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Richard Rodriguez. Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography. New York. Viking. 2013. isbn 978- 0670025305
Good essayists make us reflect on the world that we presume to know. Their ideas, often controversial, remind us that life is full of mystery, wonder, and change. Like the great essayists Octavio Paz and Edward Said, Rich- ard Rodriguez writes from a perspec- tive that is simultaneously grounded in place but with a worldly sense of history. Darling: A Spiritual Auto- biography, Rodriguez's fourth book, examines the connection between the Abrahamic desert religions and post-9/11 religious thought and the related "desertification" of society.
The opening chapter, "Ojalá," teaches us that the Moors and Allah-the Muslim interpretation of the same God that Christians and Jews worship-are not far removed from the Spanish memory and bloodline and, subsequently,...