Iron Filings or Scribblings

To introduce her book, Eva Brann calls up the image of Iron Filings as they “settle themselves along the lines of force that form a field of influence around a bar magnet that has itself been allowed to settle itself in its natural direction. The whole configuration makes, by nature’s wit, a suggestive figure for the thinking mind—at least of a cross-section in its life.” These essays range from Ms. Brann’s thoughts “Of God,” “Of Novels," “Of Booklessness,” to, well, a surprising diversity of topics, the final one, fittingly “Of Endings.” Eva Brann thinks a thought and then thinks a thought at the other end of the pole of the first thought—hence the display of thought like iron filings around two ends of a magnet.