Coming into being cover

Coming into being

by William Irwin Thompson

In his best-selling The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, William Irwin Thompson intrigued readers with his thoughts on mythology and sexuality. In his newest book, Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness, he takes the reader on a journey from the preverbal communications of early stone carvings to the writings of Marcel Proust and around the monumental wrappings of Christo to the rebirth of interest in the Taoist philosophy of Lao Tsu. Owing as much to the rhythmic constructions of jazz as to established methods of scholarship, Thompson riffs on biology and culture, seeing the birth of the mind in Proust's madeleine, the displacement of humanity in Christo's wrappings of the Reichstag, and the path forward into a new planetary culture in the Tao Te Ching. In Coming into Being, William Irwin Thompson presents a fascinating vision of our past, our present, and our future that no one will want to miss.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?