Let in the Light

Rezensionen / Stimmen

I've spent fifty years translating Sanskrit texts, but only now has this book taught me how to read a text in a foreign language and how to read (and write) a translation. It is also a brilliant book about Latin, Augustine, God, and the meaning of life. -- Wendy Doniger, author of <i>The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth</i> Such careful, loving reading as we find in James Boyd White's book is as rare as it is precious. This is a book to be read slowly, allowing Augustine's Latin to resonate?-to be felt even when little understood. For words are living things, and we here come to know that Augustine's Confessions is a work that is alive in words with all their human complexity- but above all with love. -- David Jasper, author of <i>Heaven in Ordinary: Religion and Poetry in a Secular Age</i> Let in the Light offers a better way to read a work of literature of enormous and enduring importance. White argues that our easy familiarity with the English language and the inevitable distance and distortions associated with any translation create a barrier between Augustine and his readers. He is a lively, clear, and engaging writer, and the book is extremely sophisticated about literary criticism but wears its sophistication lightly. -- M. Cathleen Kaveny, author of <i>Ethics at the Edges of Law: Christian Moralists and American Legal Thought</i> The book is a gift to anyone who loves the Confessions already, or indeed to anyone who wonders why the book has such standing in the theological and literary tradition. * Religious Studies Review *