Why would God create us with such strong appetites for pleasure if He didn't intend for us to indulge them? Oscar Wilde gets to ask Jesus Christ this question in Ravi Zacharias's fictional dialogue -- the second book in the dramatic Great Conversations series. Wilde, a witty author and conversationalist who committed his life to the pursuit of pleasure, is the ideal person to argue with Jesus about this perplexing issue. The two historical figures think out loud about beauty, Blaise Pascal, and the Bible in a sparkling interchange that will fascinate and enlighten readers.
Sense and Sensuality
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Ravi Zacharias was born in India, immigrating to Canada at age twenty. After earning a Masters of Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, he began a speaking ministry that has taken him worldwide (including the campuses of Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford University) as a recognized authority on comparative religions, cults, and philosophy. Zacharias' holds three doctorate degrees, and his books include the Gold Medallion winner Can Man Live without God, Deliver Us from Evil, Cries of the Heart, Jesus Among Other Gods, and two children's titles. He teaches a weekly, international radio program entitled Let My People Think. Ravi lives with his wife, Margaret, in Atlanta. They have three grown children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
It was a cold and windy day in Paris, just two days after the unforgettable attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. My mind was already sobered by those events. I had begun my journey to track the life and thinking of Oscar Wilde. I had rented a car and driven to the historic Père Lachaise cemetery. The vast spread of land before me was quite daunting. I stopped at the gate and asked the guard to direct me to the grave of Oscar Wilde, and unhesitatingly he pointed the directions, as if he had been asked that question hundreds of times before. I drove to his grave, where I found a massive phoenix monument. On one side of it is a stanza from his powerful poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
I sat there a while, reading the rest of the poem until two young people came by, one of them blind and walking with the assistance of her friend. They spoke a language I did not understand. Cemeteries are lonely places, but one of the best places to think of life’s short span.
The two young people asked if I could explain what was written on the other side of the tombstone. But alas, between their language and mine, I could not convey to them what the Scripture from the book of Job meant. That simple incident only reinforced the message of Oscar Wilde’s life: It is very hard to be certain of what transpired within him as he came to the end of his days.
Moving on from the cemetery, I spent an hour at the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, pondering the memorial service held there for him. The church was filled with visitors
coming to pray following the terrorist attacks in the United States. Such horror drives people into churches. The images of grief and helplessness were written large on every face. It was no different in Wilde’s life: In the end, it was the church that he turned to as sorrow gripped his own conscience.
Tragedy seems a strange sentiment to feel when considering the life of one so recklessly committed to drinking the cup of pleasure to the last drop—but ironically, it is the most appropriate feeling. Such a storm is created in one’s heart by the clashing of emotions! How does one sift through the conflicting sentiments at the end of his life? I let my mind wander to that bedside in his hotel room where he lay a hundred years ago—and
the conversation begins.
Sense and Sensuality
Oscar Wilde: (Speaking to the nurse after another injection of morphine) Another stab, another momentary respite from hell! You know, I thought living exacted all the pain there was to exact. I didn’t know that dying possessed its own stock of torture. Would somebody write to my friend Robbie in London and tell him that I’m dying beyond my means? Tell him to hurry and come.
Robert Ross: I’m here, Oscar. I’m here. I was planning to come later this month, but when I heard how close to death you were, I took the boat over.
Wilde: Thank heavens; I’m so glad you’re here. So it all ends in this dilapidated bohemian structure, l’Hôtel d’Alsace, 13 Rue des Beaux-Arts. Maybe they should put number thirteen on my hearse. Quite fitting…the final address for a homeless man. Just
look at this place. It tells a story, doesn’t it?
Ross: So here in France they call this a suite, eh? But considering you have nothing to pay, I would stomach this if I were you. Although this thick red-velvet curtain around your bed is somewhat like a shroud. I could help tidy up, I suppose, by cleaning up these cheap French-cigarette ashes littering your floor.
Wilde: Don’t move any books or papers, Robbie. A room full of papers and books scattered all over is a tribute to a literary mind. And by the way, I like the red.
Ross: I’m glad you haven’t completely lost your sarcastic tongue!
Wilde: I’ll tell you what…I’m not sarcastic about that horrid wallpaper with its anemic-looking flowers. One of us has to go, Robbie, either the wallpaper or I.
