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Title: The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church by Margaret Visser ISBN: 0-86547-640-3 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 31 May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Beautiful, yes -- but limited by a lousy format
Comment: Visser's spectacular language surpasses even her previous efforts, as she delves here into the majesty of faith and the intricate worship spaces we build. She sheds the usual anthropologist's garb of objectivity, admitting from the start that she is passionate about her subject, and the work is stronger for it.
However, I eventually got annoyed that there were no illustrations provided to help the reader along (it may be just the Canadian edition that suffers from this tragic flaw). As visual as her language is, this book proves the maxim that a picture is worth 1000 words. Those thousand words can be as beautiful as they like, but sometimes, dummies like me need a picture as well.
Reading about the spectacular details of St Agnes' church, I got more and more frustrated. Visser presents each column, each section of ceiling and floor, each mosaic tile, with such loving detail that I needed to examine them -- but lacking the plane fare to Rome, that's a nearly-impossible dream. Flipping from her descriptions of columns to the front cover hoping to catch a glimpse of them was eventually too much for me, and I returned this book to the library unfinished (this almost never happens).
A book of this quality deserves glossy, full-colour illustrations. Without the multimedia assist, you're going to find this book to be dry and tough going, even if you've enjoyed Visser's work in past. But still... I've recently discovered that Visser has her own website with many small images from the church ...
Perhaps I'll print out the pictures from the website and curl up with this book again at some point. Her language is so lovely, it may be worth another shot.
Rating: 5
Summary: A quintessential read!
Comment: The relatively simple Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura just outside the walls of Rome comes under the scrutiny of history, theology, anthropology & folklore to illuminate its physical & spiritual architecture.
Margaret Visser guides us through this organic aged basilica, from its apse to its nave, its catacombs to its campanile, she opens our eyes to its symbolism, its layers of religious expression, the Christian fascination with lambs & virgins, the meaning of martyrdom & the provenance of relics.
Effortlessly, this tranquil & earnest author moves us back through the ages to reveal, like the ancient stones she walks past, the erstwhile Roman attitudes toward our mortal remains & then through Christianity's infancy, in all its forms & purposes.
Part archaeology, part love story, part poetry & part tourist guide, The Geometry of Love is a quintessential read & I fell in love with columns all over again!
A superb example of writing about what you know - this author bequeaths us a unique & enfolding account of the why, where, who, when & what of a charming house of worship.
Rating: 3
Summary: a thorough guide
Comment: One of the more popular modern writing crazes is to take an object from everyday life and to dissect it : the materials used to make it; its history; its uses; etc.. Margaret Visser's Geometry of Love is a fairly representative example of this genre, better than some, no worse than most. In it she concentrates her attention upon the Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura Church near Rome. By the time you finish the book you know everything you could possibly want to know about this church, which most of us have never heard of and will never see, except for one thing : why are churches in general, or this one in particular, unique ?
Much of the book is interesting, some sections are even fascinating, but, perhaps because of the nature of the task she's set herself, describing the church as a physical structure, it never comes alive as a house of God. Admittedly, as a Baptist, I've always considered church buildings themselves to be secondary to the function they serve, as a gathering place for like-minded worshippers. But I found the book to be something like the parable of the three blind men describing an elephant, and Visser to have failed to make the church anything more than the sum of its parts. In his marvelous study, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams observed two of the great churches of Christendom and perceived not merely their unity, but the unity of the culture that produced them. Margaret Visser looks at Saint Agnes and sees the particular features of the building. The difference in perception seems significant.
GRADE : C
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Title: Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos, of an Ordinary Meal by Margaret Visser ISBN: 0802136516 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners by Margaret Visser ISBN: 0140170790 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: July, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Rome in Detail by International Herald Tribune ISBN: 0847824624 Publisher: Rizzoli Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Beginning to Read the Fathers by Boniface Ramsey ISBN: 0809126915 Publisher: Paulist Press Pub. Date: December, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Early Christian Lives (Penguin Classics) by Carolinne White ISBN: 0140435263 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: July, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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