Human Nature by David Berlinski

Berlinski's prose style is not for everyone; some would find it overwrought, but I like it. I have noticed after reading most all his works that he has a habit of sentences bifurcated in an almost dialectic manner, with hints of rabbinical or perhaps Jesuitical reasoning. The book is a series of essays, only two or three directly relating to human nature, the rest of course relating by having a human source, thus serving as exhibits. The passages on essentialism are thought-provoking and valuable. His occasional sexual, provocative excursions are relevant, it seems, only due to the title of the book, and as exhibits of urbanity. His comments on the Notre Dame fire are moving and almost, we hesitate to say, spiritual. More recently he seems more agnostic than atheist, though he seems unable to leave his cynicism aside.