Ross: Right now it looks like the wallpaper is winning. It’s so dark and damp in here. Nothing we can do about it, I guess.
Wilde: Yes, the morgue yawns for me, Robbie. I’d like to take a walk one more time. But I seem to move in and out of reality. I was thinking…I have tricked my way out of everything; I might work on a plan to trick my way out of death, too. What do you think? Maybe when that trumpet sounds the last judgment, I shall just pretend that I have not heard it. No, the laughter is dead, I’m afraid. This nausea, this constant spitting of blood. It’s awful, Robbie. My throat is a limekiln, my brain a furnace, and my nerves a coil of angry adders. Can you give me a glass of that absinthe there, please?
Ross: You’re not supposed to drink that, Oscar. The doctors have ordered you to stay away from it.
Wilde: Since when have I taken orders from anybody? I simply can’t believe they’ve got this right, that this death-breeding spore has made its way into my spine. Ah! Remorse is but a beggar’s refuge.
Maybe when that trumpet
sounds the last judgment,
I shall just pretend that
I have not heard it.
Ross: What do you mean by “death-breeding spore”?
Wilde: One doctor has finally diagnosed what has brought on this meningitis, you know.
Ross: What is it?
Wilde: What I just said. This is an attack of tertiary syphilis, he says. This death knell hangs over me from that fateful night three decades ago.
Ross: Are you sure?
Wilde: That’s what he tells me for now, but how can I be sure? Frankly, I don’t think it has anything to do with syphilis. I think it has to do with this deadly pain in my middle ear. The ear surgery for that fall I took in prison has done nothing to help. But when you’ve lived the way I have, they can get you to believe anything about the aches of your anatomy.
Ross: No doubt.
Wilde: Sometimes I feel like I’m supping with the dead; at other times I feel the Christ I have battled all my life near at hand. Some things I see very clearly—that zinc box readied for me that goes beneath the earth as if to cover up what one really is. At other times my head is overcome by a wave of ghostly personalities seeking to drag me in different directions.
Ross: Should I talk to the nurse about giving you a larger dose of morphine?
Wilde: No. The morphine doesn’t work anymore.
Ross: Then why not—
Wilde: Quiet! Please, Robbie! Silence! Don’t disturb this vision. Here it comes again! Look at the size of this cemetery! The famed Père Lachaise, ground for the great. Hundreds of thousands lie beneath. You know, Napoleon opened this cemetery. A
whole city of death! Some say about a million. What names, now food for worms—Balzac, Abelard, La Fontaine. None speaking now except…
Ross: You’re slipping away, Oscar. You’re not in a cemetery. You’re—
Wilde: You know, Napoleon asked to be buried here, too. Maybe…maybe this spot is reserved for me. But I don’t want it here. Bagneux is better, more genteel. You know, I often said that if a man needed a large tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his countrymen, then his living itself would’ve been an act of absolute superfluity. I think I see the gardener… Tell me, sir, will it be a large tombstone?
Ross: Don’t go! Oscar!
Wilde: Excuse me, Gardener! Don’t walk so fast. Talk to me. Do you tend all these graves yourself? Are you real, or am I just talking to the wind here? Who are you? I’m not going to miss these Parisian winters anymore, that’s for certain. But please say something.
Gardener: I wasn’t able to get your attention most of your life, Oscar. Now all of a sudden you want me to talk to you?
Wilde: Why do I think you are…?
Gardener: Aren’t you the very one who said that if I am perfect, I cannot relate to you? What do you want from me now?
Wilde: I should’ve known! I should’ve known! You’ve been mistaken for a gardener before, haven’t you? Are you the Christ I’m talking to? You know, I’ve not done well with gardens and gardeners before.
Gardener: I know you haven’t.
Wilde: You know it well, then. Life seems to start off that way: a garden before you…
Gardener: It did once upon a time.
Wilde: As I look back, my only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sunlit side of the garden and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.
Gardener: Your pain is intense now. What do you want from me? To help you escape once more?
Wilde: Look what I’m reduced to: failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, broken words that come from lips of pain, remorse that makes one walk on thorns, a conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, misery that puts ashes on one’s head, and anguish that chooses sackcloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall. I often said that I wished I could look into the seeds of time to see what was coming.
Gardener: You’ve always had a way with words, dear Oscar! You’ve come to the right place to see what comes to everyone. You did ask who I am, didn’t you?
