Gathering dust
The August 2 New Yorker (the one with that great article by Atul Gawande) has a writeup of Marilynne Robinson’s new book, Absence of Mind, in its “Briefly Noted” column. Commonweal published an excerpt from the book, “Thinking Again,” in May. The unsigned review in the New Yorker ends this way:
Robinson is eloquent in her defense of the mind’s prerogatives, but her call for a renewed metaphysics might be better served by rereading Heidegger than by dusting off the Psalms.
I often get the feeling that there aren’t many Bibles, dusty or otherwise, in the New Yorker‘s offices. Exhibit B, from the July 12 issue, is this unhelpful visual from an otherwise very perceptive review of Ann Carson’s new book, Nox, by Meghan O’Rourke:
The contents arrive not between two covers but in a box about the size of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
So…somewhere between this and this, I guess?
By the way, did you know it’s possible to purchase a “slightly imperfect” Bible? The site doesn’t specify what the imperfections are for any given item, but here’s hoping they just left out those dusty old Psalms.
I also rather doubt there are many copies of Heidegger, given his “nought noughting the nought”, which is murky metaphysics at its best, nonsense at its worst. (Can you see that getting past a New Yorker editor???) Idon’t understand the attraction of Heidegger. I see him as either a fraud or a madman trying to hold his mind together against the odds. Not that that makes him totally irrelevant. Just not the Sage of the Hut.
Carson’s work is existential, obviously, but Heideggerian? Don’t insult the lady.
Robinson’s article is, I think, a brilliant summary of where the secular humanists are right now, and it’s presented without the sort of linguistic fireworks that too many philosophers think is necessary to make a point. No noughts-noughting-noughts in her piece :-)