<p>I feel like such a poser, because I’m actually not connected to the University of Chicago in any way, shape, or form. But I was in a mood for a more overtly intellectual post and, if the stereotype holds true, this particular forum seems like the place to start one… so, has anyone read Augustine’s ‘Confessions’? At first I was finding his breast-beating and ‘woe-is-me’ routine a bit tedious, but the more I get into it, the more I’m finding that his thoughts, his intense longing, resonates with me and what I’ve been thinking and feeling for awhile now. And I don’t think it’s just the reservoir of Catholic guilt I’ve accumulated over the past twenty years, either. Is it completely pathetic that I find more in common with a 4th century North African pagan rhetorician-turned Christian theologian than the guys down the hall playing Guitar Hero? What’s wrong with me?</p>
<p>I’ve read it for my humanities core class. I found it tedious too, but I thought it had its moments. I don’t think this one gripped me or my classes the way all of us were totally into Dante’s Inferno or The Iliad, but I do have an (atheist) friend who was prancing around and excited because he felt like he finally understood God, and another friend intent on reciting passages of it to me in Latin.</p>
<p>If there’s any book that attempts to build bridges to its readers, I think it’s Augustine (and, in its own unfortunate way, Aristotle), so I don’t think it’s weird or unusual to feel such a kinship with the text. Here’s a dude just trying to tell his life story and explain what he thinks.</p>