It is finished!

I just finished reading Gulliver’s Travels using DailyLit, which emails a small, 5 minute reading, of many unpublished works, on a schedule you give it such as week days at 7 a.m. Gulliver’s Travels was split into 115 such installments.

This is a somewhat odd way of reading, but over time I got used to it. There were times when I got behind, but just let the emails stack up, until I got to them. And other times where I had a little extra time, so I’d have DailyLit send me the next in the series immediately.

I have to admit that much of the satire in the book would have been beyond me, if I had not read the Wikepedia article located here. What is somewhat interesting about that is I am now about 90% with Neal Stephonson’s nearly 3000 page story that is all about that period, including lots about the Royal Society, which apparently, one small section of GT was satiring.

At any rate, the book is an ok read. I’m sure it was much better when it was written, as many of the allusions and satires would be much more obvious.

And as alwasy, a few small bullet points that I have from the read:

• When he was describing wine to someone from one of the countries he visited:

  “That wine was not imported among us from foreign countries to supply the want of water or other drinks, but because it was a sort of liquid which made us merry by putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes and banished our fears, suspended every office of reason for a time, and deprived us of the use of our limbs, till we fell into a profound sleep; although it must be confessed, that we always awaked sick and dispirited; and that the use of this liquor filled us with diseases which made our lives uncomfortable and short.

• This one may be scary since Reece has red hair!

  It is observed, that the red haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity.

• And this from the land of Houyhnhnms, in which horses are beings of extreme reason, and Yahoo’s are a form of human in their basest form. I have to admit that I found this part of the book the strangest!

  I should here observe to the reader, that a decree of the general assembly in this country is expressed by the word hnhloayn, which signifies an exhortation, as near as I can render it; for they have no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised, or exhorted; because no person can disobey reason, without giving up his claim to be a rational creature.

I borrowed this from my Dad’s collection of outdoor adventure type books a long time ago, but finally got around to reading it. It is really all about the sport, and there is almost no navigation technique in it. For someone totally new to orienteering, it can teach you a lot about where the sport comes from, variations on it, gear, etc. But there is no real map and compass skill taught. The appendix in the back that lists all the map symbols and control descriptions is great, though.

I’m continuing my way through the CS Lewis box set (Christian writings) that I got for Christmas. So far I have enjoyed The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters. I’d say Screwtape is the best of them all, but all of these books exhibit the geniues of CS Lewis.

In this book, originally published under a different name, Lewis gives us insight, over the some period of time.into his thoughts and feelings after his wife died from cancer. He goes from abondoning God, to returning to his faith, and it is a pretty remarkable journey. He always has so many insights that I would not otherwise think of if I did not read his books.

I have a ton of dog ears through this book, and will include some of the more interesting ones here:

• From the Forward, written by Madeleine L’Engle:
  

  It is helpful indeed that Lewis, who has been such a such a successful apologist for Christianity, should have the courage to admit doubt about what he has so superbly proclaime. It gives us permission to admit our own doubts, or own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are a part of the soul’s growth.

• I had yet to learn that all human relationships end in pain. It is the price that our imperfection has allowed Satan to extract from us for the privilege of love.

• Only a real risk tests the reaility of faith. Apparently, the faith — I thought it faith — which enables me to pray for the other dead has seemed strong only because I have never really cared, not desparately, whether they exist or not. Yet I thought I did.

• Unless…you can believe all that stuff about family reunions ‘on the further shore,’ … But that is all unscriptural… There’s not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn’t be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the spirtualists bait their hooks!

• And just something I saw with word selection… He wrote how something would “blossom or (fester).” It’s just one little example of how I think he has always had a way with words that I haven’t. Granted, 99% of my writing is technical, so such word choice is often not an option.

• For a good wife contains so many persons in herself. What was H. not to me? She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always holding these in solution, my trusty comrage, my friend, my shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have had good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more.

• I have discovered passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them.

• And then on questioning God… I really liked this.
  

