Platypus of Truth

Reading "This Discarded Image" this summer has deepened my respect for the Medieval model of the cosmos. So, to honor the imaginative achievements of my ancestors, I have decided to end off this summer by posting my awards for "The Seven Heavens of Summer Reading." Sun: The heaven of scholars could be monopolized any summer by C.S. Lewis, but as he seemed to prefer the sphere of Jove, how about an author that uses C.S. Lewis for a character? For giving us a thoroughly believable Lewis, the Sphere of the Sun goes to Peter Kreefte for "Between Heaven and Hell." Moon: For all its twists and turns, one book this summer deserves the honor of being paired with the Sphere of Luna; and it even shares her name: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," by Robert Heinlein. Mars: Last year's martial book "A Princess of Mars," is a hard act to follow. I think this year's winner is up to the task, however. In the category of glorifying coura...

This year, I am a literature teacher. The wheel keeps turning.

We were able to see "Fiddler on the Roof" featuring Topol this Tuesday with the Olsons. I had never seen the musical (or the movie) before, and it was a real treat to see a production that featured one of the most well known leads in the musical's history. Quite a fun way to end off the summer.

Trying to fill in some literary corners has led me to pick up Athony Hope's "Prisoner of Zenda" and Baroness Orczy's "The Scarlet Pimpernel." Both novels are from the turn of the last century and serve as a nice compliment to other early twentieth century reading from this summer such as "The Ball and the Cross," and "The Worm Ouruboros." Hope and Orczy's books are both firmly in the adventure fiction genre. Like Edgar Rice-Burrows' "A Princess of Mars," they are first and foremost ripping good yarns intednded to dazzle and entertain. This is not to say that each novel doesn't make a moral point, however. The moral of each can be summed up rather quickly. For Hope it is: "duty before desire." For Orczy, it is "balance passion and reason." Both are good morals, but may seem more than a little quaint or threadbare to the modern reader -and that is precisely why we need to hear them. C.S...

We went with a co-worker and his wife to see "Little Shop of Horrors" last night. It was well done and we had great seats. The play was funny as I'll get out, but it does change your whole attitude towards working in the garden the next morning.

So after two weeks of being treated for a possible stomach infection, there's been no change in my symptoms. My doctor is away right now, so I had to check in with another one to see if I needed another course of antibiotics (it can take up to a month to eliminate an H Pylori infection). The new doctor seemed to think that the stomach infection was a red herring and added another pill on to my course of normal hernia treatment. So now I get to take two omeprazole every morning and one zantac every night. I got a month's worth of free zantac, but I don't even want to know what it's going to cost to buy all those pills once I run out. Meantime, I made sure to contact my normal doctor's office and make sure they knew about the change in plan. We'll see what happens when the good old doctor comes back from vacation. Probably more tests leading up to surgery.

"Oh the East is the East, and the West is the West, and never the twain shall meet, till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat..." -Kipling My wife and I have finished reading John Mark Reynolds' "When Athens Met Jerusalem." Let me start off with the virtues of the work. "When Athens Met Jerusalem" is an excellent introduction to Greek thought. The key concepts of Homeric religion, the pre-socratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools are presented in a clear and accessible manner. Anyone setting out to wrestle with the Ancient Greeks should begin by picking up this book; even if only as a refresher course. The only downside is that it was hard to figure out the exact point of the work. The title is deceptive, as the book focuses almost entirely on Athens (the ancient Greek tradition) and has almost nothing to say about the development of Jerusalem (the Judeo-Christian tradition). However, the title ...