All people are mightily influenced by what they read. At times readers agree with the author, at times they object. On occasion, they resonate at some deeper level, anxious to respond. Bazyn presents spin-offs on Hamlet's disdain for Ophelia, how Odysseus was undone by Circe, the tears the Hebrews shed for Zion while exiled in Babylon, what the prodigal son might have written his father, Faustus's amusing antics with Mephistopheles, and ways Dante uses contrapasso in The Divine Comedy.
In addition, Bazyn expands on the apostle Paul's comparisons between the first Adam and the second Adam, life lessons from the Buddhist monk Kenko's Essays in Idleness, Oedipus's foolhardy pursuit of truth, and Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton's on-again, off-again dalliance with Madame Butterfly.
Whether as a realist, a symbolist, or a metaphysical, Bazyn steeps readers in a world of enchanting literary echoes, reorienting their understanding of received texts. Elegant 35mm black-and-white photos of people, places, and moods intensify the reader's overall experience.
Furthermore, the introduction beckons readers to a lifetime of good reading by providing one-paragraph recommendations of great works of spirituality, theology, ethics, fiction, poetry, and drama-by leading Christian thinkers over two millennia.
