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fasola4mi 's review for:
A.J. Jacobs sets out to poke fun at Biblical literalists by devoting a year to obeying every rule set forth in the Bible, thereby showing the world how impossible and ludicrous Biblical literalism is.
I feel rather ambivalent about this book. On the one hand, it is quite funny, and it is not without its genuine and insightful moments. On the other hand it is, in the words of another goodreads reviewer, a "stunt memoir," and I have a hard time forgiving it that. And I'm having a really hard time forgiving him doing two stunt memoirs (he reads the Encyclopedia Brittanica in his first book). This is despite of my weakness for this sort of thing: the idea of setting out to change your life for a significant but limited amount of time and recording your reactions and insights is really appealing to me.
My real problem is that I can't help but feel that Jacobs is dishonest here- he's not setting out on a genuine spiritual quest, he's not trying to change his life. He's setting out to prove a point with a straw man argument, and make his living doing it. Following a set of precepts that you find ludicrous, for the point of proving them ludicrous, and then pretending that it has anything to do with actual religion is both a straw man argument and a waste of time. I mean, I could set out to read China's answer to Emily Post and practice all the rules set forth in order to prove the inanity of Chinese culture, but who in their right mind would accept that I knew anything about being Chinese?
I also don't find it all that interesting that Jacobs debunks literalism. People purporting to be biblical literalists aren't likely to be his audience. His audience is going to be, for the most part, politically liberal secular folk, with some "believing" liberals thrown in for good measure. So projects with foregone conclusions that involve preaching to the choir...eh.
That said, I wouldn't call the book a waste of time. Jacobs manages, in spite of himself, to be transformed from an agnostic to a reverent agnostic, and it's worth reading the book to discover what that means.
I feel rather ambivalent about this book. On the one hand, it is quite funny, and it is not without its genuine and insightful moments. On the other hand it is, in the words of another goodreads reviewer, a "stunt memoir," and I have a hard time forgiving it that. And I'm having a really hard time forgiving him doing two stunt memoirs (he reads the Encyclopedia Brittanica in his first book). This is despite of my weakness for this sort of thing: the idea of setting out to change your life for a significant but limited amount of time and recording your reactions and insights is really appealing to me.
My real problem is that I can't help but feel that Jacobs is dishonest here- he's not setting out on a genuine spiritual quest, he's not trying to change his life. He's setting out to prove a point with a straw man argument, and make his living doing it. Following a set of precepts that you find ludicrous, for the point of proving them ludicrous, and then pretending that it has anything to do with actual religion is both a straw man argument and a waste of time. I mean, I could set out to read China's answer to Emily Post and practice all the rules set forth in order to prove the inanity of Chinese culture, but who in their right mind would accept that I knew anything about being Chinese?
I also don't find it all that interesting that Jacobs debunks literalism. People purporting to be biblical literalists aren't likely to be his audience. His audience is going to be, for the most part, politically liberal secular folk, with some "believing" liberals thrown in for good measure. So projects with foregone conclusions that involve preaching to the choir...eh.
That said, I wouldn't call the book a waste of time. Jacobs manages, in spite of himself, to be transformed from an agnostic to a reverent agnostic, and it's worth reading the book to discover what that means.