Todd McEwan looks at sloth. He looks at different aspects of his life and decides whether things are slothful, lazy, or something else. He plays around with the word dawdling which I love. In conclusion, he decides that he cannot breakdown slothfulness, because the truly slothful have left no records. They are too lazy.
John Sutherland studies wrath in a different way. He makes it seem acceptible as it is the only sin God is charged with "God is a rightous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day." He then spends a good deal of his section bringing up examples of when people showed wrath in classic literature, such as Achilles in The Illiad. Or even Ahab being consumed with wrath in Moby Dick after the white whale cost him a boat and a leg. He goes on to use other examples from Shakespeare to even some modern movies where wrath plays a vivid role.
Ali Smith for envy. She looks at it in a very personal way. Her story looks at a couple discussing/arguing the fact that one partner is allergic to mold and the other "accidentally" leaves a piece of fruit in the trash can which over time, develops a little mold and causes the sick spouse to declare that the other person is secretly jealous and trying in fact to killtheir loved one. This goes back and forth. This only works because the sick spouse is studying psychology so they are immersed in the study of the subconscious. This all goes back to when one is born and Mother introduces milk from he breasts. One is a good breast, other is a bad breast. Each finally tells a tale, the best storytelleris then deemed the winner in the argument.
Martin Rowson for Gluttony. He is obviously a cartoonist and treats his sin as a cartoon series, looking at gluttony as a fat guy and gluttony through a very rich man. There is no dialogue, but the cartoon windows show everything done in excess, from the sucking dry of the ocean to the modern monstrosity of commerce to feed the masses. The fat guy dies and the rich guy is then served his massive heart in a very gross and inhumane way of preparing the food.
Dylan Evans explores through greed. Has some strong points on it still being the sin looked at as a sin. The others through cultural change are not so bad, such as gluttony being a psychological problem. He then explains how greed is key to a capitalist system. If we humans weren't greedy, then communisn could have succeeded. He compares communism to being part of a hive, and thus the whole is more important than the individual, and that is not how us humans think, not in america.
David Flusfeder breaks down lust, again as a personal story. He goes into great detail about an encounter with a girl who he develops a crush, she is gay, so their love cannot be brought to fruition, but their date through a carnival and set in the 80s is interesting. His description that lust begins with appetite. There is something predatory, a desire to possess the object, but whereas love can take the object as an abstraction (a lover ignore's flaws in another), the object of lust is perceived in its full physicality.
Nicola Barker finally writes about vanity. This part confused me. It started as if you're reading the book online, complete with instructions, such as to go to next section, think of an orange or blink your eyes if you agree. It ends up taking a weird turn where the writer is explaining of when they were duped by an online person who pretended to be younger but were really "immortal" and old. I honestly did not get this section.
I did very much enjoy the book overall. I especially enjoyed the sections of lust and envy, possibly because I relate but probably because they were told as real first person stories. Book was around 200 pages, so it made for a quick read, and knowing it was broken into different authors kept me wanting to get to next section to experience a different writer's style.
David Flusfeder breaks down lust, again as a personal story. He goes into great detail about an encounter with a girl who he develops a crush, she is gay, so their love cannot be brought to fruition, but their date through a carnival and set in the 80s is interesting. His description that lust begins with appetite. There is something predatory, a desire to possess the object, but whereas love can take the object as an abstraction (a lover ignore's flaws in another), the object of lust is perceived in its full physicality.
Nicola Barker finally writes about vanity. This part confused me. It started as if you're reading the book online, complete with instructions, such as to go to next section, think of an orange or blink your eyes if you agree. It ends up taking a weird turn where the writer is explaining of when they were duped by an online person who pretended to be younger but were really "immortal" and old. I honestly did not get this section.
I did very much enjoy the book overall. I especially enjoyed the sections of lust and envy, possibly because I relate but probably because they were told as real first person stories. Book was around 200 pages, so it made for a quick read, and knowing it was broken into different authors kept me wanting to get to next section to experience a different writer's style.
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