Wilde: I did. ... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
It was a cold and windy day in Paris, just two days after the unforgettable attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. My mind was already sobered by those events. I had begun my journey to track the life and thinking of Oscar Wilde. I had rented a car and driven to the historic Père Lachaise cemetery. The vast spread of land before me was quite daunting. I stopped at the gate and asked the guard to direct me to the grave of Oscar Wilde, and unhesitatingly he pointed the directions, as if he had been asked that question hundreds of times before. I drove to his grave, where I found a massive phoenix monument. On one side of it is a stanza from his powerful poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
I sat there a while, reading the rest of the poem until two young people came by, one of them blind and walking with the assistance of her friend. They spoke a language I did not understand. Cemeteries are lonely places, but one of the best places to think of life’s short span.
The two young people asked if I could explain what was written on the other side of the tombstone. But alas, between their language and mine, I could not convey to them what the Scripture from the book of Job meant. That simple incident only reinforced the message of Oscar Wilde’s life: It is very hard to be certain of what transpired within him as he came to the end of his days.
Moving on from the cemetery, I spent an hour at the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, pondering the memorial service held there for him. The church was filled with visitors
coming to pray following the terrorist attacks in the United States. Such horror drives people into churches. The images of grief and helplessness were written large on every face. It was no different in Wilde’s life: In the end, it was the church that he turned to as sorrow gripped his own conscience.
Tragedy seems a strange sentiment to feel when considering the life of one so recklessly committed to drinking the cup of pleasure to the last drop—but ironically, it is the most appropriate feeling. Such a storm is created in one’s heart by the clashing of emotions! How does one sift through the conflicting sentiments at the end of his life? I let my mind wander to that bedside in his hotel room where he lay a hundred years ago—and
the conversation begins.
Sense and Sensuality
Oscar Wilde: (Speaking to the nurse after another injection of morphine) Another stab, another momentary respite from hell! You know, I thought living exacted all the pain there was to exact. I didn’t know that dying possessed its own stock of torture. Would somebody write to my friend Robbie in London and tell him that I’m dying beyond my means? Tell him to hurry and come.
Robert Ross: I’m here, Oscar. I’m here. I was planning to come later this month, but when I heard how close to death you were, I took the boat over.
Wilde: Thank heavens; I’m so glad you’re here. So it all ends in this dilapidated bohemian structure, l’Hôtel d’Alsace, 13 Rue des Beaux-Arts. Maybe they should put number thirteen on my hearse. Quite fitting…the final address for a homeless man. Just
look at this place. It tells a story, doesn’t it?
Ross: So here in France they call this a suite, eh? But considering you have nothing to pay, I would stomach this if I were you. Although this thick red-velvet curtain around your bed is somewhat like a shroud. I could help tidy up, I suppose, by cleaning up these cheap French-cigarette ashes littering your floor.
Wilde: Don’t move any books or papers, Robbie. A room full of papers and books scattered all over is a tribute to a literary mind. And by the way, I like the red.
Ross: I’m glad you haven’t completely lost your sarcastic tongue!
Wilde: I’ll tell you what…I’m not sarcastic about that horrid wallpaper with its anemic-looking flowers. One of us has to go, Robbie, either the wallpaper or I.
Ross: Right now it looks like the wallpaper is winning. It’s so dark and damp in here. Nothing we can do about it, I guess.
Wilde: Yes, the morgue yawns for me, Robbie. I’d like to take a walk one more time. But I seem to move in and out of reality. I was thinking…I have tricked my way out of everything; I might work on a plan to trick my way out of death, too. What do you think? Maybe when that trumpet sounds the last judgment, I shall just pretend that I have not heard it. No, the laughter is dead, I’m afraid. This nausea, this constant spitting of blood. It’s awful, Robbie. My throat is a limekiln, my brain a furnace, and my nerves a coil of angry adders. Can you give me a glass of that absinthe there, please?
Ross: You’re not supposed to drink that, Oscar. The doctors have ordered you to stay away from it.
Wilde: Since when have I taken orders from anybody? I simply can’t believe they’ve got this right, that this death-breeding spore has made its way into my spine. Ah! Remorse is but a beggar’s refuge.
Maybe when that trumpet
sounds the last judgment,
I shall just pretend that
I have not heard it.
