"As iron filings configure themselves around a magnet, so these essays display Eva Branns form of oppositional, or polar, thinking. 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 natures wit, a suggestive figure for the thinking mindat least of a cross-section in its life."" So these essays range from Ms. Branns thoughts ""Of God,"" ""Of Novels,"" ""Of Booklessness,"" to, well, a surprising diversity of topics which comes, unsurprisingly to completion with an essay ""Of Endings."" Eva Brann thinks a thought and then thinks a thought somewhat on the other side of the first thoughthence the display of thought like iron filings around two ends of a magnet.