Word: life
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...Biological givens may have had no meaning outside that which society conferred on them, but they still had an objective reality: In Beauvoir’s understanding, they placed real constraints on the projects that women could undertake. Enmeshed in the reproduction of the species, woman’s life was inherently directed toward means—producing and caring for other beings—rather than ends—those concrete projects that would enable her to realize her full human potential...
...Andrews, poet and musician Don Paterson is striving for the same down-to-earth honesty in his fifth volume of poetry, “Rain.” In this new collection, Paterson amasses popular images of sentimentality and reimagines them amid the hectic cacophony of contemporary life...
Although Paterson tends to use older and more traditional verse forms, his book also shows a firm grip on present-day life, displayed in his nonchalant attitude and a variety of witticisms. In the montage-like sequence “Renku: My Last Thirty-five Deaths,” Paterson at times sounds almost too playful to be taken seriously. “If I had a happier dream / this might have been a better poem,” he writes. However, it is precisely this addition of levity that offsets the often overly-sentimental voice that takes precedence...
...simplicity of “Two Trees” is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Paterson’s straightforward rhythms, earnest tones, and candid narratives are equally approachable to poetry novices and veterans alike. Paterson shows a consistently genuine and honest appreciation of ordinary human life. In the title poem, Paterson writes, “I love all films that start with rain... / However bad or overlong / such a film can do no wrong.” Like the images of rain that Paterson admires, his own brand of poetic sincerity, “however...
Goldstein’s novel flits between two storylines in the life of affable academic Cass Seltzer, one in his present, the other in his past. Presently, Seltzer is contemplating an offer to assume a post at Harvard University, having achieved unexpected fame with his book, “The Varieties of Religious Illusion.” The combination of this secularist tract—and its appendix refuting 36 arguments for God’s existence—with Cass’s clear-eyed empathy for religious belief has turned him into an overnight celebrity, dubbed by Time...