Ross: What do you mean by “death-breeding spore”?
Wilde: One doctor has finally diagnosed what has brought on this meningitis, you know.
Ross: What is it?
Wilde: What I just said. This is an attack of tertiary syphilis, he says. This death knell hangs over me from that fateful night three decades ago.
Ross: Are you sure?
Wilde: That’s what he tells me for now, but how can I be sure? Frankly, I don’t think it has anything to do with syphilis. I think it has to do with this deadly pain in my middle ear. The ear surgery for that fall I took in prison has done nothing to help. But when you’ve lived the way I have, they can get you to believe anything about the aches of your anatomy.
Ross: No doubt.
Wilde: Sometimes I feel like I’m supping with the dead; at other times I feel the Christ I have battled all my life near at hand. Some things I see very clearly—that zinc box readied for me that goes beneath the earth as if to cover up what one really is. At other times my head is overcome by a wave of ghostly personalities seeking to drag me in different directions.
Ross: Should I talk to the nurse about giving you a larger dose of morphine?
Wilde: No. The morphine doesn’t work anymore.
Ross: Then why not—
Wilde: Quiet! Please, Robbie! Silence! Don’t disturb this vision. Here it comes again! Look at the size of this cemetery! The famed Père Lachaise, ground for the great. Hundreds of thousands lie beneath. You know, Napoleon opened this cemetery. A
whole city of death! Some say about a million. What names, now food for worms—Balzac, Abelard, La Fontaine. None speaking now except…
Ross: You’re slipping away, Oscar. You’re not in a cemetery. You’re—
Wilde: You know, Napoleon asked to be buried here, too. Maybe…maybe this spot is reserved for me. But I don’t want it here. Bagneux is better, more genteel. You know, I often said that if a man needed a large tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his countrymen, then his living itself would’ve been an act of absolute superfluity. I think I see the gardener… Tell me, sir, will it be a large tombstone?
Ross: Don’t go! Oscar!
Wilde: Excuse me, Gardener! Don’t walk so fast. Talk to me. Do you tend all these graves yourself? Are you real, or am I just talking to the wind here? Who are you? I’m not going to miss these Parisian winters anymore, that’s for certain. But please say something.
Gardener: I wasn’t able to get your attention most of your life, Oscar. Now all of a sudden you want me to talk to you?
Wilde: Why do I think you are…?
Gardener: Aren’t you the very one who said that if I am perfect, I cannot relate to you? What do you want from me now?
Wilde: I should’ve known! I should’ve known! You’ve been mistaken for a gardener before, haven’t you? Are you the Christ I’m talking to? You know, I’ve not done well with gardens and gardeners before.
Gardener: I know you haven’t.
Wilde: You know it well, then. Life seems to start off that way: a garden before you…
Gardener: It did once upon a time.
Wilde: As I look back, my only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sunlit side of the garden and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.
Gardener: Your pain is intense now. What do you want from me? To help you escape once more?
Wilde: Look what I’m reduced to: failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, broken words that come from lips of pain, remorse that makes one walk on thorns, a conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, misery that puts ashes on one’s head, and anguish that chooses sackcloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall. I often said that I wished I could look into the seeds of time to see what was coming.
Gardener: You’ve always had a way with words, dear Oscar! You’ve come to the right place to see what comes to everyone. You did ask who I am, didn’t you?
