Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience

This thought-provoking book turns ordinary experiences on their heads, almost forcing readers to find the mystical in their own subjective engagement of daily events. Carse ( Finite and Infinite Games ), who is director of Religious Studies and professor of the history of literature at NYU, interprets his own life with the help of the Sufi poets, Aristotle, Descartes and Freud. Drawing parables from daily experience (a golf match, a Halloween party, a mouse eating a grain), Carse gently prods us to see beyond the obvious in the world and in our lives. In so doing, he brings the profound within the grasp of everyone. The engaging and insightful stories reconsidered here also explain why Carse has gained an almost cult-like following on his own campus as well as beyond it. (Aug.)