Reviews of Books: Miguel De Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life
Was man made to study science, or was science made to study man? To Unamuno science was secondary to man’s destiny, which is to live well. In line with Aristotle, Unamuno believed that the ultimate goal of man in this world was to be happy-and happiness is to be virtuous.
In my moments when life beats me up and suffer unexpected reverses, I’m filled with doubt, fear, dread-existential angst. Reading portions of Miguel de Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life restores my faith. Faith and reason you’ll find in this book; also an insight into the man of flesh and bone and his immortality. These are the themes Unamuno discusses with the ardent -fanatical I’d say- hunger for God.
Becoming a writer, Unamuno also publishes several novels which dealt with existential themes: Mist and San Manuel Bueno, have been translated into English. But in many reviews of books, the Tragic Sense of Life is the one book that has been most reviewed and studied.
Heavy thinkers such as Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, and Descartes, Unamuno dismisses with stern righteousness. Little value does he place in knowledge –gnosis, rationality– attacking Descartes’ arrogance as well as Spinoza’s atheism. Wither knowledge? Unamuno asks: and he always comes up to the same answer, that though man create sciences, in the end all he’ll hand back to God is a catalogue the universe.
Dostoevsky created the Underground Man, an irrational, irreverent, disdainful character, who sees that man’s suffering, is the sole cause of consciousness. Unamuno, like Dostoevsky and other Christian existentialists see that life is brief and the universe infinite
Exalting passion and suffering over reason, truth, and beauty, Unamuno tries to make us understand that this world is but a prelude to the ideal world of eternity where one returns to God.
Lesser writers such as Lucretius, John Stuart Mill, Freud, Karl Marx, Jean Paul Sartre, and other atheists never felt the meaning of the word suffering. Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, came close to understanding it when he said that religion comes about because of the human desire to escape death (The Future of an Illusion). That is partially correct. The ultimate truth is that men are the only beings that go through life knowing that death is a certainty-hence the lifetime of suffering.
Those who are wise accept that certainty and find consolation in death as a return to God. Those who are knowledgeable seek more knowledge instead of acceptance and live to die alone; and what can be sadder than the utter desolation of a godless man? What can be sadder than the solitude of writers such as Ayn Rand and Christopher Hitchens? Ayn Rand would like you to teach your children her godless doctrines, and say at their deathbeds: When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is. And Christopher Hitchens, who is at present battling can, will unlike most believers who’d want to meet their maker, he will meet Big Bang.
Fortunately for mankind, less than 1 percent of humanity professes to be atheists. And most of them recant at their deathbed-to wit: the famed Voltaire.
Among the men of flesh and bone -the suffering ones- there have been typical examples of those who possess this tragic sense of life. I recall now Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, Pascal, Rousseau . . . Kierkegaardmen burdened with wisdom rather than with erudite knowledge.
There are some fine translations of The Tragic Sense of Life, but I recommend J. E. Crawford Flitch’s who has taken the trouble to add his own endnotes. Believers as well as unbelievers could well profit from Unamuno’s book.
After such shoddy fiction as the DaVinci Code, and false TV Documentaries (The Tomb of Jesus), I find solace, wisdom, respect for God, and much joy as I read several pages of this beloved book–The Tragic Sense of Life. Read a few pages at a time, for some Unamuno’s teachings need to be digested slowly and revisited throughout a lifetime.
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