to give some sense to Narnia and how it all works, so poof he does so in The Magician's Nephew. Frankly, it feels as though he was working backwards -- which he was -- and trying to make Narnia work in retrospect -- which he was. This isn't necessarily a bad thing to do, of course. Tolkien did the same thing when he wrote Lord of the Rings; it just doesn't feel quite so obvious. At the same time, The Magician's Nephew is entirely charming, so it kept me turning the pages.

Now if I were to be completely honest, I'd admit that I find the writing to be more than a little juvenile. It's fun and easy to read. (I breezed through the books that I've read so far in about three hours or less.) The books are geared more at young people, so this is perfectly appropriate. The one downside to this kind of writing, though, is that it takes some of the drama out of the stories themselves. Lewis's asides, while they add to the charm of the stories, also keep me from taking Narnia as seriously as I did Middle-earth. Then again, Lewis is a masterful writer and an excellent story-teller, so I hesitate to charge him with treating the story simplistically. I suspect that we're meant to look past the off-hand comments and recognize a depth, and I have a feeling I'll pick up on that as I proceed. What's more, I'm not sure readers were meant to take Narnia with the same serious quality that surrounds Middle-earth. Tolkien created a fully functioning world of fantasy that isn't really meant to be metaphorical. Lewis was writing fantasy, but he was working in metaphors and allegory. And that's entirely different.

So, there are my rambles on The Magician's Nephew. I hope to offer similarly perambulating thoughts on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, and (perhaps) Prince Caspian tomorrow.

Book Review: An Incomplete Education, by Judy Jones and William Wilson

Subtitled 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned But Probably Didn't, this book lives up to its promise to deliver information from a variety of disciplines in the hopes of filling in the educational blanks that most Americans (almost inevitably) have. The authors cover the following areas: American Studies, Art History, Economics, Film, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Science, and World History. The details that they provide are overtly arbitrary but still quite interesting, and the writing is highly readable. I found myself very engrossed in some places and just giggling in others, as the authors boil down a vast survey of knowledge so that the average reader can pick up on it and tuck it away. Granted, this is a tricky goal to begin with. The authors have to sort through what must seem like endless information and choose those things that (in their humble opinions) people should have learned but might never have absorbed. As they point out in the introduction,

Weren't you supposed to have learned all this stuff back in college? Sure you were, but then, as now, you had our good days and your bad days. Ditto your teachers. Maybe you were in the infirmary with the flu the week your Philosophy 101 class was slogging through Zarathustra. Maybe your poli-sci prof was served with divorce papers right about the time the class hit the nonaligned nations. Maybe you failed to see the relevance of subatomic particles given your desperate need to get a date for Homecoming. Maybe you actually had all the answers -- for a few glorious hours before the No-Doz (or whatever it was) wore off. No matter. The upshot is that you've got some serious educational gaps. And that, old bean, is what this book is all about.

Just for fun, I'm going to quote a little from each of the twelve chapters to give people an idea of how the writers present the information. Most of the time, it's pretty tongue-in-cheek, with an effort at keeping things enjoyable. (No point in turning this into a real textbook, after all). The problem, of course, is that there are moments when the relevance of the information is lost in the sarcasm, with the end result that the reader might begin to ask the question, "So...why should I care about this stuff again?" But more on that below. For now, some excerpts.

American Studies
"Walt Whitman: Founding father of American poetry. Charged with the poetic mission ('I speak the password primeval'), he raised all the issues that modern poetry is about: experimentation with language and form; revelation of self; the assumption that the poet, the reader, and the idea are all in the same room together and that a poem could make something happen. Hyperventilated a lot, but people on the side of freedom and variety are like that."

