GroshLink

Thank-you to Miller for emailing me Paradise Lost, Again and Again: A Book Review of Alan Jacobs' Original Sin: A Cultural History. Overall the Wall Street Journal reviewer praises the cultural history presented by Jacobs, although he wishes more pages had been given to the provoking ideas in Genesis than Milton's poetic version in "Paradise Lost." He comments:

The author of Genesis suggests that this [i.e., a radical autonomy wherein the truth is determined not by the nature of things but by your own individual will] is a formula for unhappiness: Genuine freedom is anchored in objective truths that we ourselves do not invent. Otherwise there is going to be a mess. And indeed in the chapters of Genesis that follow, which may have a substratum of historical truth – there was, for example, an enormous flood in the Mesopotamian basin at the dawn of history – mankind lurches from catastrophe to catastrophe.

The piece concludes:

In an easy, fluent style, Mr. Jacobs makes the case that we're setting ourselves up for a fall whenever we think that mankind can get things exactly right.

Amen!  Lessons for every day in the family, neighborhood, wider culture (check out CPYU's review of I Kissed A Girl), and the world as a whole.  Such a good review, I wonder if I need to read the book.  Anyone have Original Sin:  A Cultural History on their summer reading list?  Maybe you should have it side by side w/Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy ... insightful excerpts from Tony Watkins' Dark Matter: Shedding Light on Philip Pullman's Trilogy His Dark Materials coming shortly.