However, Pushkin’s philosophy seemed painfully bare to Alex. Pleasure—intellectual or otherwise—was all well and good, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t balance out the weight of his grief. For that, Alex needed something more substantial, something more tangible. In that regard, Talia’s faith was appealing, but there too, he felt a painful lack. Tempting as it was to lay his problems on an uncaring (or even caring) god, doing so merely transposed the question instead of truly answering it—handing off to another what he was unable to answer for himself. And that didn’t sit right with Alex. In
...more
