The Seven Deadly SinsFor over a decade, The New York Public Library and Oxford University Press have annually invited a prominent figure in the arts and letters to give a series of lectures on a topic of his or her choice. Subsequently these lectures become the basis of a book jointly published by the Library and the Press. For 2002 and 2003, seven noted writers, scholars, and critics were invited to offer a "meditation on temptation" on one of the seven deadly sins.All books in the series are now available (order from The Library Shop):  PrideBy Michael Eric Dyson Of the seven deadly sins, pride is the only one with a virtuous side. It is certainly a good thing to have pride in one's country, in one's community, in oneself. But when taken too far, as Michael Eric Dyson shows in Pride, these virtues become deadly sins. Dyson, named by Ebony magazine as one of the 100 most influential African Americans, here looks at the many dimensions of pride. He probes the philosophical and theological roots of pride in examining its transformation in Western culture. Dyson discusses how black pride keeps blacks from being degraded and excluded by white pride, which can be invisible, unspoken, but nonetheless very powerful. Dyson also offers a moving glimpse into the teachers and books that shaped his personal pride and vocation. He also looks at less savory aspects of national pride. Since 9/11, he notes, we have had to close ranks. But the collective embrace of all things American, to the exclusion of anything else, has taken the place of a much richer, much more enduring, much more profound version of love of country. This unchecked pride asserts the supremacy of America above all others--elevating our national beliefs above any moral court in the world--and attacking critics of American foreign policy as unpatriotic and even traitorous. "Pride isn't what it used to be, and by the time Michael Eric Dyson gets through with the subject, many of the philosophers who have opined on the subject will realize they have less to be proud of than they thought. The 'deadly sin' turns out to have its virtues, and Dyson is eloquent in rooting them in his own vividly-recounted experience."--James J. O'Donnell, Provost, Georgetown University, and author of Augustine: A New Biography "Dyson examines pride in its many iterations, invoking pop culture icons and events to lend accessibility to a potentially didactic subject.... Dyson's discussions of 'personal pride,' 'white pride,' 'black pride' and 'national pride' are thoughtful and exhibit a fine balance of scholarship and philosophizing.... Readers already familiar with the 'sins' series will welcome this final volume, as will those interested in issues of race."--Publishers Weekly 2006, illustrated, 160 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-516092-4  SlothBy Wendy Wasserstein Here is a rollicking parody of the self-help genre, one that skewers the couch-bound, apathetic mentality so pervasive in America today. With tongue in cheek, Sloth guides readers step-by-step toward a life of noncommittal inertia. "You have the right to be lazy," writes Wasserstein. "You can choose not to respond. You can choose not to move." Readers will find out the importance of Lethargiosis--the process of eliminating energy and drive, the vital first step in becoming a sloth. To help you attain the perfect state of indolent bliss, the book offers a wealth of self-help aids. Readers will find the sloth songbook, sloth breakfast bars (packed with sugar, additives, and a delicious touch of Ambien), sloth documentaries (such as the author's 12-hour epic on Thomas Aquinas), and the sloth network, channel 823, programming guaranteed not to stimulate or challenge in any way. ("It may be difficult to distinguish between this and other channels, but only on channel 823 can you watch me sleeping.") Readers will also learn the top ten lies about Sloth, the ten commandments of Sloth, the SLOTH mantra, even the "too-much ten"--over-achievers such as Marie Curie, Shakespeare, and William the Conqueror. You will discover how to become a sloth in your diet, exercise, work, and even love life (true love leads to passion, she warns, and passion is the biggest enemy of sloth). One of America's great comic writers, Wendy Wasserstein always had a serious point to her humor. Here, as she pokes fun at the self-help industry, she also satirizes the legion of Americans who are cultural and political sloths. "In a hilarious parody of self-help manuals, Wasserstein offers a book-inside-a-book how-to guide--Sloth: And How to Get It--on living a happy and guilt-free slothful life. Wasserstein's rapid-fire comic prose offers the perfect satire on a culture that continually invents more ways of moving less (television remotes, cell phones) in order to be blissfully slothful."--Publishers Weekly2005, illustrated, 144 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-516630-2  EnvyBy Joseph Epstein Writing in a conversational, erudite, self-deprecating style that wears its learning lightly, Epstein takes us on a stimulating tour of the many faces of envy. He considers what great thinkers--such as John Rawls, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche--have written about envy; distinguishes between envy, yearning, jealousy, resentment, and schadenfreude ("a hardy perennial in the weedy garden of sour emotions"); and catalogs the many things that are enviable, including wealth, beauty, power, talent, knowledge and wisdom, extraordinary good luck, and youth (or, as the title of Epstein's chapter on youth has it, "The Young, God Damn Them"). He looks at resentment in academia, where envy is mixed with snobbery, stirred by impotence, and played out against a background of cosmic injustice; and he offers a brilliant reading of Othello as a play driven more by Iago's envy than by Othello's jealousy. "Diverting, high-toned amusement."--Publishers Weekly2003, illustrated, 144 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-515812-1  GluttonyBy Francine Prose In Gluttony, Francine Prose serves up a marvelous banquet of witty and engaging observations on this most delicious of deadly sins. She traces how our notions of gluttony have evolved along with our ideas about salvation and damnation, health and illness, life and death. Offering a lively smorgasbord that ranges from Augustine's Confessions and Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, to Petronius's Satyricon and Dante's Inferno, she shows that gluttony was in medieval times a deeply spiritual matter, but today we have transformed gluttony from a sin into an illness--it is the horrors of cholesterol and the perils of red meat that we demonize. Indeed, the modern take on gluttony is that we overeat out of compulsion, self-destructiveness, or to avoid intimacy and social contact. But gluttony, Prose reminds us, is also an affirmation of pleasure and of passion. "This erudite little meditation on appetite and religion matches ancient and medieval texts (Petronius, St. John Chrysostom) with up-to-date references to stomach stapling and Saveur.... Prose offers up a wonderful smorgasbord of factoids and aperçus, whose chief ingredient is irony."--Publishers Weekly2003, illustrated, 128 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-515699-4  LustBy Simon Blackburn Lust, says Simon Blackburn, is furtive, headlong, always sizing up opportunities. It is a trail of clothing in the hallway, the trashy cousin of love. But be that as it may, the aim of this delightful book is to rescue lust "from the denunciations of old men of the deserts, to deliver it from the pallid and envious confessor and the stocks and pillories of the Puritans, to drag it from the category of sin to that of virtue." Blackburn, author of such popular philosophy books as Think and Being Good, here offers a sharp-edged probe into the heart of lust, blending together insight from some of the world's greatest thinkers on sex, human nature, and our common cultural foibles. He takes a wide-ranging, historical approach, discussing lust as viewed by Aristophanes and Plato, Schopenhauer and Sartre, Freud, Kinsey, and modern "evolutionary psychology." But most important, Blackburn reminds us that lust is also life-affirming, invigorating, fun. "A thoughtfully burnished essay on a titillating topic."--Kirkus Reviews2004, illustrated, 192 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-516200-5  GreedBy Phyllis Tickle Grasping. Avarice. Covetousness. Miserliness. Insatiable cupidity. Overreaching ambition. Desire spun out of control. The deadly sin of greed goes by many names, appears in many guises, and wreaks havoc on individuals and nations alike. In this lively and generous book, Phyllis A. Tickle argues that greed is "the Matriarch of the Deadly Clan," the ultimate source of the other deadly sins. Tickle takes a long view of greed, from St. Paul to the present, focusing particularly on its changing imaginative representations in Western literature and art. Looking at such works as the fifth-century Psychomachia, the paintings of Peter Bruegel and Hieronymous Bosch, the 1987 film Wall Street, and the work of the contemporary Italian artist Mario Donizetti, Tickle shows how our perceptions have evolved from the medieval understanding of greed as a spiritual enemy to a nineteenth-century sociological construct to an early twentieth-century psychological deficiency, and finally to a new view of greed as both tragic and beautiful. Engaging, witty, brilliantly insightful, Greed explores the full range of this deadly sin's subtle, chameleon-like qualities. "... a little book with a big wallop. Greed, Phyllis Tickle says, is a sin we see readily in others but rarely acknowledge as our own--and therein lies its power. Urbanely provocative, with striking assertions every other page--if you don't find something to disagree with, you can't have been reading very carefully--it demands to be devoured in one sitting."--John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture2004, illustrated, 120 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-515660-9  AngerBy Robert A. F. Thurman Heated words, cool malice, deadly feuds, the furious rush of adrenaline--anger is clearly the most destructive of the seven deadly sins. It can ruin families, wreck one's health, destroy peace of mind, and, at its worst, lead to murder, genocide, and war. In Anger, Robert A. F. Thurman, best-selling author and one of America's leading authorities on Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, offers an illuminating look at this deadliest of sins. In the West, Thurman points out, anger is seen as an inevitable part of life, an evil to be borne, not overcome. There is the tradition of the wrathful God, of Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple. If God can be angry, how can men rid themselves of this destructive emotion? Thurman shows that Eastern philosophy sees anger differently. Certainly, it is a dreadful evil, one of the "three poisons" that underlie all human suffering. But Buddhism teaches that anger can be overcome. Indeed, the defeat of anger is not only possible, but also the only thing worth doing in a lifetime. Thurman shows how to recognize the destructiveness of anger and understand its workings, and how we can go from being a slave to anger to becoming "a knight of patience." We discover finally that when this deadliest emotion is transmuted by wisdom, it can become the most powerful force in freeing us from human suffering. Drawing on the time-tested wisdom of Buddhism, Robert A. F. Thurman ranges from the individual struggle with anger to global crises spurred by dogmatic ideologies, religious fanaticism, and racial prejudice. He offers a path of calm understanding in a time of terrorism and war. "Anyone can benefit from Robert Thurman's masterful and engaging guide to grappling with that deadly emotion, anger. In Anger, Thurman brilliantly offers advice from ancient inner sciences that can help us all as we endure the maddening grind of modern life."--Daniel Goleman, author of Destructive Emotions2004, illustrated, 168 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-516975-1 B. Bergeron, 3/06 |
