'What Are We Doing Here?' by Marilynne Robinson explores a wide range of topics outside of the author's academic background, such as Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, science, and politics. Robinson challenges readers to think critically and consider issues of faith, liberal arts, and individualist thinking. Her writing style is described as intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking, although some readers find her arguments unpersuasive at times.
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From The Publisher:
New essays on theological, political, and contemporary themes, by the Pulitzer Prize winner.
Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila , winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Gilead , winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.
What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake political and cultural life as "deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still."
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1 comment(s)
this is a brilliant book, full of hilarious nerd burns if you know how to look for them
robinson is not afraid to call out lazy thinkers and she disdains them with the power of a thousand suns, the most cutting turn of phrase
but i didn't finish it because 1) it's extremely dense writing and 2) once you get past the halfway point, the essays essentially cover the same ground
why do we ignore certain parts of history when we talk about what it means to be american, or our relationship with britain and other european powers? one reason is convenience, but another is just laziness and robinson is having none of either
puritans, radicals, left and right, modern american politics, cromwell, more puritans
really it comes down to the bad rap puritans get as conservatives, when they were really radicals
What can you read after
What Are We Doing Here??
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