The Junk Drawer

Assuming you are logged in to the NYT, this article on religion in recent film might be of interest to you, even if its ultimate conclusions are somewhat obvious. Here are the first few paragraphs:

“You don’t believe in God?” Tom Hanks’s character asks Audrey Tautou, who plays his partner-in-ciphers in “The Da Vinci Code.”

“Do you believe in God?” Liev Schreiber’s character asks a therapist who doubts that his adopted son, Damien, has devil genes in the new version of “The Omen.”

“Get right with God,” William Hurt preaches in the small, intense film “The King,” but he’s playing an evangelical minister, so he’s a lot more certain.

With echo upon echo of faith-based dialogue, movie theaters today often sound like church. But what seems like a new willingness to explore questions of faith — as if Mel Gibson’s blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ” had made religion safe for Hollywood — has the spiritual depth of the “Daily Show” segment “This Week in God,” with its quiz-show-style “God Machine” that spits out religions to satirize.

One of my pals, disgruntled by the lack of phone calls originating from NW Ohio, sent me the following story. Here’s the bit that, admittedly, resembles me:

“Denial is strong in Internet addicts who claim they cannot be addicted to a machine,” Wieland notes. The “one more minute” response to being asked to go offline is common and is similar to an alcoholic who says they will quit drinking after “one more drink.”

Come on, who hasn’t asked for just one more minute?

I imagine that all of you saw this at the NYT site. It’s an interesting list in part because I had no idea that Roth was so highly thought of. I’ve read four, five of his novels. Portnoy’s Complaint, of course (because of you, Matt?) And what he calls the Zuckerman trilogy. I’ve also read the DeLillo novels, some McCarthy (not Blood Meridian), the Robinson novel (which I have blogged about), Updike’s Rabbit, and Ford’s Sportwriter (not the one listed here).
I’m ashamed that I have yet to read Beloved, though I have read Sula and the Bluest Eye. I’d like to comment on the list, but have not read enough of the novels to put forward an opinion. DeLillo’s Underworld is remarkable, but it does seem to repeat with less “grunge” the work of Pynchon. Similarly, Robinson’s Housekeeping deserves to be on this list. the rest…I simply do not know.

I’m hoping to do some fun reading this summer and would live to read Blood Meridian, Beloved, and/or a Roth novel with any of you. . .Right now, I am reading To the Lighthouse and a mind-blowing novel, House of Leaves, which is the most experimental novel I have come across in a long while.
While I am at it, check out this article on Borges in today’s NYT.–tc

(Read on …)

It’s dead over here.