The Thin Man

This was the second novel included in the Dashiell Hammett twofer I picked up at the cat bookstore.  It was less interesting and less satisfyingly constructed than The Maltese Falcon, but there was still enough classy Nick and Nora (and Mimi and Dorothy) patter to be thoroughly entertaining.  How about a little drop to cut the phlegm, honey?  I'll be sure to watch the film version to see whether the ending is more obvious once you know it's coming.  Part of what made this one less effective was that its big sprawling plot, with so many tangentially related characters, made the ending appear as something of a Deus ex Machina.  When Nick explains the whole works in a concluding soliloquy, I didn't come away with that delicious impression that I should have seen it all coming (which I had at the end of The Maltese Falcon).  Though it's possible this was just a function of reading it mostly late at night.

The Screwtape Letters

I came upon C.S. Lewis' Christian classic in a way the author would certainly classify as an example of Grace -- through the recommendation of my Buddhist meditation teacher.  As my esteemed colleague at FPiPE has made pretty clear, I'm just about the opposite a Christian.  So it was extremely surprising to find that this strange articulation of the spiritual significance of Christ's life made me feel right at home.  Naturally, a lot of this effect is due to the perverse manner in which Lewis elaborates what is, from an intellectual perspective, pretty standard Christian dogma.  The letters of the title are the missives sent from an older and more experienced devil (Screwtape) to a much younger "tempter" (Wormwood) on the occasion of the latter beginning his training in the art of corrupting human souls.  They describe all the psychological tricks that Hell possesses in its quest to separate us from "the Enemy".  Combined with Lewis' dry wit, the infernal epistolary structure makes a brilliantly amusing device.  

But what's most notable from my perspective is how frequently the devil's strategy overlaps with the precise psychological tricks Buddhism suggest we play on ourselves.  We congratulate ourselves for abstract virtues like "saving the world", but treat the concrete people around us with indifference.  We escape into the future or past as a way of cultivating an ignorance of the beauty and terror of the present.  We let ourselves be captivated by worldly values to the point of excluding all things spiritual as intangible sentiment.  And we simply and constantly forget the impermanence of our mind state and time here.  These observations overlap so thoroughly with my (more or less) Buddhist viewpoint that it's enough to make me believe in a core set of 'spiritual' teachings shared by every religious tradition.  Naturally, there are still many differences.  While I think Grace fits smoothly into my views, I find the concept of Sin, and particularly Original Sin, downright pernicious.  Nor is a battle between Heaven and Hell the metaphor I would chose in describing the plight of my soul.  And yet, as Lewis describes this battle, I hear something terribly familiar.  His devil is not very concerned with cultivating some intrinsic capacity for evil embedded in our souls.  Instead, the road to Hell is paved with the idea of good intentions that obscure a practice of everyday ignorance and petty malice.  Meanwhile, redemption is made possible not by overcoming our sinful essence, but through surrender and self-forgetfulness.  May we all find it.  

#reread