Taking a stab at City of Glass (having read no commentary): The novel as framework for a life, composed entirely of language, beginning as the writing starts and ending as it ends.

Identity is the result of the distinction from the other and the internalization of the relationship to the other; it arises out of the complex history of "differentiation" in which both the self and the other take part by negotiating their identities in interaction with one another. Hence, as Paul Ricoeur has argued in Oneself as Another, "the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the other" (Ricoeur 1992, 3).

"Unlike the soul represented by Christian theology," writes Foucault, the modern individual "is not born in sin and subject to punishment, but is born rather out of methods of... constraint" (29)... society exercise[s] "a power of normalization" (308)... As a power of normalization, exclusion reigns through all those institutions that we may associate with inclusionary civilization... they all shape "normal" citizens with "normal" knowledge, values, and practices, and thereby either assimilate or eject the "ab-normal" other. The modern self, claims Foucault..., is indirectly constituted through the exclusion of the other (Foucault 1988b, 146).

One way out of the dilemma [in order to enjoy the blessings of God a person had to be a member of a particular tribe, Israel]... was to regard the different religions as only manifestations of the one deity, as was current among learned men and women in the Hellenistic period (Hengel 1974, 261)... As an example of Hick shows, however, if the solution is to work it must operate with an unknowable God, always behind each... concrete cultural and religious manifestation (246-49). The trouble is that an unknowable god is an idle god, exalted so high... (or hidden so deep in the foundations of being) that she must have the tribal deities do all the work that every self-respecting god must do. Believing in a god behind all concrete manifestations amounts therefore to not believing in one: each culture ends up worshiping its own tribal deities... 'enslaved to beings that are by nature not gods.' (Gal. 4:8)

...there is no genuinely Christian way around the scandal [of the Cross]

A good way to make the same point about the centrality of self-donation would be to look at the two fundamental rituals of the church as described in the New Testament: baptism... and the Lord's Supper... Baptism is an identification with the death of Christ (Romans 6:3)... At the Lord's supper Christians remember the One who gave his body "for them" so that they would be shaped in his image (1 Corinthians 11:21, 24)

Baptism, Communion -- figures of the Cross, the death of self in service of the Other

How central is... the theme of divine self-donation for sinful humanity and human self-giving for one another? In The Real Jesus Luke Timothy Johnson has argued that the canonical Gospels "are remarkably consistent on one essential aspect of the identity and mission of Jesus." He continues:

"Their fundamental focus is not on Jesus' wondrous deeds nor on his wise words. Their shared focus is on the character of his life and death. They all reveal the same patterns of radical obedience to God and selfless love toward other people. All four Gospels also agree that discipleship is to follow the same messianic pattern. They do not emphasize the performance of certain deeds or the learning of certain doctrines. They insist on living according to the same pattern of life and death shown by Jesus." (Johnson 1996, 157f.)

The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.

People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations.