Garry Wills on All Things Shining (Or Not)

I noted this book here. Now Garry Wills weighs in, and he's having none of it. While I found the book had some merit, Will really finds it lacking. They talk Homer & St. Augustine, and you don't venture into this territory without the classicist Wills to deal with, and deal with them he does. I must agree that their idea of being taken up or in by "the gods" strikes me as an uncertain thing, as there are many false gods out there. And sports as the equivalent of deep religious practice? I don't think so either.

David Brooks on All Things Shining

Because of Brooks's discussion, I'm going to have to read this book. Brooks, who has a very perceptive eye for current culture (his politics are a bit to the right for my tastes, but nonetheless thoughtful). While Maureen Dowd usually has the snarky (and therefore humorous) take on the zeitgeist, Brooks ponders without proving ponderous. In this brief book review (which is what this column is), he raises some really good points. What is the role of the ecstatic in our culture? What role do sports, religion, or culture (music, theater) play in this? How do we distinguish collective feelings of "whooshing" (see his article for a definition) from the bad?For instance,how is a Nazi rally from the 1963 civil rights rally on the Washington mall? The easy answer is content, obviously, but how do we parse more subtle differences? Anyway, a thought-provoking column about what sounds like a thought-provoking book.

The book, by the way, is All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, by Herbert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly.