A COSMOPOLITAN LAWYER: JUST SOME READINGS I HAVE ENJOYED LATELY

First, this blog replaces my previous blog, thecosmoplitanlawyerblogspot.com . Second, unlike that earlier blog, the present one is primarily meant as a record of my readings. It is not meant to suggest that others will be or should be interested in what I read. And third, in a sense, it is a public diary of one who is an alien in his own American culture. A person who feels at home just about anywhere, except in his birthplace . . . America.

Monday, August 25, 2014

THE CLOSENESS AND SACRED TRUTH OF DEATH

Elizabeth Gilbert, The Last American Man (New York: Viking, 2002) ("The first time I saw the two brothers together, I noted that extreme contrast. There was Judson in the East Village bar, flirting and dancing with every female who moved through his line of vision, and there was Eustace, sitting upright in the corner, earnestly telling me about the pleasure of drinking water straight out of the ground, and about how the quality of sunlight filtered through Appalachian foliage changes your body's chemistry, and about how only those who live in the wilderness can recognize the central truth of existence, which is that death lives right beside us at all times, as close and as relevant as life itself, and that this reality is nothing to fear but is a sacred truth to be praised." Id. at 58.).