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Ryan's avatar

I remember staring up at a statue of John the Baptist in a cathedral once, and he had a scowl on his face, and he was pointing fiercely at the Jesus statue across the way, like, "What are you staring at? Don't look at me! Look at him!" And I thought a long time about the idea of a statue that didn't want you to look at it but to look somewhere else.

Girard's whole schtick is that all desire is mimetic. The only things we want are what we see other people want. We learn how to want through watching others' wanting. This is also how we learn art and how things like jokes work, what's "funny." (Something-something-Wittgenstein too)

I'm just a rando, but it seems like what you're doing with Great Books is a kind of pointing. Don't look at me--look at this! And it's also a kind of indirect teaching of love. "Look at me here. Pay attention. See how I love this? See how to love this? This is how it goes. This is how one does it." And maybe you have to use tricks (like connecting things to current events) to keep the reader's interest, but ultimately (my sense is) you want the reader to read the book you are talking about. And, as a reader, when you write about Henry James or Proust, it increases the likelihood I'm going to read it. (And when I do read it, increases the odds I will enjoy it.) But, at minimum, it increases my desire for the the thing you're desiring. And even when I've read it before, it brings that love back.

I agree that the Old Testament feels more like literature, while the New Testament is more like, well, a witness. It's a pointing. That's Paul's whole MO--trying to point away from himself, even while he's trying to assert authority. "Watch me. This is how you do it."

All that to say, I think you should keep writing about your experiences reading Great Books because it is, in fact, doing something.

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D. Luscinius's avatar

The comment about Samuel Alito seemed to come out of nowhere so fast that I wondered if I had skipped something or missed some news item.

But apart from that I think you explain well the distinctiveness of the Gospels. They are unlike anything else in the way they teach and hold forth the truth, such that I sometimes wonder why I read much else.

That being said, I think you convinced me to give Henry James another shot.

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