I have so many books. Even after several major purges, the last resulting in the disappearance of seven boxes of those fitted out for destruction before the foundation of the universe, the things are everywhere. I do much wonder why I keep most of 'em.
As I get older, and have less and less time to fritter away, I search for the essential. I return to certain authors - Augustine, Virgil, Dostoevsky, Plato, Milton, Bulgakov, Shakespeare, Homer, Ovid, Goethe, Dante, Pushkin, Cervantes, Origen, Hamann, Dickinson, Melville, Kierkegaard - because they trouble me. Yes, I variously enjoy their works, in fact I love 'em for the simple fact that they exist, but there's more to it than that.
They unnerve me; they make me want to change my life; they overwhelm me by their sheer extravagance and scope; they pull me in many different directions at once. What they share is that all of 'em, pagan and Christian alike, offer stark alternatives - salvation or perdition. Reading 'em becomes a matter of eternal life or death.
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