Why am I passionate about this?
My abiding interest is in how people find meaning in their lives in a post-church, secular world, and what happens when they fail. I have concluded that life needs to be seen as an arc leading to significant end; it needs to be experienced as a coherent story. The vital role of culture here is in providing archetypal stories, usually from a long time ago, but ones constantly retold and brought up to date, which provides background shapes to identify with, armatures as it were. I've explored these challenges in a series of books: Ego and Soul, The Western Dreaming, The Existential Jesus, and soon to appear, The Saviour Syndrome.
John's book list on the search for meaning in an age of unbelief
Why did John love this book?
In Henry James’ masterpiece from 1901, Lambert Strether, aged 55, is a Boston Puritan who hasn’t lived. He travels to Paris on an ambassadorial mission.
From the moment of arrival in Paris he is beguiled and intrigued, but unclear what to do. He proceeds to meander through gilded French drawing rooms in which high aesthetic taste of both manner and décor presides. This quiet and modest outsider eventually fills out into the man who runs the show.
Strether has discovered what to know, who to choose, and when to move. Everything depends on it. The method must be learnt in the thick of lived life along the way.
Here is evidence of the existence of a god within, a wisdom of soul with a coherent vision of what matters, one that slyly directs the focus of the person walking confusedly in the world, leading them to move with discrimination.
1 author picked The Ambassadors as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
The original American in Paris. This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, has all the elements of great writing, brilliant plot and gorgeous setting- An Edwardian gentleman from the States arrives in seedy and sophisticated Paris to rescue his wayward future step son. But his innocent American background has not prepared him for such seduction...
Beautiful hardback gift edition of this collectable classic.
This complex tale of self-discovery -- considered by the author to be his best work -- traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention…