A very enjoyably written book... even with Eric Metaxes doing the Forward. And that Forward.... woof! Metaxes even has "And that's no jive, turkey" included in a paragraph.

Anyway... the book is very good. Howard writes in a very clear and refreshing manner. It contrasts the old way that people (many years prior to our enlightened culture) viewed reality with that of how us moderns do so.



The form that we put on eating our meals (tables sets, placement of silverware... instead of intravenous injection of nourishment) , or responding to the death of a loved one, or how we take mundane actions of living (walking) and express it in a poetic manner that transfigures the action and our response to it ("one foot up, and one foot down/ that's the way to London town."), all of this points to our imaginative faculties ability to bring to the raw content (meals, death, bodily actions) a form that expresses it in a way that both changes it but also seems inextricably tied to it.

It's not a long book. Less than 140 pages (even less if you skip Metaxes' Forward).

Started off pretty good… the last 3-4 chapters are a bit confusing stream of consciousness style writing. Almost feels like a different author entirely. Not easy to follow and has me wondering what his point even is. I’m sure some minds more clever than mine will still enjoy it. But the last portion of the book has me understanding a bit better why this book is not up there with a Lewis or Chesterton.

One of the last chapters which is on sex is a very good rebound chapter. The book could almost be bought for that chapter alone. It’s still a shame that the three chapters preceding this one are that bad, or poorly conceived. But the chapter on sex and the significance of sex; as well as the significance of anything private or secretive is exceptional.

Quick note:

Thomas Howard is the brother of Elizabeth Elliot who was the wife of Jim Elliot, the missionary who was killed by the Aucas.

She wrote a book called “through the gates of splendor”. I had never heard of this book before. But it sounds like at one point it was considered something of a Christian classic

Howard's writing can be ... I don't quite know the word for it. Overly-mannered perhaps.