A Man and the Myth

I was just getting back from my usual coffee run at Larchmont and my visit to the library to pick up a copy of Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (current book club pick). I had dialed up one of my best friends to play catch up when I spot Tommy crossing the street on my block. Karen, I'm sorry but yes, this was the reason I had to hang up on you.

Tommy was walking and reading, something I like to do, too, but I sometimes fear I may get run over by a car because I'm not paying attention to my surroundings. Tommy happens to live in the colourful apartment building around the corner, the same one I covet everytime I pass by. It truly is one of my favourite buildings on the block.

On his way to visit his brother who happens to live nearby. He's reading "The Recovery of Christian Myth" by Guilford Dudley III. (This was one of the moments I wished I had my handheld recorder handy because I may have misquoted. So Tommy, if you're reading this, feel free to correct me). The book observes that once the church experienced the onset of the modern and scientific age it combat and gave up its historic and "mythical" background. This scientific rationalization demytholigized and depersonalized the truth. A fellow UCLA Bruin Tommy recently wrote a paper on this topic. "We've lost the ability to preserve myth."



His brother is an academic as well and happens to study philosophy. "My brother tends to be quite the 'rational' and 'logical' one while I am more the religiously-minded one." Having this dichotomy adds a little spice in their dialogues on this topic.

Tommy tends to read non-fiction, much of which have to do with religion but lean towards the mythic components of religion. Although recently Tommy did read Into the Wild. This was another book that sparked an interesting conversation between him and his brother. His brother had just taken a semantics course so they were able to discuss how the book's romantic notions got the best of the protagonist. Here he was wanting to go out on these adventures on a whim, go where the wind takes him. However he must battle logic. Do his romantic notions come at the cost of logic/meaning?

If he were to recommend a book to anyone it would be "The Problem of Evil" because it covers the big picture of the philosophical topic. It's pretty general for anyone and everyone to read and take something out of it. Tommy also recommends a work by Peter Kreeft, a Cahotlic theologian, called "Making Sense Out Of Suffering". This is another work that is great for all types of people regardless of their beliefs. "It gleans from every discipline and isn't confined to singular, one-sided stock reasoning."