Anathem is a great intellectual entertainment, and as I read it, I am reminded that some time ago, many of my distant peers in the computer science field had presumed that Douglas R. Hofstadter was going to write this book.
In 'The Minds I' DRH introduced us to Prelude Ant Fugue a simplified retelling of a theory of Fermat. It was a delightful kind of Alice in Wonderland dialog. Fans of DRH awaited his vague promise to reintroduce us to his characters in a longer form. It never happened.
Although Anathem has taken a different sort of turn since I began writing out this fragment, I still think of it as something of a Rowlingesque primer on metaphysics. That doesn't change the fact that there are exquisite gems scattered throughout. There is a character Estemard whose spiritual dilemma resembles my own.
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"You feel the truth but don't know it," Cord repeated. "Your service the other day, in Samble - we could hear your singing. It was very emotional."
Gnel nodded, "That's why Estemard attends -- though he doesn't believe."
"He's not intellectually convinced of your arguments," Cord translated, "but he feels some of what you feel."
Estemard was a monk who had left his cloister and found himself among pagans. He attends their services which are rollicking, and yet he does not convert. Estemard's distance is not born of skepticism of the ultimate truth but of his awareness of a more disciplined understanding. He is presented the essence of the Great Spirit arising out of a poverty of logic. He cannot accept these sacraments on their own terms.
My sympathy for Estemard is complete.
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