I dock a star not for the essays themselves, but for the choice, most particularly the choice to have 143 pages of cold-war style damn-them-commies pieces at the start of the book. Now, I'm no friend of Soviet Eastern Europe, and I'm glad K spoke out against it, and that he did so far more intelligently than many other commentators. His short piece "What is Socialism?" is wonderful, as is his 'letter' to E. P. Thompson. But that was by far the least interesting part of the book. By far the best is the middle section on religious themes, including the title essay. The third section, mostly how-we-live-now philosophical reflections, is solid, but some of the pieces seem a little too pat; the most obvious example being his piece on natural law, which says the concept is a useful one for limiting positive law, makes a good case that natural law has been abused in the past (my natural law favors me; yours favors you; can they both be natural?)... but then says natural law invalidates legislation that isn't the kind of legislation liberals want. So, natural law wasn't natural in the middle ages? Or was it something else? Hard to tell.

But K's essays are always worth reading, because he's one of the few actually dialectical thinkers who can write for a broad audience. He mocks Leninist 'dialectics' as relativism power, which is fair and right; K's dialectics is of a different order: "Strong beliefs easily breed fanaticism; scepticism, or the lack of beliefs, easily breeds mental and moral paralysis." And since there is no middle way, we just have to be on guard against both problems. ( )

Without too much academic jargon, but still challenging at times, I found these essays to be enjoyable and thought-provoking. ( )

The apparent impopularity of this author, Leszek Kołakowski and this work, Is God Happy? Selected essays is probably symptomatic for our time, and wholly unjustified, even unwise as Kołakowski argues.

Leszek Kołakowski (1927 -2009) was born in Poland, where he worked until 1968, when his ideas about communism jarred with the Polish state political ideology. In the same year, he moved to the United States, to continue his academic career, and further develop his ideas about communism, which resulted in the 3-volume standard work on the topic, Main Currents of Marxism. After 1968, Kołakowski became increasingly interested in religion.

Published in Penguin's Modern Classics series, Is God Happy? Selected essays is perhaps the most easily available volume of essays by Leszek Kołakowski, but not the most representative. The volume collects essays in two topic areas, the first part being devoted to essays about communism and the second part, essays about religion.

The essays about communism are mostly relatively short. It should be noted that they are more about communism than about Marxism, and that the essays particularly address the communism of former Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. The essays are easy to read, and spiked with trite humor of the kind widespread among sceptic communists at the time in East European countries. Many essays address the negative side of communism as it existed in Poland before 1990. However, Kołakowski argues that current disinterest in Marxism and communism is unjustified, even unwise. Firstly, he postulates that essentially the Twentieth Century, particularly the period between 1915 - 1990 cannot really be well understood without a firm knowledge of Marxism, as politics in this period were both directly and indirectly influenced by this political ideology. The author argues that particularly scholars, but likely also general readers ought to invest more time into reading about the basic principles of Marxism, and the way communism developed and existed in various forms during the Twentieth Century. Furthermore, Kołakowski writes that it is likely that Marxism may make a come-back. While it seems that as an ideology is has completely lost appeal to people in the West, the author argues that Marxism was a very potent ideology for more than 100 years, inspiring millions of people. The appeal of Marxism did not only exist in those countries where Marxism in the form of communism became the state ideology. Marxism also inspired millions of academics and other people in democracies all over the world as a mode of thought which could contribute to make a better world if not realize an utopia. Kołakowski argues that as such, Marxism may make a come-back during the course of the Twenty-First Century.

The second part of the volume is dedicated to essays about religion. Many of these essays describe religious experience from a very personal point of view, while some essays are very deep into various aspects of religion, such as the question whether God exists. These essays are meditations on various existential questions and the nature of belief. Some of the essays are long, and difficult to understand, coming close to expressing a mystic form of belief.

It is perhaps symptomatic for our time that few readers are interested in either communism or religion. Nonetheless, it should be realized that they have been fundamental pillars of modern Western society and thought, religion for hundreds of years, and Marxism for more than 100 years. Their appeal has only dwindled since the early 1990s, and as current politics do not seem to have answers to people's and modern society's problems, it is likely that at some stage people will return to one of these systems of thought and ideology. Although a re-emergent form of Marxism or Christian religion is likely to appear in altered form, incoprporating new ideas and adaptations to appeal to young people, it is more likely that at some stage people return to either Marxism or religion, than the emergence of an entirely new ideology. Re-emergent forms of religion and Marxism will be rooted in the older forms, and therefore these origins and the eternal values they address should be studied.

The essays in Leszek Kołakowski Is God Happy? Selected essays are easily accessible and available, but perhaps not the most representative of the full body of the author's work. For instance, while the essays about communism describe the failed communism in Poland, they do not give a good impression of Kołakowski's thought on Marxism. As a philosopher, the author is not just criticizing a failed experiment. The essays do not address the author's ideas about a possible alternative interpretation of Marx in the form of Humanist interpretation of Marx. Likewise, the essays about religion focus too much on a personal experience of the Christian faith, while Kołakowski's broader interest in philosophy and metaphysics does not become apparent.

Still, since interest among modern readers in these two areas is at a historic low, Is God Happy? Selected essays is perhaps a good introduction into the work of Leszek Kołakowski and thought in these areas, spurring interested readers on to exploring other works by this underappreciated author. ( )

The first section of these essays, on Marxism, is absolutely top drawer, really superb. I studied a lot of Marxist and Left Wing thought at university and have pretty much avoided it since, but this really whetted my appetite to get back into it. His three-volume work on Marxism gets major plaudits and I'll be picking that up.

The rest of the essays, on a variety of issues mostly centred around religion (including a marvellous put-down of Pascal), were also very good, he's incredibly sharp. All in all, excellent. ( )