Monday, December 04, 2006

  • Five Roast Beef Sandwiches!

    Currently Reading
    The LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
    By Nikos Kazantzakis
    see related
    Does anybody else get a kick out of that annual Arby's commercial?  It's approaching noon, so not only does this song bring nostalgia but actual hunger.  My coworkers went to the cafeteria without me today, apparently, and I'm too stubborn at the moment to brave the two minute walk Outside to get there.  Oh, the trials and tribulations. 

    I'm reading this book.  The prose is haunting and very difficult.  The words themselves go every which way in a drugged and fervent sort of way, but harder still is the sentiment of the stuff.  In the first few chapters, we watch a young fictionalized Jesus being called by God and denying that call.  He just wants God to leave him alone.  It's a strange and terrible way to look at the humanity of Jesus.  What I like most about the book so far is the Prologue.  Christian or not, you have to feel something for an author who writes with such reverence.  What first struck me was Kazantzakis's talking about a "nostalgia" for God.  This is the very word I've used since youth to describe that yearning feeling, that thing that C.S. Lewis calls "joy."  Whatever comes of the book, I'm happy to have read someone else's experience that in so many ways comes close to my own.  Not an experience really, but a feeling.

    And so I go back to being hungry.  I'm hungry for food, and I'm hungry to get my desk and file cabinet up the stairs and put all my books in my shelves, and I'm hungry to read more and think more, to pray and love more, and to grow spiritually, too.

    I'll still watch The O.C. this week and gently lament that House is skipping a week.  Sadly, Carey, I haven't seen more than fifteen minutes of Grey's Anatomy or heard of that other show you mentioned.  Maybe when I get cable this Christmas, I'll DVR all the ABC shows that are all the hoopla.  Indeed!

    On today's agenda - wait for the boss to come pick up a file, wait on Father Chris and a couple of other admin. ladies to give me some input on the Prayer Service that I get to write a program for ASAP, leave when I can, remember to stop at the Post Office for a change of address form, eat lunch, finish emptying the mothership's behemoth-car and finish putting the townhouse in order, return behemoth to the mothership, dinner and/or grocery shopping, possibly order laptop if dinner is at mum's. 

    And the peasants rejoice!

Comments (20)

  • travelerblue
    When you finish the book, bring it back!  I should probably check your bookcases for purloined items!  I just started 'Jew Girl'. 
  • Leonidas
    That is a very good book. Controversial as a movie too but I liked the honest contemplation in it...
  • jassmine
  • queenoscots

    I remember the movie based on that book, and the wild controversy it started.  Such blasphemy, everyone thought!  But I saw it as an interesting interpretation of Christ's story.  I've never read the book, but I might someday.

    RYC:  I love that you save the broccoli tops for your husband.  I do the same for my husband, because he doesn't like the stems.  That's love for you!

  • csn71650
    I love, love, love Katzanzakis.  Last Temptation is wonderful - just fall into the rythm of it and let it carry you.
  • thenarrator
    I always wondered how "Christians" could have such big problems with that book or that movie. They both were the works of people clearly hunting for answers out of deep faith.
  • basesonballs
    RYC: Forster is an amazing writer. Try Howards End, or A Room with a View, then tackle A Passage to India. As for TS Eliot...not his biggest fan. Give Auden, Hughes, WC Williams, or Cummings anyday.
  • Boowasborn
    Your voice is so full of energy and hope and hunger! That kind of hunger is good. I think I know of the commercial that you're talking about. I get the roast beef yen during this time of year too and that must be what it is all about.

    I always dig the way you talk about books.

    And I will rejoice!
  • soonaquitter
    Hmm, might have to check out that book, or see the movie?! Never enough sex, especially for someone like me, who has gone without for way too long!
  • douglasg610
    Mmm...mystery-meat roast "beef"...
    And oh yeah, I can see a man rejecting G-d's call--it's a big thing, having to give up life, pleasure, etc.
  • sabrafox
    We've (we being me and my future husband) have decided that we don't really want cable the first year.  I think the thing I'll miss the most is...Monk.
  • EminemsRevenge

    i think Anthony Burgess [of Clockwork Orange fame] wrote a book in which he showed JC as married...and it's amazing how the biblehumpers scream persecution when THEY been in the driver's seat for almost 1700 years

    Didn't know Arby's still existed

  • el_gary

    I need some ideas. Mind coming by and answering my question?

  • delphic_trope

    are the peasants more likely to be rejoicing or revolting?

  • basesonballs
    ryc: yeah, fundies blow.
  • ydurp

    Wow, nice writing.  Maybe it's been a while, and maybe you've gotten even better.  The last half was that familiar fun way you have. 

    I have never been closer to God.  I have learned much in the last couple months; things Biblical, things herbal, things about love.  Oh, and then things about the stock market, which is what I do every morning.

    This Christmas season will be brand new.  It's a different kind of year.  Happy Holidays, sweet one. 

    I just read all that and thought you would read it and see that I have not written anything in a very long time.  I don't write anymore and it shows.  That's okay.

  • maureenrose

    My mountain hugs you back...can you feel it?  So, is the book the one the movie was based on? 

  • jassmine
    What is the name of this book sounds wonderful. Judi
  • ONERISE

    huzzah

    sincerely

    one hungry peasant

  • aliashope
    Interestingly, Andrwe and I just saw the film version of The Last Temptation of Christ.  I think it similarly portrayed the humanity of Christ in an uncomfortable way, though what you think is terrible, I think is refreshing.  I haven't read the book, so it may be even more terrible in the book, but I felt like Jesus' own doubt of himself as the Messiah and his want to be a normal person with a family was an amazing way to portray him.  It reminds me of when my high school vice principal ( a nun) broke down crying at our senior retreat because she had wanted so dearly to have her own family.  I guess that it all depends on how you see Jesus (as both divine and human or what).  Last night Andrew and I talked about the second coming and how neither of us had thought much of it, but what we had thought was very different from each other.  Anyway, we're trying to bask in advent love while still doing our busy schedule and spending time together.  Needless to say, weve not had much time for friends and family and sadly, my xanga has suffered.  I hope to return soon though!
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