Letter 22

This week I choose to write about letter 22. I liked this letter mostly because I found it to be very humorous. When he discusses everything about the women that the patient has fallen in love with, he picks out every last bad thing about her. Although he makes it seem as though these are all terrible attributes to have, they really aren't. I almost laughed when reading through it because he puts so much emotion in bringing her down. He gets very aggitated by this women and her family, which is a side of him we haven't seen before. A quote that I really liked was when he said, "Transformation proceeds form within and is a glorious manifestation of that Life Force which Our Father would worship if he worshipped anything but himself." This quote stuck out to me because I found it questionable. Does He really only worship himself? I honestly don't think so. I think that by reading through Luke, I am learning to understand the different aspects of what He really wanted out of us. It's very interesting how my perceptions have changed, because I never thought that it would happen. Happy Reading!

Letter 20

This week, I chose to write about letter 20. This letter concentrated on finding the patient a women in which to unchaste him. The letter talked about the ideal characteristics that men look for in a women. He described them in two different ways. The first of these ways being "statuesque and aristocratic" or "faint and languishing." I think that the two generalizations could almost apply to most women out there, but I also feel as though there is much more to a women than these simple explanations.

One quote that caught my eye was this, "You will find, if you look carefully into any human's heart, that he is haunted by atleast two imaginary women- a terrestrial and a infernal Venus, and that his desire differs qualitatively according to its object." This made me think about how men really think, which obviously isn't the easiest question to analyze. Hah. Do men really see two different women? I interpretted this quote to mean that they want two things, a low key women and then maybe someone a little more risque? Who knows.

Another quote that caught my eye was at the end of letter 20 (page 108) when he says, "...it is that 'tang' in the flavour which he is after." I liked this quote because I think it can hold true for both men and women. We think we always know we want, but it's only a certain part of that person, the part that makes them forbidden, that we're driven to. Do you think that the forbidden parts of people are more attractive? Or even that we're driven to them more?!
Hmm...

Letter 17

When reading this weeks letters, there's one that sticks out the most to me. This letter happens to be letter 17. This letter stuck out to me because of the topic that it concentrated on, Gluttony. When I first starting reading this section, I honestly had to look up the true definition of gluttony, because I couldn't truely understand what they were talking about. As I continued reading, I kind of found the letter to be humorous. The definition that I found for gluttony is eating to excess (personified as one of the deadly sins). I pondered on this for a moment and then honestly chuckled. Is gluttony really considered one of the seven deadly sins? The other sins include these six things: pride, covetousness (greed), lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. I thought that it was very interesting that it was put into this category. The way that C.S. Lewis captures this sin is by saying that, as people, we revolve around 'I want" statements. He's discussing the nature of the patients mother throughout this whole letter. When it comes to food, we use this statement to help get what we want. Because of this, I'm guessing that's why its a deadly sin? Any feedback on that? I also found this quote to be very interesting, "What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to being him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence..." I like this quote because it better explains how gluttony turns into indulgence, which in my mind can turn into the other seven deadly sins...