Right now I am in the middle of (among other things), Hamlet (and other Shakespeare stuff), Ten Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer Adler (I seem to have introduced a humorous ambiguity in my report of the title and author; the author protests that in order to be precise the book should be called Ten Subjects About Which Philosophical Mistakes Have Been Made, but that wasn't concise enough for the cover), The Spirit of the Liturgy by Cardinal Ratzinger, Silence by Shusaku Endo ("the Japanese Graham Greene"), and a 2006 novel called The Helmet of Horror by Russian author Victor Pelevin. This last was given to me by Sebastian of Never Bet the Devil... and appears to be a modern retelling of the Theseus/Minotaur/Labyrinth story. The author has clearly read a Jorge Luis Borges (by the beginning of the first chapter he has already quoted Borges twice, and it's a book about a labyrinth), and he has discovered that the modern creed of "progress," while professing to hate myth, is itself a myth - so this promises to be an interesting read.
Expect posts in the near future on some of these books. I'll pretend like it's a book club and just start talking about them, and then people can comment, especially if they've read or are reading these books.
I quite enjoyed Pelevin's _Buddha's Little Finger_, I might take a look at this new novel.
Are the Borges references to the Argentine's own short minotaur story "In the House of Asterion"?
Posted by: Kevin Jones | December 26, 2006 at 11:17 PM