false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173068881m/243812.jpg 243812 1 Garry Wills--Latin scholar, liberal Catholic apologist, historian, award-winning Augustine biographer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author--is certainly one of the best qualified translators in America to render Saint Augustine's <I>Confessiones</I> for modern readers. With <I>Saint Augustine's Sin</I> Wills offers the third and perhaps most crucial volume of the translation (following <I>Saint Augustine's Childhood</I> and <I>Saint Augustine's Memory</I>), and, with a small exception, his text remains lively, erudite, and contemporary while preserving the rhetorical games of the original. <p> As in the earlier volumes, the supporting apparatus for the translation--almost two thirds of the slim book--allows Wills to open the literary and theological complexity of Augustine to new readers. In the introduction he declares that Augustine's titular sin is not sexual (as is often assumed), but, rather, is a gratuitous sin--a theft of pears committed with a group of young delinquents--akin to Adam's sin of "compulsion to solidarity" with Eve. Wills buttresses his contention in the Appendix, "Augustine's Theology of Sin." Here, he cites Augustine's <I>City of God</I> at length to demonstrate the parallel language used in the narration of the fall. <p> Wills' other major goal in this translation, beyond positioning the work in its proper contexts, is to preserve Augustine's Latin "rhetorical pyrotechnics." In doing so, he embraces word play and conjures Augustine's Latin imagery into English equivalents. At one point, his decision to mirror Augustine's use of a rare Latin verb leads to the opaque phrase, "I boldly foisoned into ramifying and umbrageous loves." But after this intended, intrusive lapse in clarity, the language of the pear theft itself melds perfectly Augustine's philosophical and theological anguish. Wills' scholarly notes taken together with his rousing, vital translation insure that Augustine will be enjoyed by contemporary readers afresh both for his gifts as a writer and for the passion of his spirituality. <I>--Patrick O'Kelley</I> 236210 10 11 2003 Saint Augustine's Sin (Augustine, Confessiones. Bk. 3.) total:2|3:2| 2 6 6 0 0 0 false false Fri Apr 24 14:08:21 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 06:37:10 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Mar 24 04:37:03 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 04:37:03 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Feb 12 17:46:41 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 17:46:49 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Wed May 21 09:01:55 -0700 2008 Wed May 21 09:01:55 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Oct 01 13:35:57 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 01 13:35:57 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Sun Mar 04 22:30:41 -0800 2007 Sun Mar 04 22:30:41 -0800 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=243812