Art History
"Raphael (Rafaello Sanzio, 1483-1520): Button up your overcoat. That chill you're feeling, coupled with the fact that, if you took History of Art 101, he was the one you got hit with the week before Christmas vacation, means that it's impossible to smile brightly when the name Raphael comes up, the way you do with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo -- the two contemporaries with whom he forms a trinity that is to the High Renaissance what turkey, ham, and Swiss are to a chef's salad. That said, the thing about Raphael is -- and has always been -- that he never makes mistakes, fails to achieve desired effects, or forgets what it is, exactly, he's supposed to be doing next Thursday morning. He perfected picture painting, the way engineers perfected bridge building or canal digging or satellite launching; each of his canvases is an exercise in balance, in organization, in clarity and harmony, in coherence and gracefulness..."

Economics
"Free-Market Economy vs. Planned Economy: In the former, decisions made by households and businesses, rather than by the government, determine how resources are used. Vice versa and you've got the latter. As long as you are living in the United States, it's probably a good idea to associate a free-market economy with the good guys, a planned economy with the bad guys. If you find yourself in Cuba or parts of Cambridge, Massachusetts, simply reverse the definition to get with the prevailing theology."

Film
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German, 1919): For horror-movie aficionados, this is the granddaddy, happily fleshed out with mental illness (persecution, hallucination, breakdown) and the chilling ambiguities generated by the tale-within-a-tale format. More than mere horror, however, Caligari purveys the kind of weirdness that fuels cultism: Here's a way to get the jump on friends who are still gaga over Kafka or, what's worse, Twin Peaks. Then there's the movie's inherent appeal for painters and set designers: Unlike other classics of the cinema, this is one in which stagecraft and painted flats, rather than camera movement and dynamic editing, do the job -- and get the credit. Finally, it's a traditional favorite of sociologists and portent readers: German film theorist Siegfried Kracauer, for instance, sees in it the beginning of a 'cortege of monsters and tyrants' that would eventually culminate in Hitler."

Literature
"Ulysses (1922), James Joyce: The novel as cab ride: potholes, gridlock, minority-group parades, plus the springs are shot and the driver's smoking a cigar. The trick is to sit back, ignore the meter, and try not to anticipate the destination. Go easy on yourself: Linearity -- getting from A to B -- was never much on Joyce's mind, and it doesn't have to be much on yours either. More than any other, this is a book not to stand on ceremony with."

Music
"Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): If Italy were on fire and only a single Italian opera could be saved, it wouldn't be one of Puccini's. Though there's no arguing with La Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly at the box office, they can, next to the best of Verdi, strike bona-fide opera lovers as a little, well, vulgar. A showman and a crowd-pleaser (not to mention a pirate who wasn't above stealing an idea or two from a colleague), Puccini has had his greatest influence on the development of the popular musical theater."

Philosophy
"Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): [Readability] Confirms your worst fears. Kant wrote exclusively for his learned colleagues and succeeded in making even their eyes glaze over. Will Durant compared him to Jehovah, saying, "He speaks through clouds, but without the illumination of the lightning flash"; [Current Standing] One of philosophy's all-stars, with Plato, Aristotle, and, if the judges are in a good mood, Hegel. Often called 'the founder of modern philosophy,' which is not to say that anyone totally accepts -- or ever accepted -- his theories, but that every subsequent philosopher has teethed on them. Also, that his complex theories foreshadowed such hip twentieth-century systems as structuralism."

Political Science
"Ethiopia: [The Layout] Ethiopia used to stand tall, even without shoes. Located in the Horn of Africa, just across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, it was a venerable Christian stronghold flanked by Muslim states, with its feet planted firmly in black Africa and its face turned toward the Middle East. Later, it became a militant Marxist outpost in spine-tingling proximity to the Suez Canal. Then the country's sense of geographical identity, already under stress from its loss of strategic importance at the end of the Cold War, took a further hammering in 1993, when Eritrea, the northern coastal province that provided Ethiopia's only access to the sea, formally won its thirty-year battle for independence. Now all one can safely say about Ethiopia is that it's got a lot of mountains..."

