Category: Books

Written by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and first published in 1932, this novel is regarded by many as the best expression of 20th Century consciousness and culture. For the author, this was both a blessing and a curse. Journey to the End of the Night is a dark and pessimistic work and offers a very critical and misanthropic view of the world. Tragically, the subjects of his criticisms were only encouraged by his outrage.

Céline suffered the psychological scars shared by so many Europeans who lived through the First World War and everything after. As a result, the birth of existentialism enabled him and so many others, whether they knew it or not, to still find value in a world that had been literally and figuratively destroyed. Sadly, the world left behind after the war was lacking in the innocence and beauty and strength and power of his pre-war memories. Degraded and wounded, it became a receptive place for his darkly comic reflections and criticisms, and has remained still human perhaps only because of them. When all human striving is reduced only to worries of ass and bank account and once-revered professions like medicine (Céline was a doctor) are shot through with celebrated incompetence, fraud, and outright mockery, the enraged humanity of wounded men and women who may never again know the comfort and familiarity of the world they have always inhabited finds a voice in Céline.

Ironically, rather than having rendered the eternal and universal truths of this novel obsolete, as so many would apparently prefer, the dawn of the technology revolution has instead made them more urgent and more relevant than ever.

(Céline, Louis-Ferdinand (1983). Journey to the End of the Night. Manheim, Ralph (trans.). New York: New Directions. ISBN 978-0-8112-0847-5.)

Written in 1851 by Herman Melville, Moby Dick is regarded by many as the great American novel. Movies provide a great chance to escape the trap of modernity and see the word in a way our daily lives don’t allow. Many of the most popular and successful movies depict the world in previous eras of history, when life was more visceral, immediate, and the truth of things–at least from our perspective–was larger, better, and less debatable. Gladiator, Master and Commander, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly are good examples. Herman Melville was not only a writer. His novels relate his knowledge of the world from his experience as a merchant seaman. Moby Dick allows us to see the world we now inhabit as it one was. This epic tale of a sea voyage on a wooden whaling ship is not just fantasy, thus its value as literature and living history is incalculable. To fail to read this book from cover to cover is not only to miss a first-hand account of what life in America and the rest of the world was like until fairly recently, but also to fail to truly understand the world we inhabit today. To fail at either of these tasks is to rob yourself of all the promise of this, the only life you will ever know, has to offer, as well.

Melville, Herman (1988). Moby-Dick, or, the Whale. The Writings of Herman Melville Volume Six. Edited by Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle. Evanston; Chicago: Northwestern University Press: Newberry Library.

Demographically, some have cited atheism as the fastest growing ideology in contemporary America. This may settle the question for many people why there is such a rampant growth of consumerism and higher crime and imprisonment rates than at any time in history, not to mention the difficult-to-reconcile changes in American politics, both domestically and abroad. At the very least, this development is evident in the widespread reluctance of so many people to acknowledge the significance of The Holy Bible as one of the most important and influential written works in human history.

Historically, atheism is not a typically American cultural practice. Many of the first European settlers in America arrived hoping to escape religious persecution in Europe. The state of Pennsylvania, founded by William Penn, was consciously established with the intent of providing sanctuary and a haven for the free practice of religions that had not enjoyed such protection elsewhere. Pennsylvania Deutsch—popularly known as Pennsylvania Dutch—is the German dialect of the members of the Amish community who still maintain many of their traditional practices to this day.

Independent publications have a long history as catalysts for change. The American statesman Thomas Paine famously sought escape from execution in Europe as a result of his treatise, The Age of Reason², originally published in 1795. This pamphlet, along with his entire body of writing, was instrumental in inspiring the American War for Independence. Thomas Paine and his fellow statesmen successfully established the foundation of traditional American philosophical, religious, and political thought that was based in deism, rational discourse, humanism, liberalism, and the political philosophy of John Locke, in which one can find the origin of the American understanding of civil liberties: we are only so free as we allow those around us—including those with whom we do not necessarily agree—also to be free. Thus, freedom is not absolute—it is limited to those actions which do not permanently prevent others from exercising the same rights and privileges you believe you deserve for yourself.

Early Americans believed these rights were an inherent and defining quality of humanity; that we are endowed with them by our Creator; and that they are inalienable—they cannot be taken from us by legislation. Much of the conflict in Europe that the early European settlers were trying to escape resulted from disputes about this belief, and America settled the question by proclaiming that “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” i.e., there is no point in debates that try to prove or disprove such claims—we all know they are true, so let’s agree and move forward.

Regardless, arriving at that moment in history was not without conflict. For Thomas Paine, the difficulty of feeling compelled to utter his views about religion and corruption angered many people who felt his “crime” should have resulted in execution:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel…”²

The civilized world of 1795 was not the civilized world of 2017, but to misinterpret his criticism as a rejection of religion or as an endorsement of atheism would be a serious mistake. His critique of The Holy Bible is punctuated by a more sublime understanding—it is not the stories of wickedness themselves that the religion represents, but the triumph over them that The Bible really speaks to, and for Thomas Paine in the vast wilderness of 18^th century America, the Old World may have caught an inspiring glimpse of how the world should look, without all the wickedness and betrayal that created the need for religion in the first place:

“BUT some perhaps will say — Are we to have no word of God — no revelation? I answer yes. There is a Word of God; there is a revelation.

“THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.”²

So much for hermeneutics. The modern world has again vastly evolved, for better or for worse, from the world of Thomas Paine. Still, the spread of atheism as a violent and repressive reaction against religion ironically proves that The Holy Bible is no less a vital and influential artifact of human history now as ever.

Although many people turn their nose up when anyone mentions religious teachings and writings, no one can really claim to be educated until they have read at least one of the major works of the world’s recognized and established religions. Don’t let someone else make up your mind for you. If for no other reason, and especially if you are an atheist, reading The Holy Bible will provide you with a more solid foundation for the study of world history, culture, and politics than will any 21^st century textbook, no matter how fully annotated and detailed. How can you reject something of which you are fundamentally ignorant?

There is no end to the debate about which version provides the most accurate translation. Many people object to the King James version¹ for political reasons, but it is a widely accepted and well-known translation. Written in 1611, it will bring you closer to the genuine article than the proliferation of contemporary study Bibles, which are even more corrupted by contemporary political agendas.

Regardless, reading this revered text from beginning to end may enrich your life in ways you cannot likely anticipate.

1. The Holy Bible, King James version, 1611 edition. (2014). Rochester, NY: Starry Night Publishing.com.
2. Paine, T., & Conway, M. D. (2010). The Age of Reason. United States: Merchant Books.