36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (Vintage Contemporaries)

36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (Vintage Contemporaries)

From the author of The Mind-Body Problem : a witty and intoxicating novel of ideas that plunges into the great debate between faith and reason.   At the center is Cass Seltzer, a professor of psychology whose book, The Varieties of Religious Illusion , has become a surprise best seller. Dubbed “the atheist with a soul,” he wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum—“the goddess of game theory.” But he is haunted by reminders of two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his teacher Jonas Elijah Klapper, a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism, and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius, heir to the leadership of an exotic Hasidic sect.   Hilarious, heartbreaking, and intellectually captivating, 36 Arguments explores the rapture and torments of religious experience in all its variety. “Dazzling, and sparked by frequent flashes of nonchalant brilliance.”— The New York Times “Brainy, compassionate, divinely witty.”— The Washington Post “[A] literary miracle.”—Maureen Corrigan, “Fresh Air,” NPR “Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.” —Ian McEwan “Deeply moving and a joy to read.” —Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close   “Captivating, original, and at times riotously funny.” — Commentary   “Compelling, heady . . . and laced with a deliciously dark wit.” — Boston Globe   “Thoughtful, witty, and—I cannot stress enough—really entertaining.” — Christian Science Monitor "Goldstein can make Spinoza sing and Gödel comprehensible, and in her cerebral fiction she dances across disciplines with delight…. 36 Arguments radiates all the humor and erudition we've come to expect from Goldstein, and despite the novel's attention to the oldest questions, it has arrived at exactly the right moment. ... One of the funniest [academic satires] ever written. ...Goldstein doesn't want to shake your faith or confirm it, but she'll make you a believer in the power of fiction."— The   Washington Post "When Rebecca Goldstein, the American philosopher-novelist who looks like Rapunzel but thinks like Wittgenstein, was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Award (commonly known as the “genius award”) in 1996, she was praised for her ability to “dramatise the concerns of philosophy without sacrificing the demands of imaginative storytelling”. That is putting her achievements lightly. Her most recent book,  36 Arguments for the Existence of God , is a vast….which is nonetheless possessed of a steely intellectual coherence that is frighteningly impressive to behold."— The Times  (London) “ 36 Arguments for the Existence of God  affirms Ms. Goldstein’s rare ability to explore the quotidian and the cosmological with equal ease. ...The novel’s bracing intellectual energy never flags. ... It affirms Ms. Goldstein’s position as a satirist and a seeker of real moral questions at a time when silly ones prevail."— The New York Times “Hilariously irreverent. . . . The draw of transcendental longings, Seltzer discovers, is not to be found in logical proofs but in the accumulated wonder of all that can be encountered in this life: love, family, the sheer privilege of being alive.” — Financial Times (London)    “400 pages of smarts….[ 36 Arguments] lays out a great range of witticisms, echoes and allusions.”  — London Review of Books "Like an answer to a fevered prayer. ... Part academic farce, part metaphysical romance, all novel of ideas,  36 Arguments for the Existence of God  may not settle the question of whether God exists but it does affirm the phenomenon of literary miracles."—Maureen Corrigan, “Fresh Air,” NPR “A looping tale [with] affectionate irony about academic life, culture wars, and relationships in turn-of-the-millennium America….[With] the same engaging cocktail of philosophy, roman a clef fun, and scholarly soap opera that marked her earlier books….She shows off all her considerable smarts. . . . Playful, humane.” — The Globe and Mail (Toronto)   "The best Jewish woman writing in America today....Her latest, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God is flat out the most gratifying novel—woman's, Jewish, American, whatever—this reviewer has read in many a long reading season.  36  triumphs in a whole bunch of literary subgenres….[It is] a novel whose manifold delights can only be hinted at in a review.  36 Arguments for the Existence of God  is brimming with richly realized characters, brimming with ideas, brimming with life."— The Jerusalem Report “[Goldstein] has taken on some of the deepest, philosophical questions of human existence and shaped them into a page-turner at once funny and heartbreaking and challenging and—yes—proves that there’s no such thing as ‘too smart’ to write a terrifically engaging novel.” — Moment Magazine   "When a writer is as clever as Goldstein, it does not seem fair that she should also write with charm, humour, a