Where For Art Thou, Storyline?

While Augustine's "Confessions" addressed his life in chronological order, it was still missing a certain "je ne sais quoi". As simplistic as this book was, I had trouble following a continued thought. In other words, there was no storyline! There was no way for Jacob's mind to connect to Augustine's. He could have at least thrown in an explosion or something! However, I digress.

(Note: That's the first time I've ever used the word digress correctly.)



A lack of storyline would stop most procrastinating college students, but not me! It was still fairly comprehensible, even without a solid plot. Augustine was sinning and he was doing it a lot, just like any normal human being. Throughout the story, Augustine is placed in various situations in which he much choose to work for the Lord or for himself. It's a classic setup. Augustine makes sure to scrap down a few warnings to his audience also, exclaiming that they could find themselves on hard times if they don't trust and follow God wholeheartedly. He was a smart man. The end of the book is devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. It's sort of his way of telling everyone to seek out the truth, instead of just listening to everyone around you. The God to singular man relationship is emphasized heavily in "Confessions", which is odd coming from a Catholic. It's easy to relate to Augustine. He thinks about lying, cheating, and sex just as much as the rest of us. He's baring his soul. Then again, some could argue that "Mein Kampf" is easy to relate to. Let's not go there.



Augustine showed the world that, without God, the pursuit of contentment is a wasted effort. People of the day needed to know that this still rang true. When the world labels the Bible "irrelevant to the times", people need a new example to shock sense back into them. This was the example they needed. They had to watch a man come apart over hundreds of pages. Keep in mind, this was only about three-hundred and fifty years after Christ died. It's hard to imagine what sort of literature it would take to make today's world stop and think like "Confessions" did.