Wilde: I did. ... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
For over thirty-five years, Ravi Zacharias has spoken all over the world in great halls and universities, notably Harvard, Princeton, and numerous universities internationally. He is listed as a Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford university. He has appeared on CNN and other international broadcasts. The author of several books for adults and children, he powerfully mixes biblical teaching and Christian apologetics. His most recent works include Walking from East to West, a memoir; The Grand Weaver, an exploration of God's intention in both the ordinary and the startling elements of life; and The End of Reason, a rebuttal of the claims of the so-called New Atheists. His weekly radio program, Let My People Think, is broadcast on 1,692 stations worldwide, and his weekday program, Just Thinking, is on 412. He is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Canada, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have three grown children and reside in Atlanta.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It speaks to a struggle we all share...,
By HollyLooya! "JOHN 10:10" (Illinois) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sense and Sensuality: Jesus Talks to Oscar Wilde on the Pursuit of Pleasure (Great Conversations Series) (Hardcover)
I have never sat down to submit a review after reading a book in one sitting. This book compells me to do so for several reasons. First, however, I have to take issue with the two reviewers preceding me; the Rutherford, New Jersey person clearly and unfortunately missed the point of the book, because Zacharias's entire book addresses the types of yearnings the reviewer accuses Zacharias of disregarding! A careful reading of the book clearly demonstrates this. The book addresses from the very first page to the last the desire for pleasure that God himself gave us, and the right (Godly) and wrong (immoral) means to pursue that end. ... This whole book focuses on Jesus seeking out and comforting Wilde -- and offering Himself as a sacrifice for Wilde's sins, just as He did for mine. Jesus did not judge Wilde in this dialogue -- he sought out his company and many times told him He understood him. This book is an illustration of the very character of Christ -- love, compassion, intimacy, grace, and forgiveness. As Jesus says on page 79, "It was at [the cross] that your ultimate worth was upheld. It's because My heart was broken that I'm able to heal yours. Blaise [Pascal] was right -- all truths are governed by laws. This one is the way of life and death. I reach out to you through the price I paid for you." In the next paragraph, Christ reminds Wilde that "love cannot be coerced." (p. 79) He loves each of us enough to let us choose Him, because He desires our genuine love, not love that is forced. ...throughout the book, Zacharias touches on, and Jesus repeatedly acknowledges, how often throughout his life Oscar Wilde sought Christ; in addition, the end of the book features a poem by Wilde that beautifully illustrates this. As for my take on the book, it's a phenomenal testament to why Christ came, died, and what He wants for us. It addresses an issue that permeates our society today -- the wild(e) pursuit (pun intended) of sensual pleasure. Rather than condemn the desire within us for sensual pleasure, Zacharias reminds us that Christ teaches that sensual pleasure is a desire planted within us by our loving Father, and that properly pursued, we can be fully satisfied. Jesus Christ, Zacharias reminds us, is the only true road to joy, pleasure, passion, and intimacy. An excerpt from the dialogue on page 72 between Wilde, Jesus, and Blaise Pascal that kind of sums it all up: "Jesus: The perfect expression for passion is in the soul -- when you love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. That communion of your person with the person of God enables you to see every other person as precious in His sight. The body becomes His temple. That takes you beyond the sun (the earthly and temporary) -- Pascal: And comes only through His Son. Every other passion will exhaust itself. Pleasures are meant to point you to the greatest pleasure of all, the presence of our heavenly Father."
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterful representation of the depravity of humanity,
This review is from: Sense and Sensuality: Jesus Talks to Oscar Wilde on the Pursuit of Pleasure (Great Conversations Series) (Hardcover)
I have read this book a few times now, and I can wholeheartedly say that I have never read a book that more clearly portrays the pathetic nature of the human heart, nor provided greater insights than this book does.Some say this is not an acurate protrayal of Oscar Wilde, but I think they are wrong. The book shows the corruption of the heart that is evident in all people, including: Oscar Wilde, Mother Theresa, myself, the reader of my review, and all other people. This is not a book about one man's struggle, it is about the struggle that every person faces in life, and it is an invaluable resource for all people.
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply moving and provoking,
By Edensong (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sense and Sensuality: Jesus Talks to Oscar Wilde on the Pursuit of Pleasure (Great Conversations Series) (Hardcover)
In a culture that celebrates the pursuit of sensuality without boundaries this book shines. I could not put this book down. The arguments against the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake are compelling.Written with great historical and theological insight Ravi Zacharias has written a deeply moving book on subjects as diverse as holiness, beauty and morality. I would recommend this book to anyone who has chased after pleasure with both hands, found it to be hollow and unsatisfying but doesn't know why.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
It was a cold and windy day in Paris, just two days after the unforgettable attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Lord Christ New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
It was a cold and windy day in Paris, just two days after the unforgettable attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Lord Christ New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 10
books:
See all 10 books this book cites
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Classics) by Oscar Wilde in Front Matter, page 43, and page 55
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde in Front Matter, page 43, and page 55
- The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) by Oscar Wilde in Front Matter, page 85, and Back Matter
- Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius by Barbara Belford in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Oscar Wilde (Literary Lives) by Vyvyan B. Holland in Back Matter
See all 10 books this book cites
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
