Binding the Ghost: Theology, Mystery, and the Transcendence of Literature

by Ed Simon

Binding the Ghost is both manifesto and example of a new variety of reading that centers a theological perspective in considering what literature actually does. Neither dogmatic nor apologetic, sectarian or denominational, this mode of reading acknowledges the inherently charged strangeness of writing and fiction, whereby authors have the ability to seemingly create entire universes from words alone. Ed Simon considers the theological depth, resonance, and mystery of the acts of reading and writing. His lyrical, incisive essays cover subjects such as the incarnational poetics of reading a physical book as opposed to reading online, the historical relationship between monotheism and the development of the alphabet, how the novel and Protestantism developed interiority within people, the occult significance of punctuation, and the functional similarities between poetry and prayer. Binding the Ghost presents a humane sacralization of reading and writing that takes into account the wonder, enchantment, and mystery of the very idea of poetry and fiction.

Genres: Nonfiction

334 pages, Hardcover

Published April 19, 2022

Reviews

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the very first essay of this remarkable and exuberant book, Ed Simon writes: "I want to understand whether chanting Emily Dickinson alters the fabric of space and time"...going on to state: "I want to possess the origin of all poems. And while criticism and theory can illuminate any number of important and interesting questions, I find that the cosmic, astral, metaphysical alphabet that composes all of reality must be a bit beyond their grasp."

Heady stuff. And Simon spends the rest of this book grasping what he can of all of that and he does so admirably...using historical studies to delve into the origins of the alphabet itself, while also exploring myths and theology in the Bronze Age, bookmaking, the creation of psychological interiority via the novel, and the "spookiness" of all literature, not least of which is the incantatory properties of poetry and prayer. Simon sees narrative and language through the eyes of a mystic and his ecstatic celebration of it is a wonder to behold.

[Neil White · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some ideas that I share in common with the author, but overall I found this a difficult book to stay focused on. It was a book that was an invitation to search for magic in the media of literature and perhaps the problem was this reader stumbling over the words or whose thoughts were occluded from viewing the coherence amid the vast store of imagery.