So there’s this “book meme” floating around…

Apparently, you’re supposed to

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

What’s amusing about that is the only book within reach of my computer right now doesn’t even belong to me; it’s a copy of The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels, a history of Gnosticism.

The fifth sentence on page 123 reads, “For gnostics, exploring the psyche became explicitly what it is for many people today implicitly–a religious quest.”

In the view of one particular sect of Gnostics, the “Valentinians,” human beings are on the top of the divine pecking order, because human beings create the language of theology, and religious expression, without which the will of God can’t be known. Which is kind of an interesting way to look at religion, when it comes right down to it, though I somehow suspect exactly the same moral lesson could probably be drawn had the book closest to hand been one of the Calvin & Hobbes anthologies we have kicking around the place.

10 thoughts on “So there’s this “book meme” floating around…

  1. Whatever was closest was Quentin Crisp’s “Manners from Heaven” which I picked up recently in a second hand bookshop.

    It’s actually quite a handy little book and I’ll probably be recommending it to people with the caveat that if one has strong views on how queers n’ trannies should get ahead in the world one might end up flinging it across the room.

  2. Whatever was closest was Quentin Crisp’s “Manners from Heaven” which I picked up recently in a second hand bookshop.

    It’s actually quite a handy little book and I’ll probably be recommending it to people with the caveat that if one has strong views on how queers n’ trannies should get ahead in the world one might end up flinging it across the room.

  3. I tried this, but the results were not very meaningful. The fifth sentence (if one takes “sentence” to mean a line of text if there is no regular grammatical structure) of page 123 of the nearest book is as follows:

    }

    I won’t spoil the fun by either naming the book or including the next three sentences. But the previous line is:

    s/@f1(\(.*\n[^)]*\))/\\fB\1\\fR/g

  4. I tried this, but the results were not very meaningful. The fifth sentence (if one takes “sentence” to mean a line of text if there is no regular grammatical structure) of page 123 of the nearest book is as follows:

    }

    I won’t spoil the fun by either naming the book or including the next three sentences. But the previous line is:

    s/@f1(\(.*\n[^)]*\))/\\fB\1\\fR/g

  5. LOL!

    Okay, I’m currently leaning against ‘s bookshelf. So, to avoid biasing the result, I reached behind me and grabbed the first book I touched. Ironically, this books pages are not numbered. So, I decided to pick again. Here is the result:

    … These competitions, however, in a sense do her honor,” Dalden said, and was suddenly shaking his head in bemusement. “I knew my father had planned to do this, yet did I honestly believe my mother would not allow it.”

    “Of what do you speak?” Jadell asked.

    And from Falcon: “What say can your mother have in such matters?”

    “You would be surprised,” Dalden said ruefully, “But these are not normal competitions…

    I’ve never read this book, but it did pique my curiosity enough to read a little further. 😉

  6. LOL!

    Okay, I’m currently leaning against ‘s bookshelf. So, to avoid biasing the result, I reached behind me and grabbed the first book I touched. Ironically, this books pages are not numbered. So, I decided to pick again. Here is the result:

    … These competitions, however, in a sense do her honor,” Dalden said, and was suddenly shaking his head in bemusement. “I knew my father had planned to do this, yet did I honestly believe my mother would not allow it.”

    “Of what do you speak?” Jadell asked.

    And from Falcon: “What say can your mother have in such matters?”

    “You would be surprised,” Dalden said ruefully, “But these are not normal competitions…

    I’ve never read this book, but it did pique my curiosity enough to read a little further. 😉

  7. today mine says “What luck! I was spatially above them and should be quite visible on their sensors. I flipped the Ocelot, ostensibly heading back the way I had come.” Tomorrow, however, these same rules will produce a different set of quotes. Or even later today, as I have several books in different locations, all of which I am concurrently reading – this one just happened to be closest right now.

    ~S

  8. today mine says “What luck! I was spatially above them and should be quite visible on their sensors. I flipped the Ocelot, ostensibly heading back the way I had come.” Tomorrow, however, these same rules will produce a different set of quotes. Or even later today, as I have several books in different locations, all of which I am concurrently reading – this one just happened to be closest right now.

    ~S

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