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Summary: Maybe our need for interpretation and our finiteness as humans is a feature of our creation, not a consequence of the fall.

The more I read James KA Smith, the more I appreciate his perspective.

The Fall of Interpretation was Smith’s first book.  It was an adaptation of his Ph.D. dissertation that he lightly edited and re-released in 2012.  Last fall, it was briefly on sale, and I picked it up because it was written by Smith, without really knowing what it was about.

Like normal for Smith, this is a book that has way more philosophy than I understand.  But also, like normal, I can follow the argument without always understanding some of the minor details.

Smith’s argument is “To be human is to interpret, to encounter the world and entities within the world” and “something of an encounter conditioned by the situationally of human finitude”.  He is suggesting that our finitude is not something to be overcome, but something to be embraced as a feature of our creation.  (Yes, the language can be a bit overly academic, but it is understandable.)

The problem is that,

“At root (and roots, of course, are usually buried, unseen and hidden) the linking of interpretation to fallenness may be understood as the product of a dominant Western interpretive tradition, a broadly neoplatonic understanding of creation and Fall, an understanding that is itself an interpretation. I believe that this tradition, which has significantly influenced aspects of the Christian tradition, remains plagued by an incipient Neoplatonism (or gnosticism) that continues to construe creational finitude and human be-ing as “essentially” fallen and therefore ties hermeneutics to such a corrupted condition.”

What was important about this book for me was his discussion of the finiteness of humanity.

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Summary: Basis of the movie and beloved TV show, and well mined by them both for ideas.

Every night my senior year of college MASH was on at 10 PM and was watched by whoever happened to be around.  Long before that I had seen most of the episodes, but it is a testament to its quality that college kids were devoted fans to a show that started the year before most of us were born.

Last week the novel was the Audible deal of the day so I picked it up.  And mostly I enjoyed it.

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Summary: A farce in the style of PG Wodehouse (or vice versa) poking fun at the triviality of Victorian society.

I know that Wilde has the reputation of being funny, but the only other work of his that I have read was the Portrait of Dorian Gray.  And while I appreciated the book, I did not think it was great and it certainly is not a comedy.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy.  It is also a play and it has been a while since I have read a play with stage directions and character dialogue.  And I am not sure I have ever listened to an audiobook of a play, which is what I did here.

Two friends both are leading double lives, in part because they can.  Algernon is meeting with his friend who is known as Earnest.  Earnest wants to propose to Algernon’s cousin, but Algernon discovers that Earnest’s cigarette case has the inscription “From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.”  So Earnest admits that he is actually named Jack (or John) but uses the name Earnest when he comes to London to get away from his country house.

Algernon admits a similar deception when he wants to get away from London, he pretends to visit a sick friend named Bunbury.

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