Book Review: "Death With Interruptions" by Jose Saramago

This is one of my favorite kinds of books--a novel with deep philosophical ideas within it. It's written, though, in a style I haven't encountered before: almost stream of consciousness, but like a report, telling the reader what has happened. And what has happened is that death stopped coming to one particular country. No one dies, but no one really gets well either; they just teeter on the brink of death, unable to make that final passage. The results of life without death are funny, sad, practically challenging, and ultimately tied up in how society handles almost anything. There's plenty of commentary about governmental control, organized crime, and the Church (there's just one, monolithic church in the book's world). But for me the most interesting thing to consider in this novel is the idea of immortality. Actually, the book was recommended to me by a WES member after I gave a platform about (im)mortality almost a year ago. "Death With Interruptions" certainly confirmed my belief that immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. Toward the end of the novel, too, there is a beautiful look at love and how death and loss interact with love. I recommend it, both for the themes it explores and for the artistry found in the unique voice the author uses.

Book Review: "Religion for Atheists" Alain de Botton

This book is one that's gotten a fair amount of buzz in humanist circles, and I enjoyed Alain de Botton's TED talk on the same subject...so I gave the book a go. For the most part, I like it. It's an easy read, very accessible, and de Botton approaches the topic with some humor. As usual with books written from an atheist viewpoint, there were some references to traditional religion that I found derogatory (mostly about services being boring)--I just think there's no place for that. And again as usual, I thought de Botton's formulation of God was very narrow: if I defined God as he does, I'd consider myself an atheist too, but I don't define God that way, and atheist isn't a label that's ever fit for me. But the "new thing" about de Botton's book is refreshing among atheist books, which is the idea that even when we don't believe in God we might not want to throw out religion all together--that there's something powerful, positive, and necessary about religious experience. Of course this is a bit of a duh for me. I've spent my whole life as part of and serving religious communities that welcome people with all kinds of belief, including what they might call no belief (I always think we believe in something, but that's another topic). So I do get a little frustrated when authors say, essentially, "Gosh! Someone should invent a religion for people who don't believe what traditional religions believe!" Um, right. Someone did. A few, actually. Author, meet Unitarian Universalism, Ethical Culture, Humanistic Judaism, and many sects of Buddhism. What I thought was more interesting about de Botton's book was exactly what he thought atheists might be missing from religion. The usual suspects of celebration, care during times of grief, mindfulness were all there. But de Botton also highlighted the need for a human understanding of our own failure, acknowledging the sense of desperation we sometimes feel, finding a place where we can really admit our deep sorrows and our darkness. These are aspects of the religious life that I think progressive religious traditions--or at least Unitarian Universalism and Ethical Culture, the two with which I'm most familiar--have sometimes neglected in our eagerness to honor the worth and potential goodness in each person. Our bent toward optimism about the human spirit can blind us to the very real experiences of sorrow, sin, and despair. That's my takeaway. Have you read the book? I'd love to hear how it resonated, or didn't, for you!