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rainbowbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this essay! The love part was spot on while the death started off slow, it picked back up when it started talking about Jesus.
thomasgoddard's review against another edition
2.0
I usually love mini essays like this.
Take one talented writer and two seemingly disparate topics, then settle in for a little time. You'll soon find that the two topics have been paired and grafted using some intellectual contrivance that bamboozles you, initially, but soon brainwashes you into that state few dare to allow: open-mindedness. A light goes on and your perspective shifts.
So what happened here?
Well it was all going swimmingly until he started ranting about Christ. And intellectually he was making sense. But the longer it went on for the more it just felt like he had an axe to grind. He clearly finds the notion of God quite objectionable and revelled in highlighting the Bible's contractions. He compares Orpheus and Christ. Preferring Orpheus's love. Why not Lot, whose 'turning back' is such a clear parallel? I mean, the point was that Christ's experience of death was 'theatre' or 'propaganda' for his mission to make believers. As death had no power over him. Where Orpheus travelled into death, whilst living and thereby risking death, to negotiate for one soul. I get it. But why bring up a guy who can't die and never loved (eros) in an essay like this? It's just as a whipping boy and little else. A lot could have been made (pun intended) of Lot's love for God despite the catastrophes he endured. His lost wife not the particular focus of his true love. Where for Orpheus, even with Eurydice being his sole focus, he lost her in a similar fashion. Oh well...
I'm not a Christian, but I've read the Bible many times. The issue is, Süskind seems to really believe in Christ and yet takes glee in the inconsistencies. Oh, he'll tell you he is an atheist; but he'll still argue like God's in the room. (Note to self: I should write a song with that line in!)
I've met so many people like this. Usually from a strict Christian upbringing and they're bitter about it. In later life they take delight in tearing into the sacred. It's like when you meet a misogynist and he starts going on a rant about women being evil and then, after a few pints, confesses he just wants to be held by one.
There's love of God in this essay, despite himself. Vulnerability because of it. It isn't desired, but it lingers. Seems to drive him mad. And for all his protestations, he never carried himself away from that place of vulnerability. No matter how much he argued against it. No matter how much he tried to rip it apart, I still felt it had a hold over him.
The final words of Jesus are threefold and he points this out and yet still decides to make special focus of one iteration. Wouldn't you just realise that, with the record unreliable, it is futile to build a case against Jesus using one of those instabilities? Why point to those particular final words and make a big deal of them when you have two contradictory accounts of his final words that are irrelevant to your position? Besides which, to play Jesus's advocate, he might have uttered every line before passing away anyway.
Nothing was really gained from this book as a result. It was just a rant. And a damned shame. For a better exploration of the topics and their interrelation read Knausgård. Particularly on society's shift away from encountering death over the last few centuries. He's not a perfect writer about things either but it was more enjoyable for me and he wasn't as ranty.
Take one talented writer and two seemingly disparate topics, then settle in for a little time. You'll soon find that the two topics have been paired and grafted using some intellectual contrivance that bamboozles you, initially, but soon brainwashes you into that state few dare to allow: open-mindedness. A light goes on and your perspective shifts.
So what happened here?
Well it was all going swimmingly until he started ranting about Christ. And intellectually he was making sense. But the longer it went on for the more it just felt like he had an axe to grind. He clearly finds the notion of God quite objectionable and revelled in highlighting the Bible's contractions. He compares Orpheus and Christ. Preferring Orpheus's love. Why not Lot, whose 'turning back' is such a clear parallel? I mean, the point was that Christ's experience of death was 'theatre' or 'propaganda' for his mission to make believers. As death had no power over him. Where Orpheus travelled into death, whilst living and thereby risking death, to negotiate for one soul. I get it. But why bring up a guy who can't die and never loved (eros) in an essay like this? It's just as a whipping boy and little else. A lot could have been made (pun intended) of Lot's love for God despite the catastrophes he endured. His lost wife not the particular focus of his true love. Where for Orpheus, even with Eurydice being his sole focus, he lost her in a similar fashion. Oh well...
I'm not a Christian, but I've read the Bible many times. The issue is, Süskind seems to really believe in Christ and yet takes glee in the inconsistencies. Oh, he'll tell you he is an atheist; but he'll still argue like God's in the room. (Note to self: I should write a song with that line in!)
I've met so many people like this. Usually from a strict Christian upbringing and they're bitter about it. In later life they take delight in tearing into the sacred. It's like when you meet a misogynist and he starts going on a rant about women being evil and then, after a few pints, confesses he just wants to be held by one.
There's love of God in this essay, despite himself. Vulnerability because of it. It isn't desired, but it lingers. Seems to drive him mad. And for all his protestations, he never carried himself away from that place of vulnerability. No matter how much he argued against it. No matter how much he tried to rip it apart, I still felt it had a hold over him.
The final words of Jesus are threefold and he points this out and yet still decides to make special focus of one iteration. Wouldn't you just realise that, with the record unreliable, it is futile to build a case against Jesus using one of those instabilities? Why point to those particular final words and make a big deal of them when you have two contradictory accounts of his final words that are irrelevant to your position? Besides which, to play Jesus's advocate, he might have uttered every line before passing away anyway.
Nothing was really gained from this book as a result. It was just a rant. And a damned shame. For a better exploration of the topics and their interrelation read Knausgård. Particularly on society's shift away from encountering death over the last few centuries. He's not a perfect writer about things either but it was more enjoyable for me and he wasn't as ranty.
whogivesabook's review against another edition
2.0
I usually love mini essays like this.
