A. D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Monotheistic State

This is same ground that Freeman covered in The Closing of the Western Mind and by MacCulloch in his history of Christianity, but Freeman really homes in on the politics of the empire and the state when the Nicene creed was made the official position of the Roman Empire. The Homoousian formula reached at Nicene presented probably insoluble difficulties for the church and empire and that "subordinationists" continued to have a wide following among believers. Freeman makes it clear that any debate about the nature of God and the Trinity came to a close with the Council at Constantinople, and very shortly thereafter, all debate and discussion about anything metaphysical ended. Speculative thought became anathema, and really, all logical discourse and debate was denigrated.

It was all political manuvering on the part of Theodosius and his successors that brought about the Councils at Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, which the Church conveniently "forgot" and accepted as dogmatic truth from the Church fathers and apostolic succession. Actually, Theodosius I comes off better in this book than in Closing of the Western Mind, but theologians Athanasius, Ambrose, and Jerome, among a host of others, really look unscrupulous.

Ambrose, in particular, with his manipulation of Theodosius' guilt, looks particularly sinister. When Theodosius tried to stop the destruction of Jewish temples and pagan shrines, Ambrose convinced him that paganism must be outlawed and that the Jews were traitors to God. Freeman implies that much of the hatred of Jews throughout Western culture can be traced to this decision. This was the same Ambrose that conveniently found the bones of long dead martyrs (albeit with miraculously fresh blood on them) to lay in the foundation of the Basilica Ambrosiana (where he himself was to be buried), the largest cathedral in Milan.

As to be expected, the political difficulties of the Roman empire, from Diocletian's assumption of power, Constantine's consolidation of power in his hands, the defeat of Valens at Adrianople, and the eventual "fall" of the western half of the empire provide the essential background and underpinnings of the story. Once the church became entangled with political power and consolidation, then the course really became set for the "closing of the western mind."

Author: Freeman, Charles

Date Published: 2009

Length: 9 hr 21 min

Narrator: Blumenfeld, Robert

War and Peace

About the only thing I can say is that I finished it after it sitting on my To-Read list for about 40 years. For the first 400 or so pages all I could think was that it was JAFLRN--Just Another Fucking Long Russian Novel. Then I began hitting some poignant and descriptive passages--Nickolai Rostov's first battle, Pierre's stumbling around on the Battle of Borodino, Alexandrei's gazing at the sky after his first injury as Austerlitz, and wondering what the hell it was all about. Some of the episodes have a charm of their own, as with Nickolai's hunting party and his driving the sleigh through the winter night, caught up in the joy of the action and movement. Tolstoy also has some good moments in dissecting different character's motives and thoughts. Especially after the Battle of Borodino and the destruction of Moscow, as Alexandrei prepares for death and Pierre is forced to march in captivity away from Moscow and reexamine his purposes for living, then the novel begins to justify some of the claims made upon. But then it goes on and on forever, especially with the two epilogues, which seem pretty pointless, and I just kind of lost interest, again.

The book abounds in irony and savage criticism. Obviously War and Peace is a devastating critique of Russian society, as the characters are all wrapped up in themselves and the rather pointless lives that they are leading. That's really driven home in Pierre's and Natasha's later lives after they have passed through the sorrows of the forced march and of her care of Alexandrei and then the Countess. And it is certainly a polemic against the great man conception of history with it's withering critique of Napolean. Tolstoy tries to make the reader doubt that Napolean had any competence or credibility at all, and he certainly takes historians to task in a phillipic that makes much of the book almost unbearable.

I won't say that War and Peace was a waste of my time--I spent far too much time on it to allow that judgement, but I don't see myself as coming away from this experience with any kind of enriched consciousness or conception of life.

Author: Tolstoy, Leo

Date Published: 1869

Length: 1351 pp & 61 hr 32 min

electronic print and audio

Narrator: Davidson, Frederick

Sweet Thursday

It's funny. When I first read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday years ago, I preferred Sweet Thursday, but now, on re-reading, I don't think that it is nearly the book that Cannery Row is. Perhaps it has to do with the plot. Cannery Row didn't have much of a plot and so it could lapse into lyrical passages and descriptive asides as the need arose. It felt timeless. Sweet Thursday relies much more on the plot--the coming together of Susie and Doc, and also relies a lot more on dialog. It's just not quite as subtle, I guess. And the humor feels a little more strained, a little more forced. None of this is to say that Sweet Thursday isn't an enjoyable read--Steinbeck far outshines any of the other authors that I've read in the past few years except maybe for Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls--but it didn't seem to hold up as well as Cannery Row in this re-visit.

Author: Steinbeck, John

Date Published: 1954

Length: 8 hr 59 min

Narrator: Farden, Jerry