Evolution of Desire

Evolution of Desire: A Life of Rene Girard by Cynthia L Haven, 279 pages

More than a biography, Evolution of Desire is Cynthia Haven's argument that Rene Girard deserves to be regarded as one of the most original and powerful intellectual figures of the twentieth century.  In her account of the development of his signature ideas concerning mimetic desire and the scapegoating mechanism, she demonstrates that these theories - despite what he himself might sometimes have implied - arose from personal experience as well as literary, anthropological, and philosophical investigations.  In turn, she exhibits how these ideas were not purely intellectual concepts, but shaped Girard's own life and behavior - most mysteriously, the religious conversion that accompanied and enriched them.

The story she tells is, however, one without great drama.  One of the points of interest is its portrait of a distinctly French intellectual who spent his entire academic career in American universities, and its exploration of Girard's role (for better or worse) in popularizing French critical theories in the US, but this also insulated Girard from the hottest debates surrounding his work, which took place in his native land.  Compensating for this somewhat, the book is also deeply personal - Haven repeatedly reminds us that Girard never understood mimesis as a purely negative mechanism, and it is clear that her friendship with him shaped her own life in ways both obvious and subtle.

That Hideous Strength

That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis, 382 pages

The conclusion to CS Lewis' Space Trilogy brings the series back to Thulcandra, the Silent Planet, home of the Bent One, known to its inhabitants as Earth.  For the first time, Elwin Ransom is not the main character, though he is still a vital part of the story, his time in Perelandra has made him more than ever an image of Christ, the Fisher-King, the wounded but undying leader of Logres, keeper of the wisdom that came out of the West from the Numinor that was.  The focus now passes to a young married couple.  Jane Studdock is struggling, as newlyweds do, to come to terms with the changes marriage brings, trying to be a good wife without surrendering her independence while coping with a husband who is now less attentive (and who seems more ordinary) than he was when he was a suitor - she is also experiencing increasingly vivid and terrifying dreams that may be more than dreams.  Her husband, Mark, is working hard to do what, he believes, good husbands do - get ahead in the world.  He has already secured a spot among the progressive clique guiding the future of Bracton College, and he is even being considered for membership in the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments.  The N.I.C.E. is where the future of the world is being built, to join is to become one of the directors of human destiny, and the price for entry is merely his soul.

That Hideous Strength is a fictional exploration of Lewis' observations from The Abolition of Man with an overlay of Charles Williams' neo-Platonic mysticism.  The result resembles an urban fantasy equivalent of Brave New World.  Unlike Huxley, however, Lewis' talent for memorable characters fills his world with colorful figures including the sadistic policewoman Miss Hardcastle, a friendly bear named Mr Bultitude, and the reawakened wizard Merlin.  Combined with Lewis' customary intelligence and insight into human nature, this makes That Hideous Strength a very good book indeed.

Straight Man

Straight Man by Richard Russo
391 Pages


"William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park. In Hank Devereaux, Russo has created a hero whose humor and identification with the absurd are mitigated only by his love for his family, friends, and, ultimately, knowledge itself. "

 I think I read this a long time ago but reading it was just as fun.  It is a funny and somewhat accurate picture of academia but you can also find a lot in common with any bureaucracy  .