Gathering of Leaves

David Bentley Hart is a prolific theologian, philosopher, cultural commentator, and writer of fiction. He is the author and translator of over twenty-five books, including The Light of Tabor.

"David Bentley Hart is a great essayist. He is a belle-lettrist in the old-fashioned sense, but at the same time a contemporary thinker and writer of real consequence. He is possessed of immense reading in a wide variety of areas, and he has the capacity to get to the root of the matter without wasting time. I regard him as one of the most important intellectuals of our era and someone whose work is of real and lasting significance. This is an important book, one that deserves the widest possible audience." — Henry Weinfield, author of An Alphabet"David Bentley Hart is a polymathic marvel; he is also one of the best prose stylists writing today. Whether he is writing about baseball, AI, the deficiencies of Cormac McCarthy, the reality of mermaids, the sublimities of Proust, or (perhaps best of all) prose style itself, his 'commitment to the mercurial and occasional' never fails to challenge—and delight." —Norman Finkelstein, author of Track"David Bentley Hart is our greatest living essayist. More than any previous collection, A Gathering of Leaves reminds us of the astonishing range of his interests, crochets, and enmities. It is one of those rare books that invites not praise but tears of divine gratitude." —Matthew Walther, opinion writer for The New York Times"These thirty-eight 'ephemera' combine bits of autobiography with the Beatles, Cormac McCarthy, turtles, AI, Nabokov, a fascinating memoir on Japanese ghosts, and a great deal more—all to a constant background hum of fury at the world's political folly. Everything is vintage Hart: metaphor versus mechanism, wonder versus the closed, passive mind." —Caryl Emerson, author of All the Same the Words Don't Go Away"It seems almost unfair that one man should be able to write so well, and so variously, about so many subjects—literary translation, Australia, Nabokov's favorite dictionary, phone booths, and (obviously) baseball. Here they are all brought together by Hart's infectious enthusiasm and by a style of thought and expression that draws sparks from whatever it touches." —Matthew Boudway, senior editor of Commonweal

• A Brief Introduction1. Non Compos: Extracts from the Court Record2. America's Team (or: The New York Yankees Are a Moral Abomination)3. On Writing English Prose: Ideals, Exemplars, Rules4. Birthday Greetings for Marcel5. Goethe's "Orientalism"6. ​​The Georgia Peach7. Nabokovian Ruminations: Four Notes8. The Peach Blossom Spring: A Translation (and apologia)9. The Saint James Bible10. Encomium for a Tortoise11. By Sea-Girls Wreathed12. Nothing at the Bottom: Four Notes on AI13. Wings of Light: On Translating Proust14. La règle du jeu: Five Notes on the Great American Pastime15. Organism and Paradigm: Six Notes on Mind and Matter16. Frank: The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole17. Revenants: Five Notes on Photography and the Deep Past18. O Divine Monkey!19. Echoes From the Past: Four Notes Mostly on the Beatles20. On Yūrei, Jibakurei, and Phone Booths: Four Notes on Ghostly Japan21. A Tale Told by an Idiot22. The Ethos of the Ants23. Mr Toad and the Judge: On the Relative Merits of Kenneth Grahame and Cormac McCarthy24. Thoughts on The Hindus: Wendy Doniger and the Rise of Indian Nationalism25. "Dream-Journey to Mount Tian-Mu: A Sigh of Farewell"26. Noli Episcopari: Four Notes on Political Power27. Dispatches from the Antipodes28. The Net of Indra29. The Cunning of History: Seven Notes on Chance and Fate30. Scattered Reflections: On Themes Cinematic and Televisual31. Dispatches from the Flowering Fenlands32. The State of Exception33. Slouching Towards DC34. L'Ébauche d'un homme civilisé: On Paul Valéry35. Neither Wilt Thou Suffer Thine Holy One to See Corruption36. On The Feast of Stephen: Six Notes on Boxing Day37. Gods of the Wayside38. Leave at Once, or I Shall Set the Dogs on You: Mon Doppelgänger, Moi-Même