Month: June 2006

Executive Summary: Thomas Aquinas is teh suck!!!1!!!

I don’t remember where I got this book; it’s either a book fair bag filler or something that was in the free bin at Hooked on Books. However, since I was on a short, smart book kick, I picked it up.

This cover calls the book a penetrating analysis of trends in modern thought. The introduction goes further: as it’s an evangelical book, its goal is to frame traditional, even fundamental Christian thought with modern philosophical schools of thought. As such, it studies the dual nature of man (nature and grace) and how this fundamental dual nature has been corrupted through various schools of philosophical thought. When Thomas Aquinas intimated that only man’s will suffered from The Fall but that the intellect was capable of arriving independently at grace through its observations of nature and so on, he set into motion the eventual slippery slope where the autonomous lower half of man will overrun the higher half.

Ergo, throughout philosophical history, Kant and Rousseau saying that Freedom is the higher order of man and Nature is the lower, but the mechanistic view of human nature eventually logically trumps freedom, or the Christian Existentialist view (courtesy of Kierkegaard) that divides man’s duality into reason and faith (where the leap of faith is rationally inexplicable), or the regular Existentialist view where an act of will is the highest order.

I don’t remember most of the primary texts that the author refers to, so I can only say that the book poses a relatively sound exploration of the theme. I’m not sure, though, whether I’d characterize the Existentialists as embracing the dual nature of man. The author refers specifically to Sartre’s Nausea and how the Existentialists triumphs over the absurd and achieves the higher portion of himself through an act of will, of seeking authenticity. I remember just enough of my Sartre to suspect that this is a convenient reading of true Existentialism, which is monoist in nature.

So although the book does take a couple things a priori, such as the basic framework of its evangelical Christian roots with the cmbination of Jesus and The Scriptures as a framework for all thought, science, and art, it provided a handy (and short) mechanism for me to resharpen my old philosophical edges.

It looks as though this book and others by this author remain fairly popular–hence their higher prices at Amazon. Perhaps I lucked out in getting this first American printing so cheaply. I better bronze it.

Books mentioned in this review:

I got this copy of Poison from the Greater St. Louis Book Fair for $1.00. I know I’ve read it before because my Aunt Dale owned a copy of it; I remember the hot blonde on the cover. For all I know, I own that copy, too, since Aunt Dale is the aunt who passed away a year and a half ago and bequeathed me many of her books. This one, though, still has the price sticker on it and was on the floor in my stacks instead of in boxes or on my completed reading shelves. Well, there, you have my history with the copy I read most recently.

This book represents a mid-career Ed McBain 87th precinct novel, where the 1960s era is early and the 2000-esque books are late. As I’ve mentioned, McBain wrote a long series of books which hold up very well. The back cover offers a quote comparing McBain to Georges Simenon. Peh. He’s a modern Erle Stanley Gardner, and beyond; the books hold up beyond the time in which the author wrote them.

This installment deals with a murder by nicotine poisoning that Carella and Willis catch. Willis starts falling for the lover of the victim. She’s hot, blonde (hence the cover), and emancipated in that 1980s, I sleep with a lot of men way. When her other lovers start dying, the detectives of the 87th Precinct–well, except for Willis–start suspecting she’s the killer.

McBain was a master. I lament the knowledge that there won’t be any more of the 87th Precinct novels, but I know I can reread the ones I’ve read previously again as I acquire them or as the mood strikes me.

Books mentioned in this review:

For some reason, my mother-in-law gave me this book for Christmas. So I read it, disinterestedly, as you might expect. Who am I kidding? I was hoping for a deeper understanding of what I was supposed to be going through than my friends intoning that I was going to lose some sleep circa the end of this very month. This book provided me some of that.

At turns, this book: touched my own anxiety and fear (singular, gentle reader; I have but one of each); made me cringe at the differeces between a pregnancy experienced by a native New Yorker and, well, anyone in the rest of the country; made me snigger at the Roberyt Blyian concept of manhood and its attendant rituals; and made me skim the scientificism of some of the speculated parent-child-father hormonal responses.

