Customer Reviews

The Mystery of Things

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The obvious and stated goal of AC Grayling's book was to provoke the intellect with aspects of history, the arts, science, philosophy, and other subjects. Grayling does a good job making the reader interested in often overlooked characters and stories in life, often creating more questions in his essays than answers. However, that itself is the beauty of the book, forcing the reader to dive into intellectual unknowns and piece together these memorandums to better comprehend life itself. Thomas Paine once said something in the respect "Mystery is the antagonist of truth," but mystery is an ally of the intellect, causing people an interest in learning and eliminating mystery ("yearn to learn" as I call it). To seek truth, one must at least be interested, and I indeed gained interest and respect in what I formerly viewed as bagatelles. A great example is my deepened respect for architecture, which Grayling enlightened me about the importance of its deep symbolism illustrating mankind's successes as the dominant animal of Earth, the golden crown of evolution. Other examples hold my deep appreciation, namely his views on science and literature. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in philosophy, science, arts, history, or all of the above. Some slow parts, but I was nevertheless impressed and have positive feelings towards the book.

'The Mystery of Things', a collection of essays, or more tellingly, vignettes by A.C. Grayling is an important little book, to say the least. In an age of texting, gaming and CGI, what is Real is rapidly becoming cliche' as the synthetic moves in to become the order of the day. Grayling, however, is one of the last voices of the human, a mind able to unflinchingly tackle such diverse subjects as the City of Ur and the heroin addiction of William S. Burroughs. Thankfully not a specialist, Mr. A.C. Grayling divides the pages of this powerful little nugget of a book into the Arts, the Sciences, and History. A Purist you may ask? Perhaps. But no snobbery is to be found here, where the author assumes one is interested and has therefore heard of the various subject matters contained within these pages.

In the Arts section, one of the fascinating topics is collecting, and Grayling has certainly turned a master's eye to the collection of these writings. Standing alongside the somewhat luddite-ish complaint of modern architecture in 'The Cities of Modern Culture', one finds a nice retelling and critique of 'A Winter's Tale' by Shakespeare (within a stone's throw at least) and without feeling seasick from the sea change.

As made manifest in the essay on Art and Nature, Grayling betrays a soul as sensitive and keen as a John Ruskin when extolling the golden age of European voyagers and their exploits where Captain Cooks were teamed with Naturalists and Artists who documented the New Worlds of the West Indies.

Do you, like me, feel we are missing something in our postmodern culture? A.C. Grayling expertly goes back and picks up the pieces, fitting them together in perhaps surprising ways, to form one Great Culture.

Highly recommended...

I was a little mislead by this books title and Graylings day job. I was expecting a book on a school of philosophy.

It is instead a book of essays regarding various things, their historical context and ideas they evoked. Reading it is like having an pleasant conversation about several topics with an educated companion.

I read it on holiday on a tropical island and it was well suited to my ambitions for relaxation and quiet contemplation.