Book Review--Absence of Mind

Absence of Mind
by Marilynne Robinson
ISBN: 978-0-300-14518-2

The inside cover of this book promises a good read: "In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer [ML] applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought--science, religion, and consciousness." As someone who is very interested in all of these topics I was eager to read the book. Until I opened it up. Try as I might I could not get past the first twenty-six pages--the Introduction and halfway into the first chapter.

I only wish ML has applied her astute intellect to making the book readable. It reads as if it were written for upper-level philosophy students. And written in reply to someone else's book(s)--but without the courtesy of quoting or even paraphrasing the book(s) so that you could understand what she was responding to.

There is one good thing about the book. It uses lots of commas. So, even though the sentences are tortuous and of boggy consistency, at least you can use the commas to help parse out some small part of the meaning.

Maybe I'll pick up this book again. But only after I figure out what book(s) it's in response to.