Take one talented writer and two seemingly disparate topics, then settle in for a little time. You'll soon find that the two topics have been paired and grafted using some intellectual contrivance that bamboozles you, initially, but soon brainwashes you into that state few dare to allow: open-mindedness. A light goes on and your perspective shifts.
So what happened here?
Well it was all going swimmingly until he started ranting about Christ. And intellectually he was making sense. But the longer it went on for the more it just felt like he had an axe to grind. He clearly finds the notion of God quite objectionable and revelled in highlighting the Bible's contractions. He compares Orpheus and Christ. Preferring Orpheus's love. Why not Lot, whose 'turning back' is such a clear parallel? I mean, the point was that Christ's experience of death was 'theatre' or 'propaganda' for his mission to make believers. As death had no power over him. Where Orpheus travelled into death, whilst living and thereby risking death, to negotiate for one soul. I get it. But why bring up a guy who can't die and never loved (eros) in an essay like this? It's just as a whipping boy and little else. A lot could have been made (pun intended) of Lot's love for God despite the catastrophes he endured. His lost wife not the particular focus of his true love. Where for Orpheus, even with Eurydice being his sole focus, he lost her in a similar fashion. Oh well...
I'm not a Christian, but I've read the Bible many times. The issue is, Süskind seems to really believe in Christ and yet takes glee in the inconsistencies. Oh, he'll tell you he is an atheist; but he'll still argue like God's in the room. (Note to self: I should write a song with that line in!)
I've met so many people like this. Usually from a strict Christian upbringing and they're bitter about it. In later life they take delight in tearing into the sacred. It's like when you meet a misogynist and he starts going on a rant about women being evil and then, after a few pints, confesses he just wants to be held by one.
There's love of God in this essay, despite himself. Vulnerability because of it. It isn't desired, but it lingers. Seems to drive him mad. And for all his protestations, he never carried himself away from that place of vulnerability. No matter how much he argued against it. No matter how much he tried to rip it apart, I still felt it had a hold over him.
The final words of Jesus are threefold and he points this out and yet still decides to make special focus of one iteration. Wouldn't you just realise that, with the record unreliable, it is futile to build a case against Jesus using one of those instabilities? Why point to those particular final words and make a big deal of them when you have two contradictory accounts of his final words that are irrelevant to your position? Besides which, to play Jesus's advocate, he might have uttered every line before passing away anyway.
Nothing was really gained from this book as a result. It was just a rant. And a damned shame. For a better exploration of the topics and their interrelation read Knausgård. Particularly on society's shift away from encountering death over the last few centuries. He's not a perfect writer about things either but it was more enjoyable for me and he wasn't as ranty.
Take one talented writer and two seemingly disparate topics, then settle in for a little time. You'll soon find that the two topics have been paired and grafted using some intellectual contrivance that bamboozles you, initially, but soon brainwashes you into that state few dare to allow: open-mindedness. A light goes on and your perspective shifts.
So what happened here?
Well it was all going swimmingly until he started ranting about Christ. And intellectually he was making sense. But the longer it went on for the more it just felt like he had an axe to grind. He clearly finds the notion of God quite objectionable and revelled in highlighting the Bible's contractions. He compares Orpheus and Christ. Preferring Orpheus's love. Why not Lot, whose 'turning back' is such a clear parallel? I mean, the point was that Christ's experience of death was 'theatre' or 'propaganda' for his mission to make believers. As death had no power over him. Where Orpheus travelled into death, whilst living and thereby risking death, to negotiate for one soul. I get it. But why bring up a guy who can't die and never loved (eros) in an essay like this? It's just as a whipping boy and little else. A lot could have been made (pun intended) of Lot's love for God despite the catastrophes he endured. His lost wife not the particular focus of his true love. Where for Orpheus, even with Eurydice being his sole focus, he lost her in a similar fashion. Oh well...
I'm not a Christian, but I've read the Bible many times. The issue is, Süskind seems to really believe in Christ and yet takes glee in the inconsistencies. Oh, he'll tell you he is an atheist; but he'll still argue like God's in the room. (Note to self: I should write a song with that line in!)
I've met so many people like this. Usually from a strict Christian upbringing and they're bitter about it. In later life they take delight in tearing into the sacred. It's like when you meet a misogynist and he starts going on a rant about women being evil and then, after a few pints, confesses he just wants to be held by one.
There's love of God in this essay, despite himself. Vulnerability because of it. It isn't desired, but it lingers. Seems to drive him mad. And for all his protestations, he never carried himself away from that place of vulnerability. No matter how much he argued against it. No matter how much he tried to rip it apart, I still felt it had a hold over him.
The final words of Jesus are threefold and he points this out and yet still decides to make special focus of one iteration. Wouldn't you just realise that, with the record unreliable, it is futile to build a case against Jesus using one of those instabilities? Why point to those particular final words and make a big deal of them when you have two contradictory accounts of his final words that are irrelevant to your position? Besides which, to play Jesus's advocate, he might have uttered every line before passing away anyway.
Nothing was really gained from this book as a result. It was just a rant. And a damned shame. For a better exploration of the topics and their interrelation read Knausgård. Particularly on society's shift away from encountering death over the last few centuries. He's not a perfect writer about things either but it was more enjoyable for me and he wasn't as ranty.