Binding the Ghost
Theology, Mystery, and the Transcendence of Literature
- Arts & Literature
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
Binding the Ghost is both manifesto and example of a new variety of reading that centers a theological perspective in considering what literature actually does. Neither dogmatic nor apologetic, sectarian or denominational, this mode of reading acknowledges the inherently charged strangeness of writing and fiction, whereby authors have the ability to seemingly create entire universes from words alone. Ed Simon considers the theological depth, resonance, and mystery of the acts of reading and writing. His lyrical, incisive essays cover subjects such as the incarnational poetics of reading a physical book as opposed to reading online, the historical relationship between monotheism and the development of the alphabet, how the novel and Protestantism developed interiority within people, the occult significance of punctuation, and the functional similarities between poetry and prayer. Binding the Ghost presents a humane sacralization of reading and writing that takes into account the wonder, enchantment, and mystery of the very idea of poetry and fiction.
Endorsements (3)
“Ed Simon’s incantatory book conjures up a world where literature and mysticism meet—where prayer is poetry and poetry is prayer. Delving joyously into centuries of texts, it promises nothing less than to reenchant our relationship with reading.”
“All truly perceptive writers and readers of literature know that they are engaged in something uncanny—call it magic, sacrament, theurgy, communion with things unseen, or what have you—and that to enter into the depths of language is to practice conjuration and enchantment, or to be possessed and addressed by divine powers. Apparently, Ed Simon was practicing ‘Orphic criticism’ long before he found a name for it. There is a luminous quality to all of these essays that shows he has long been aware that the true experience of literature is an initiation into mysteries, and a glimpse beyond what nature alone can reveal.”
“Ed Simon’s writing is bold, norm defying, and refreshingly heretical. ‘All poetry is incantation’ and ‘all prose is conjuration,’ he writes in this book. And for good measure, he adds: ‘Between those two poles lies the entirety of literature.’ With frightening intelligence, a true polymath’s breadth of knowledge, and a prophet’s pathos, Simon shows in Binding the Ghost that the genuine work of art is a gesture toward transcendence. The best literature always takes you ‘out of this world.”
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