36 Arguments for the Existence of God

Several years ago, I read and enjoyed Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's The Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics, and more recently heard her give a wonderful lecture on Spinoza at the Santa Fe Institute, please see my post of 12/6/2011. She topped both of these with her extraordinary 2010 novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. It is a novel of big Ideas: religion, philosophy, love, parents/family, loyalty.    It is also very well written, with great word-smithing, and at moments extremely funny. 36 is chock full of clever one liners that had me howling. I know, yes, yes, I'm a word-nerd, but this is genuinely good stuff! The characters are wonderful, and perfectly developed. The man in the middle of all this is a philosophy professor with an unexpected best seller, The Varieties of Religious Illusion. The characters orbiting him are well conceived and delightful: his mentor a messianic literary scholar, his wild former girlfriend the anthropologist, his current love the master of game theory, and a child prodigy mathematician who is heir to lead the Hasidic community where our hero grew up. Never have so many grand ideas been so much fun. Read it!

Irma Voth and The Forgotten Waltz: Two Voices

I read two novels both written in the voice of a young woman, and these very different voices are wonderfully evoked by the authors. In Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz a 33 year old Irish woman careens through marriage and an affair with a married man, in which there is precious little romance. Enright's prose perfectly captures the voice and world-view of this woman: the carelessness, her disregard of consequences. There's not much more of a tale here, but the voice is the heart of the matter.  Miriam Toews' Irma Voth is a more substantial story of a late-teen woman who leaves her Mennonite family in rural Mexico, with two much younger sisters, to escape the repression of their father. There is an fertile conceit of a filmmaker who employs Irma as a translator on his film about a Mennonite couple. Events revealed towards the end of the novel add a layer of deep reflection for her. Irma is quite uneducated in books and the world. Toews perfectly captures this very different voice: the uncertainty, the other-worldiness, the complete unawareness of modern life. First person novels can be a risky business, but Toews  and Enright have both nailed it.

The Map and the Territory - Houellebecq

When people recommend books or films, they often add a caveat. "It's hard work, dark, not really fun, but read it because it's good, like taking cod liver oil." With The Map and the Territory, there's no caveat: it's a substantial book and a great read. This is the first novel by Michel Houellebecq that I have read. I understand that he was considered a real l'enfant terrible, but I'm not familiar with this. His early books apparently were marinated in explicit sex, but there is not a single kiss in this one. So, I read it with no expectations, but either way I strongly recommend it.


The story is about a painter, his life and artistic journey. But, the book is about Art, Architecture, Friendship, Fathers-and-sons, Aging, and is chock full of wonderful insights on all of these topics. If I have one small qualm it is about the use of a conceit that has been frequently seen in novels over the past decade: the painter meets a famous author...Michel  Houellebecq . However, a plot twist at the end of the novel adds an intriguing aspect to this. The Map and the Territory has great writing, is well translated, and explores cultural & human issues of importance. And...it's fun to read.