A partir de unas palabras en las que Schelling insinua, a la manera de los gnosticos, que la tristeza es el telon de fondo de la naturaleza en general y de la condicion humana en particular, George Steiner desarrolla diez tesis acerca de la tristeza inherente a la condicion pensante del ser humano. Como en los «ejercicios de sabiduria» de un Seneca o un Marco Aurelio, pero desde una perspectiva marcada por la neurofisiologia y la fisica cuantica, el autor levanta ante el lector una bateria de preguntas que delatan el caracter dramatico del pensamiento humano. Hay algo mas alla del pensar que seria impensable? Podemos vivir sin pensar en absoluto? El pensamiento es infinito? Cuales son las relaciones entre el pensamiento y el lenguaje, y entre el pensamiento y el yo? Podemos realmente pensar el pensamiento? En la ultima de las Diez (posibles) razones Steiner aborda la cuestion de Dios. «Verosimilmente», dice, «el homo se hizo sapiens [...] cuando surgio la cuestion de Dios». En efecto, no ha fascinado por igual a creyentes y a incredulos la cuestion de Dios?...

In this lecture series from a major 20th-century intellectual, the state of Western culture's moral and emotional emptiness is traced to the decline of formal religion. Alternate mythologies offered by Marxism, Freudian psychoanalysis, Levi-Straussian anthropology, and the occult are examined to consider the spiritual and intellectual ideologies that have attempted to fill the void left by formal religion's deterioration. In the argument presented, the pursuit of religious truth offers the opportunity for renewal of hope in an increasingly complex world....

An education in a portmanteau: George Steiner at The New Yorker collects his best work from his more than 150 pieces for the magazine. Between 1967 and 1997, George Steiner wrote more than 130 pieces on a great range of topics for The New Yorker, making new books, difficult ideas, and unfamiliar subjects seem compelling not only to intellectuals but to “the common reader.” He possesses a famously dazzling mind: paganism, the Dutch Renaissance, children’s games, war-time Britain, Hitler’s bunker, and chivalry attract his interest as much as Levi-Strauss, Cellini, Bernhard, Chardin, Mandelstam, Kafka, Cardinal Newman, Verdi, Gogol, Borges, Brecht, Wittgenstein, Chomsky, and art historian/spy Anthony Blunt. Steiner makes an ideal guide from the Risorgimento in Italy to the literature of the Gulag, from the history of chess to the enduring importance of George Orwell. Again and again everything Steiner looks at in his New Yorker essays is made to bristle with some genuine prospect of turning out to be freshly thrilling or surprising. ....