A Summer with Pascal
Published on 7. May 2024
Book
Hardback
184 pages
978-0-674-29541-4 (ISBN)
Description
From an eminent scholar, a spirited introduction to one of the great polymaths in the history of Europe.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is best known in the English-speaking world for his contributions to mathematics and physics, with both a triangle and a law in fluid mechanics named after him. Meanwhile, the classic film My Night at Maud's popularized Pascal's wager, an invitation to faith that has inspired generations of theologians. Despite the immensity of his reputation, few read him outside French schools. In A Summer with Pascal, celebrated literary critic Antoine Compagnon opens our minds to a figure somehow both towering and ignored.
Compagnon provides a bird's-eye view of Pascal's life and significance, making this volume an ideal introduction. Still, scholars and neophytes alike will profit greatly from his masterful readings of the Pensees-a cornerstone of Western philosophy-and the Provincial Letters, in which Pascal advanced wry theological critiques of his contemporaries. The concise, taut chapters build upon one another, easing into writings often thought to be forbidding and dour. With Compagnon as our guide, these works are not just accessible but enchanting.
A Summer with Pascal brings the early modern thinker to life in the present. In an age of profound existential doubt and assaults on truth and reason, in which religion and science are so often crudely opposed, Pascal's sophisticated commitment to both challenges us to meet the world with true intellectual vigor.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is best known in the English-speaking world for his contributions to mathematics and physics, with both a triangle and a law in fluid mechanics named after him. Meanwhile, the classic film My Night at Maud's popularized Pascal's wager, an invitation to faith that has inspired generations of theologians. Despite the immensity of his reputation, few read him outside French schools. In A Summer with Pascal, celebrated literary critic Antoine Compagnon opens our minds to a figure somehow both towering and ignored.
Compagnon provides a bird's-eye view of Pascal's life and significance, making this volume an ideal introduction. Still, scholars and neophytes alike will profit greatly from his masterful readings of the Pensees-a cornerstone of Western philosophy-and the Provincial Letters, in which Pascal advanced wry theological critiques of his contemporaries. The concise, taut chapters build upon one another, easing into writings often thought to be forbidding and dour. With Compagnon as our guide, these works are not just accessible but enchanting.
A Summer with Pascal brings the early modern thinker to life in the present. In an age of profound existential doubt and assaults on truth and reason, in which religion and science are so often crudely opposed, Pascal's sophisticated commitment to both challenges us to meet the world with true intellectual vigor.
Reviews / Votes
It is good to spend a summer with Pascal, as this charming and instructive book shows. Even those who pick it up as a diversion may find that Pascal is a companion for all occasions, that he is a friend and a guide for all mortal men and women who are searching, with an inevitable mix of angst and hope, for the truth and grace that truly save us. -- Daniel J. Mahoney * New Criterion * Today's students are lucky devils! Without difficulty, in an appealing way, they can grasp the essence of a classic writer thanks to this summer series...launched by Antoine Compagnon with Montaigne, continued with Baudelaire, and now enriched by A Summer with Pascal. -- Bernard Pivot * Le Journal du Dimanche * [An] elegant, unconventional 'beach read'...The appeal of Pascal, as presented by Compagnon, lies not just in the ironies of his writing, but also in the performative contradictions of his life. The man was not immune to the paradoxes he wryly noted in other humans...We might see Compagnon's project in this book as a harmonisation of contradictions - those of the man himself and of his thought. It thus serves as a guide to understanding Pascal himself, a thinker whom the intervening centuries have made it difficult to understand on his own terms. -- Jonathan Egid * Literary Review * The name Blaise Pascal isn't always associated with seaside leisure. We think of him as cerebral and sanctimonious, austere and despondent...But this is to misunderstand him...Antoine Compagnon doesn't just give him another face in A Summer with Pascal: in forty short chapters that one could read between swims, he alternates between literary study and biographical anecdotes with a joyfulness that suits his subject. * L'Express * Makes a valuable contribution...its forty one short chapters are an insightful read for those acquainted with Pascal and an excellent introduction for those taking up Pope Francis's recommendation to attend to this great thinker who speaks to the spiritual needs of our time. -- Frank Litton * Irish Catholic * An excellent introduction to a complex yet intellectually enticing writer. -- Joseph Epstein * Washington Free Beacon * What better guide than Antoine Compagnon...to introduce us to the world of this scientific and literary 'terrifying genius,' mystic and polemicist, 'jouster and game player,' this writer without equal of the Pensees and Provincial Letters? * Causeur * Reflects on the many small ways Pascal spoke wisdom and shaped the life of modern France, in both its religious and secular characteristics...every reader should at some point encounter the bracing, disenchanting gauntlet Pascal throws down at our feet in hopes that, in the absolute solitude of our own interior lives, we may 'know God'. -- James Matthew Wilson * WORLD * A light, breezy introduction...to one of the most important Christian apologists, Blaise Pascal...Those seeking God have few better guides than Pascal and there are few better guides to Pascal than Compagnon. * The Interim * Following A Summer with Montaigne, Antoine Compagnon excels once again in resuscitating and animating a key figure in French intellectual history. Clarifying without simplifying, A Summer with Pascal invites readers along the fascinating paths of Pascal's dialectical thought-and Catherine Porter's elegant translation is the icing on the cake. An excellent read for any season. -- Cathy Yandell, author of <i>The French Art of Living Well: Finding Joie de Vivre in the Everyday World</i> Antoine Compagnon offers us a new portrait of a great, often quoted and perhaps even more often misunderstood writer. The effect is to let us in on an intimate conversation across centuries. However much we may think we know about Pascal, we can learn a great deal from this absorbing work. -- Michael Wood, author of <i>The Road to Delphi</i>More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 185 mm
Width: 139 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
265 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-29541-4 (9780674295414)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Antoine Compagnon, a member of the Academie francaise, is Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Professor Emeritus at the College de France. He is the author of Proust Between Two Centuries, Five Paradoxes of Modernity, A Summer with Montaigne, and numerous other books. His work has been translated into nineteen languages.