Ruminations on the Ontology of Morality : an Academic Novel

By Sills, Steven, David

Book Id: WPLBN0003468502
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
File Size: 765.32 KB
Reproduction Date: 1/3/2015

Title:	Ruminations on the Ontology of Morality : an Academic Novel
Author:	Sills, Steven, David
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Philosophy, philosophical novel
Collections:	Literature, Ontology, Philosophy, Authors Community, Cultural Studies, Military Science, Religion, Education, Naval Science, Most Popular Books in China, Law, Language, Political Science
Historic Publication Date:	2015
Publisher:	Createspace

Member Page:	Steven Sills
Citation APA MLA Chicago Sills, S. D. (2015). Ruminations on the Ontology of Morality : an Academic Novel. Retrieved from http://self.gutenberg.org/

Description
This is the philosophical novel that was my Master's degree thesis

Summary
This is a philosophical novel that was my Master's degree thesis. A philosophy instructor in Bangkok Thailand upon his wife's death ruminates on the ontology of morality while high on drugs and through the delusion of his churlish muse, his deceased wife reincarnated as a gecko

Excerpt
Steven, you should DEFINITELY continue to give your life to . . . literary novels (notice I omitted “obscure”). What you have produced is a phenomenal work. Others, in the past, have attempted to do something like you have done, but they did not come close to creating a work with such breadth and depth as you. I apologize for taking so very long to complete the reading of your work, but it is very densely written in some sections, while others seem to be as lucid as anything I have ever read. Your vocabulary probably exceeds my own (“fulgurant”), for which I am thankful, as I always enjoy being taught the existence of words I have not yet incorporated into my own lexicon. The most successful parts of your work—for me—were the interactions between Luk, Aus, and the central character, as those passages moved the story along. I think using the unrest and waging of police action in Bangkok sets up the intellectual discontent in the rest of the novel, but I would wish for a more balanced unfolding of the story with the intellectual ruminations. The least successful passages for me were sometimes extremely lengthy sentences—see the first page of Chapter 20, for example—which contained so many parenthetical expressions that I would lose the train of thought. But, on the whole, you have included all of the needed requirements of the Graduate School, and you have included, it seems, allusions to all of the major texts of the whole program, including some of your own choice that I would love to see taught (or maybe not) in our program: Look Homeward Angel, The Way of All Flesh, Donne’s poetry, Gorky’s My Childhood, and the work of Thomas Hardy, Ibsen, O’Neill, and Will Durant and that of John Dos Passos, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in 1969 (I still have an autographed copy of his Midcentury), not to mention, of course, the philosophers. I am not sure you needed to include the annotated Works Cited in your Literature Review, but I have left it in, all the same. I do not think you needed to include the review of your American Papyrus, but I have also left that in. What I would like you to do is to change the Roman numerals in your end notes to Arabic numbers, and to put the list of Works Consulted below the end notes, and send it back to me. I see at the end of the review of American Papyrus that you studied in Springfield, Missouri, just up the road from Neosho, where I spent six years teaching in the high school. I haunted the used book stores in Springfield during my tenure there, from 1979 through 1984. I am a product of what was then called Central Missouri State in Warrensburg, though I had many friends and students in Springfield, too. So . . . congratulations on completing your major task for the program. I will be posting final grades shortly. Let me know if you have questions or comments. Thanks, Everett E. Corum, Ph.D. | Director of Humanities, Philosophy, Religion and World Languages Programs American Public University System American Military University | American Public University 111 W. Congress Street, Charles Town, WV 25414 304-885-5220 (voicemail) | ecorum@apus.edu