A stirring, lyrical meditation on transfiguration.
The quest for illumination, examined by an English philosopher.
Critchley, who admits to being “temperamentally a mystic,” celebrates the “cultivation of practices which allow you to free yourself of your standard habits…and stand with what is there ecstatically,” a process that has come to be known, sometimes pejoratively, as mysticism. The word itself, he reveals, emerged from the 17th century’s “modern, enlightened worldview” to describe “an existential ecstasy that is outside and more than the conscious self.” This feeling of ecstasy, Critchley asserts, has the potential of liberating us “from misery, from melancholy, from heaviness of soul, from the slough of despond, from mental leadenness.” Although mystics report intense experiences of what they call God, Critchley argues that mysticism can transcend religion to be primarily aesthetic: joy and rapture can be inspired by art, poetry, and, especially for him, music. In his journey into mysticism, Critchley draws on the writings of mystics, including Julian of Norwich, Bernard of Clairvaux, Margery Kempe, Meister Eckhart, and contemporary writers such as Annie Dillard and T.S. Eliot. For Critchley, Dillard’s Holy the Firm and Eliot’s Four Quartets explore “the relation between art and the divine.” Both writers struggle to convey “some dimension of experience that cannot be expressed verbally and is perhaps closer to music.” Critchley is moved by any music that “triggers the energy of religious conversion”: the post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes, for example, and the Krautrock group Neu! “We know that the modern world is a violently disenchanted swirl shaped by the speculative flux of money that presses in on all sides,” Critchley writes. “Yet, when we listen to the music that we love, it is as if the world were reanimated, bursting with sense, and utterly alive.” Erudite and impassioned, Critchley’s intimate examination of mysticism speaks to a yearning for personal transformation and nothing less than enchantment.
A stirring, lyrical meditation on transfiguration.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781681378244
Page Count: 320
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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