Psychology
"Sigmund Freud: In the beginning there was Freud -- or as he is universally labeled, Freud himself, with the pronoun wired inextricably to the noun. Not to refer to him this way immediately reveals you to be a parvenu on the psychoanalytical scene. To establish your credentials among the cognoscenti, you must, whenever some arcane metapsychological point is discussed, ask whether the speaker is referring to the early writings (1895-1900) or to the middle phase (roughly 1900-1910); that is, to theories which Freud himself (see how it's done?) revised in his later papers. It also adds a bit of heft to throw in such remarks as 'Yes, but on "On Narcissism" or in "Analysis Terminable and Interminable," Freud himself said...' "

Religion
"Zoroastrianism: You pretty much had to be there -- Persia, in the sixth century B.C., that is -- to get the full flavor of Zoroastrianism as Zoroaster conceived it. (Actually, as he conceived it, it was called Zarathustrianism; Zoroastrianism is the Greek translation.) By the time, it became a state religion of Persia, in A.D. 226, Zoroaster's own mother wouldn't have recognized it. But use your imagination. Picture yourself trying to settle down and run a peaceful little ancient farm while surrounded by a zillion nature gods perpetually vying for your attention. You could spend half the day sacrificing to gods of twigs and pebbles and the like just to get in a decent harvest, and you still wouldn't have a clue as to how to behave nicely or raise your kids. Zoroaster eliminated a lot of time-wasting twig worship while adding a relatively coherent moral dimension to daily life..."

Science
"Osmosis: When fluid passes through a membrane from one side, where there's a lower concentration of a particular particle, to the other, where there's a higher concentration of the same particle, that's osmosis. Essentially, it's an attempt to reach equilibrium, which biological systems, not unlike yourself, find to be a highly desirable state; in this case, equilibrium will ensure the identical number of particles per cubic whatever of fluid on both sides of that semipermeable (but selective) membrane without any of the particles having to move a muscle. 'Learning by osmosis' is likewise automatic, imperceptible, effortless."

World History
"Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Six volumes. Three thousand pages. A million and a quarter words. Accounting for fourteen hundred years (from 'the Age of the Antonines,' in the first century A.D., to the stirrings of the Renaissance) in the lives of three continents, Britain to Palestine, including both halves of the Empire and all the nations that border on it, with special attention to the rise of Christianity and of Islam and to the eventual 'fall' of Rome into the 'superstitious' Middle Ages. Considered to be the greatest history ever written in the English language, a glorious melding of heavy-duty scholarship and high style."

So, that's that. A little taste of how this is written. For the record, this is not some kind of encyclopedia with entry after entry and printed in a tiny font that requires special lenses to read. The writers did a great job of breaking the information up and sectioning it off so that the reader feels as though it's possible to take a breath before going on. And as I mentioned before, the information is highly selective, so it's not merely an alphabetical listing of different items for different disciplines. The author's have picked and chosen kernels of information so that readers will be ready next time they're faced with a discussion of Spinoza at a dinner party or a hot debate about whether a valley should be labeled a vale, a dale, or a glen.

And this is where my two-part criticism comes in. For one, there's an almost sacrilegious quality to the way that they write, which makes for a humorous read at times, but it also reduces the importance of what they're talking about. To tell readers that they need to know about Wagner and then to make fun of Wagner (not literally, but with a somewhat sardonic style) raises the question of whether Wagner is important after all. I know that the goal is to make the information accessible, and humor can often diffuse the complexity of what they're talking about. But it's a fine line, and they cross it a few too many times.

Additionally, the way that this book will be treated in the hands of readers is a potential concern. I don't think I can criticize the writers for their purpose. They're not trying to provide all of the knowledge that readers will need; I'd say they're trying to jumpstart the reader's interest in various subjects and encourage readers to look more closely for themselves. Readers who think that they can complete the chapter on psychology and assume they have acquired real knowledge on the writings of Sigmund Freud are making a huge mistake. The difference really is one of information vs. knowledge. This book provides information; it is up to readers to pursue real knowledge. And real knowledge cannot come from skimming through 700 pages and memorizing 3,684 facts. But this book is a fun read (if somewhat liberally positioned in worldview at times), and it's a good place to start in the journey toward knowledge.

Year of publication: 2006
Number of pages: 701