hoboken's review against another edition

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5.0

Profound.

"When the GPS is navigating for you, your understanding of the environment is about as minimal as it can possibly be. . . .In the best case. . .this method of navigating gets you to your destination quickly and easily. But it completely trivializes the noble art of navigation, which was the province of great cultures from the sea-faring Phoenicians to the navigators of the Age of Discovery. . . .To navigate by GPS is to endure a series of meaningless pauses at the end of which you do precisely what you are told. . . .It's like being the central figure in a Beckett play without the jokes. Indeed, in an important sense this experience turns you into an automated device the GPS can use to arrive at its destination. . .[T]o aim for this as an entire way of life is to lose touch with the skill and care, the reverence and awe, that are some of the moods that bring out human beings at their best."

brinysea's review against another edition

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3.0

The authors' argument seems thin in some places, but does a generally good job of naming the modern predicament.

lizwisniewski's review against another edition

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4.0

Greatly enjoyed the book, especially the parts on Moby Dick (actually made me want to read it) and Infinite Jest (still do not want to read it.) I thought it was especially cool that the two authors differ so much in age, and live on opposite coasts. I could imagine that they both got a lot out of writing together and the book has a great deal of wisdom and thought to it.

johnke's review against another edition

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2.0

Poorly researched and poorly written. A sprawling mess of a book.

dbg108's review against another edition

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4.0

Dreyfus and Kelly effectively narrate the banishing of the gods from western culture. Fans of Melville will particularly appreciate their interpretations of Moby Dick and its place in the cultural canon. Despite their major error of equating monotheism with a coercive universal imperative for every individual's life, Dreyfus and Kelly invite us to acknowledge and celebrate the divine in the everyday, mundane shining things. Indeed, I perceive the divine and the shining things in and through their writing. And I'm grateful for this gift of a book.

danchibnall's review against another edition

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2.0

This book seemed adrift, as if the authors didn't really know where they were going with it. It jumped around way too much and the conclusion was pretty disappointing. I think my own personal approach to life is less complicated and more in-tune with big ideas than anything they wrote about. I was very disappointed by this book.

jhoover's review against another edition

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4.0

The concepts seemed a little too fuzzy. For instance I'm still not totally sure what the gods/moods are exactly. Definitely in the continental tradition and shows, as the argumentation is extremely loose, but overall I thought the ideas were illuminating. Also an overall easy read.

cindy_shamel's review against another edition

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A good read, however, I recommend participating in a book group to get the most out of this book.

aaronh's review against another edition

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3.0

Overall I think the authors make a pretty compelling argument for how we can approach the task of discerning what meaning already exists in the universe (as opposed to either imposing our meaning dogmatically or assuming that everything in the universe has meaning). It is a categorical rejection of the nihilism that underpins our age, especially that proceeding consequentially from Protestant/Enlightenment individualism. Despite the heavy sounding tone of this description, though, it is a light read and easily digestible. Pick it up and give it a try.

dujyt's review against another edition

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Hmmm.... thought-provoking book that starts with David Foster Wallace's [b:Infinite Jest|75786|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298433997s/75786.jpg|3271542] as an example of postmodern nihilism and banality , then leaping backward to Greek polytheism with Homer and continuing on from there through Dante and Melville to examine how our culture got to where it is today.

An odd book to read if you're looking for a prescriptive map to a more meaningful life, because not until the last part of the book is there any meaningful push to take the insights from the reading of the Western canon to cultivate skills of transcendence, wisdom and community.

[b:Infinite Jest|75786|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298433997s/75786.jpg|3271542] is now on my nightstand, though, so I have to say the book succeeded in making this and the other books discussed more real to me. I think I have a stronger motivation to attempt these books after reading(listening) to this book. I also kept thinking that if I were studying any of this literature in a class, I would definitely want to review what this book brought out for some great discussion and research topics.