  When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘no answer’. It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate gaze. As though He shook his head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child, you don’t understand.”
  …
  Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All non-sense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile. Is a yellow square round? Probably half the questions we ask — half our great theological and metaphysical problems, are like that [to God].

• Somewhat lacking context, but should not be that hard to figure out…
  

  His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, nor from Him. We could almsot say He sees because he loves, and therefore loves although He sees.

• The book ends with “Poi si torno all’ eterna fontana.” After searching around a bit, I found this is from Dante, and means “then she turned back to the Eternal Fountain. And I found this explaination, at this link.
  

  They are spoken of Beatrice, when, in one of the final cantos of the Paradiso, she finally and forever turns away from the poet, whom she has guided to heaven, toward the glory of God. It is Lewis’ literary way of confessing his faith in the fact that there, in the presence of God, his wife, whose departure in death has been such a desolation to him, is now lost in the rapture of God.

• And finally:
  

  “The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed – might grow tired of his vile sport – might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re for it.”

To conclude, another highly recommended CS Lewis book!

I feel a little silly after reading almost 100 pages of this book before realizing my mistake. Much of that time, the text felt familiar. I finally got up to check the 1st book in this series, or I guess I should call it the 1st volume, and sure enough, Odalisque is the 3rd book in the 1st volume. The cover of Odalisque that I got says “The Baroque Cycle #3,” and I assumed the 3rd volume.

Granted, I read Quicksilver, the 1st volume, 18 months ago. But still! I guess it was a good review, but now I’ve ordered the 3rd volume, the system of the world, so I can continue in this saga.

Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle

This is the 2nd book in the loooonnnnng series… After having taken a pause of a year or so after reading the 1st one, I have to admit that it took 100 or 150 pages to get back into it. Maybe that part of the book was just slow, but after that, the story got really interesting — though still long. 🙂

Anyway, I won’t write much of a review until I finish the 3rd one, but I will put a couple of quotes:

1. This is actually a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost that Stephenson includes at the beginning of one of the chapters:
   

   The mind is its own place, and in it self
   Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

2. If an idea is terrible enough, the mind is unwilling to swallow it in one go, but regurgitates and chews it like cud many times before it goes down for good.

3. Here is another quote that Stephanson uses at the beginning of a chapter, this one from Leibniz:
   

   God has chose the world that is hte most perfect, that is to sya, the one that is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses adn the richest in phenomena.

C.S. Lewis continues to amaze me as I work my way through his writings. While I wouldn’t rate this as highly as The Screw Tape Letters, it is still a great read. And a fast one at that. While it was 130+ pages, I read most of it in a (long) day while travelling from NC to Philly, in the restaurant waiting for my food, and in my hotel room.

The story is that of a dream the author is retelling, in which he finds himself in a strange, grey land, that he eventually learns is pergatory, or limbo, or hell, depending on your view point. He rides a bus to heaven, where he sees several conversations between his fellow passengers and people in heaven that have come to try to tell the person what they need to do to leave limbo and come to heaven. These interactions are each unique and fascinating, and show Lewis’s genius in very subtle froms.

I won’t got into details here on those conversations, but I of course have several quotes I want to include:

[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing Heave, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me have but this and ‘Ill take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death

‘Milton was right…’ The choice of ever lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in Hell than to server in Heaven.” There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery…

There have been men before … who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God himself… as if the good Lord had nothing to do but to exist. There have been some who were so preoccupied with spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in Got at all but only in what they say about Him.

I have to admit I had to read the following a few times, and here, out of context, it probably isn’t that useful. I am including it so that I will think on it further, and I think it relevant to some of our small group discussions recently, as well as the proverbs quote I posted, and the ActiveWord devotional which posted as a comment.

No. Because all answers deceive. If ye put the question from within Time and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it. But if ye are trying to leap on into eternity, if ye are trying to see the final state of all things as it will be (for so ye must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the Real, then ye ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very lens through which ye see–small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope–something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have chosen and didn’t is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it’s truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic’s vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom.’