36 Arguments for the Existence of God (Goldstein) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
A big, ambitious novel that is nominally about God, although it unfolds on an extremely earthly plane. Overcomplicated yet dazzling, sparked by frequent flashes of nonchalant brilliance, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God affirms Ms. Goldstein's rare ability to explore the quotidian and the cosmological with equal ease...the pleasures to be found in 36 Arguments for the Existence of God are scattershot. But there are a great many of them, and this novel's bracing intellectual energy never flags. Though it is finally more a work of showmanship than scholarship, it affirms Ms. Goldstein's position as a satirist and a seeker of real moral questions at a time when silly ones prevail.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Amid the multitude of bestselling books by atheists and apologists preaching to their respective choirs, here finally is an answer to prayer and reason: a brainy, compassionate, divinely witty novel by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein called 36 Arguments for the Existence of God.... Goldstein can make Spinoza sing and Godel comprehensible, and in her cerebral fiction she dances across disciplines with delight, writing domestic comedy about Cartesian metaphysics and academic satire about photoelectric energy. 36 Arguments radiates all the humor and erudition we've come to expect from Goldstein.... In the end, the novel's thesis seems awfully close to what Cass preaches: Whether or not God exists, in moments of transcendent happiness we all feel a love beyond ourselves, beyond anything. Goldstein doesn't want to shake your faith or confirm it, but she'll make you a believer in the power of fiction.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


An “atheist with a soul” is in for a lot of soul-searching in MacArthur genius Goldstein's rollicking latest (Mazel). Cass Seltzer, a university professor specializing in “the psychology of religion,” hits the big time with a bestselling book and an offer to teach at Harvard—quite a step up from his current position at Frankfurter University. While waiting for his girlfriend to return from a conference, Cass receives an unexpected visit from Roz Margolis, whom he dated 20 years earlier and who looks as good now as she ever did. Her secret: dedicating her substantial smarts to unlocking the secrets of immortality. Cass's recent success and Roz's sudden appearance send him into contemplation of the tumultuous events of his past, involving his former mentor, his failed first marriage and a young mathematical prodigy whose talent may go unrealized, culminating in a standing-room-only debate with a formidable opponent where Cass must reconcile his new, unfamiliar life with his experience of himself. Irreverent and witty, Goldstein seamlessly weaves philosophy into this lively and colorful chronicle of intellectual and emotional struggles.
Publishers Weekly


Goldstein is entrancing and unfailingly affectionate toward her brilliant yet bumbling seekers in this elegant yet uproarious novel about the darkness of isolation and the light of learning, the beauty of numbers and the chaos of emotions, the “longing for spiritual purity” and love in all its wildness. —Donna Seamen
Booklist


Madcap novel of ideas, careening between the hilarious and the ponderous. Goldstein (Betraying Spinoza, 2009, etc.), whose fiction and biographies alike reflect her background in philosophy, has certainly chosen a timely topic. Protagonist Cass Seltzer soared from academic obscurity to bestselling renown with The Varieties of Religious Illusion, in which he attempts to refute every basis for belief in God without belittling those who accept them, thus distinguishing himself in the contemporary debate over faith and reason as "the atheist with a soul." For the prior two decades, Cass had "all but owned the psychology of religion, but only because nobody else wanted it." His book's success brings him a write-your-own-ticket offer from Harvard and an even greater reward: the love of the beautiful, formidably intelligent Lucinda Mandelbaum, whose work in the field of game theory he can barely understand. His success also brings him the enmity of his mentor, Jonas Elijah Klapper, who might be a genius but is definitely a messianic crackpot. "The Klap" kept another protege from receiving his doctorate for more than 13 years and once proposed that Seltzer switch his dissertation topic to "the hermeneutics of the potato kugel." Within the novel, intellectual slapstick collides with romantic farce, as the lovesick professor discovers that "romantic infatuation can be a form of religious delusion, too." It builds to a public debate over God's existence that isn't going to make anyone forget Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor and concludes with the titular "36 arguments" that Seltzer's book refutes, filled with such hair-splitting redundancy that one suspects his was one of those bestsellers boughtin great numbers by people who never actually got around to reading it. Always smart and intermittently very funny, but the shifts in tone, leaps in chronology and changes of focus can induce whiplash.
Kirkus Reviews