Wednesday, February 16, 2005
(11:20 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Wednesday Book Recommendation: Two Books You Have to Read Twice
This week I was so busy with my translation that I had very little time to read anything new. Therefore, I'm going through the archives for two books that I only "got" the second time through. They are also somewhat related to the general Pauline/ecclesiological questions floating around on The Weblog:Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute
This is still his best book on "Christianity," although the bulk of it is apparently about either Heidegger or Star Wars. Only on the second read does it become clear that he is actually critiquing our contemporary situation in terms of racist/nationalism and paganism (both literal and figurative) -- more laying the groundwork for the need for a Pauline intervention than actually implementing it. I suspect that one would get a similar effect from reading The Puppet and the Dwarf a second time, but I haven't gotten around to doing so -- though the influence of Ted Jennings in my life has meant that I am currently on my third read through Badiou's St. Paul. Before long, he'll just be including that book on every damn syllabus, and the United Church of Christ will become a collective of militant cells.
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
The most important work of materialist ecclesiology of the last two centuries -- perhaps three. Again, I only "got it" on the second read through; the first time was taken up with a frustrating attempt to get all the obscure symbols to line up (similar to the experience of reading Eliot's Waste Land). I really feel like you guys are going to have to take my word for it and just plow through the first time.
You'll note that if you buy both of the books, that's only around $20. To qualify for free shipping, you'd need to get one more thing. To that end, I recommend the following:
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
The idea that I have to closely study St. John of the Cross to understand this stuff is slightly ludicrous -- but I don't have to understand. What a beautiful series of words. He has far surpassed the tackiness of the bit about the "smoke" at the beginning of "Prufrock," and come as close as he could to sublating his tendency toward over-allusiveness.
So there you go: should be $25 and some change. Treat yourself.
