I enjoyed the collagic, sprawling style employed here, asking not of the reader their full, unbroken attention, but only that which is spontaneously allocated.
Some striking passages:
On a tour through Japan the year before his death (during which Coltrane visited Buddhist temples and war memorials in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and wondered who the famous dignitary or movie star on board the airplane might be as he debarked to meet the banners and cheering throngs), the jazz artist was interviewed. Asked about his religion, he responded with wisdom, insight, and tact:
“I am [Christian] by birth; my parents were and my early teachings were Christian. But as I look upon the world, I feel all men know the truth. If a man was a Christian, he could know the truth and he could not. The truth itself does not have any name on it. And each man has to find it for himself.”
**
... A Hebraic reverie, then, upon good and evil? Really, I intend no such thing. Rather, intimations of conscience and character that are uniquely my own and for which no race, creed, or religion need take responsibility beyond normative insights and limits. A collage of sorts the contours of which will, I hope, become clearer over time. Moving beyond the neatness of theory (philosophical/theological/professional abstraction), we confront our very selves. For May and Kieslowski, such self-examination is always the bottom line. Is there a better way to inquire into inmost things?