This was an amazingly interesting (and, often, fun) book to read. It took me a bit to get through it, despite its relative brevity, because I wanted to always read it when I was able to give my full (completely awake) attention.
The basic question Jacobs asks in this book is, if the law of love is the central Christian law (love of God and love of neighbor), should it not guide every other endeavor, literary interpretation/criticism included? The second question, assuming the answer to first is a yes, is What does a hemerunics of reading look like guided by Christian charity? The book is, in part, an extended reflection on how best to define Christian charity, and then how this applies to the act of reading and interpreting. I wished more for the latter, but Jacobs feels it necessary to focus on the former. Early there's a lot of Aristotle and Augustine, both who offer a lot to say on the subject, even if they also offer only limited answers to the central question. Bakhtin is probably the only figure (maybe Auden too) whose ideas Jacobs uses constructively and unconditionally.
Reading into it a bit, it seems that Jacobs wants to protect reading against both sides of the culture wars, both of which want to "force" the text into a simple interpretative model, whether that's "cultural criticism" or "religious orthodoxy." Neither of these give the type of attention to the text that true charitable reading requires.
For now, I'll end by saying that this has sprung me into the world of Alan Jacobs. Before even finishing this, I purchased two more of his books: the collection of essays published right after this one (which seems to be his earliest publication) and his most recent book, on the value of reading in an age of distraction. I look forward to both.
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