Also, the book made me assure Heather, unnecessarily (I hope), that just because I was not puking in the mornings or cooing at other people’s babies in the supermarket, I would be a good enough father to not warrant divorce or murdering while I slept but she fed the baby. The book spends a lot of time talking about couvade, which is either ritualistic or physiological symptoms that the husband has which the author indicates is a subconcious, hormonal way of signalling he’s going to be a good father to the wife. Meanwhile, I’m working for a living, leaving my beautiful wife to gestate on her own.

The writing style is hip. By “hip,” I mean it’s readable and contemporary, but uses the word “shit” far too much for non-fiction. Also, the author is intelligent and makes a number of classical allusions that made me feel smart for recognizing them, but unfortunately he also alluded to the classic Roddy Piper film They Live as Them, which really makes me wonder if all of his other allusions are mistaken, and whether I am a fool for thinking those other allusions were right.

An interesting enough read, and worth the price I paid. (Sorry, Ms. Igert, I mean, it’s a good book, and thanks!)

Books mentioned in this review:

When I saw this book for $.33 in the new secret cheap books back room at Hooked on Books in Springfield, I had to have it. After all, Levar Burton is the former host of Reading Rainbow and star of The Midnight Hour. As I have mentioned before, I think one of my collecting niches is books based on movies, books upon which movies are based, and books by movie and television stars. Hence, I thought this book by a relatively obscure actor would be worth the cold, hard coinage. Plus, I had two other books, no doubt.

This book takes place in the coming decades, after the following has occurred:

1. The United States spends too much on a space station, foreign aid, and small wars so that it’s nearly bankrupt.
2. A black man is elected president and is subsequently assassinated by those damn white supremecist militias.
3. The New Madrid fault goes.
4. Climate change stresses the world. Not just makes uncomfortable, but drives down agricultural yields and so on.
5. A 3 year race war occurs, representing a second coming of the Civil War. Fought on American soil, it pits whites against everyone else in set piece sorts of battles leading to bombings of corn fields. Oddly enough, though, the rest of the world doesn’t intervene, and at the end, no one is bowing to Mecca or speaking Mandarin.

Remember, this book bears a 1997 publication date, so it was probably written ca 1996. Bill Clinton is running for re-election. It’s one year since the Oklahoma City bombing and three years after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Perhaps in this era, the books concerns were plausible; however, to me they seem very dated given the way the world has turned. On the other hand, just last week, I had a Jewish friend express rather earnest concern that George W. Bush was going to outlaw Judaism and round up the Jews. Perhaps some people see a racial/creedist civil war still possible in our cards rather than the red state/blue state divide which I think separates us more.

But I digress; this book has a plot. A scientist comes up with an electromagnetic brain stimulator which not only affords healing properties for the human body, but also can sometimes produce, as a side effect, telepathic and precognitive ability. Which comes in handy when some corrupt members of what passes for the post-apocalyptic medical establishment kidnap her for her secret.

The scientist reaches out and touches an Indian medicine man, a now-homeless former meterologist, and a now-homeless young woman to come to her aid. The bulk of the book comprises their individual stories and their eventual coming together for her rescue. And then, suddenly, in the last moments of the book, they resolve the situation with a climactic Hollywoodesque ending. Something out of Star Trek: The Next Generation, almost.

Still, it’s a fairly compelling book. The shifting points-of-view among the major characters and interactive, not overly expository histories make the first portion of the book easy to read and drive toward a conclusion. Unfortunately, again (like in Sharky’s Machine) I can almost sense when a movie option is signed or an author is ready to be done with the book, so the sudden career into a slam-bang finish occurs.

So it’s a good enough genre piece, even if it’s somewhat dated. It reminds me of the 1960s-era topical science fiction I read, so it will live on in that vein at least. If Mr. Burton wrote this himself, he’s not a bad writer, but then again, I would expect nothing less from the well-read public television evangelist of childhood reading and bona-fide star of television and screen.

Books mentioned in this review: