A reader writes at 4 am this morning:
Yes, it’s the middle of the night and I should be sleeping, but I just finished your book and felt obliged to write (as a graduate student this is not that out of the ordinary for me).
Here, I think, is what many reviewers have missed. To read The Conservative Soul as a polemic, as a critique, as the musings of a man angered by what is happening only gets at a part – a small part – of what I saw in your book. To question the viability of what you wrote as a political project or as a set of doctrines is stupid. Beneath the political commentary was a discourse on a way of life, the essence of which was arrived at only through much struggle. Those who read your book "politically" – with an eye only to its ability to foster a political program – only betray their own lack of a conservative disposition, their inability to step back and wonder at this world, the mystery of our lives, and the truly important things such as friendship, love, and our relationship to God.
I too prefer present laughter to utopian bliss, and so perhaps most of all you should know your book helped me crack a smile as I continue to make my way through this world of pain and sorrow, joy and mystery.
The Dish 