A light fog gives the streets around the imposing 19th-century basilica an eerie feeling, but the fenced-off pavilions and shops selling religious curios hint that this area isn't always so empty.
Yet he never clarifies or explains these religious and philosophical hints — not in this book, nor in any of his other writings translated into English, nor in his interviews.
Although the 17th-century French religious philosopher Pascal hinted that "the ego is hateful," the author's presence is still strongly felt.
When, on Friday night, the sublime Gamelan Dharma Swara ensemble played seated, much of the crowd sat in a circle around it, and the feeling was straight-up religious, without a hint of irony.
Mr. Franks may also seek to generate financial support from the religious right; a hint in that direction came last week when he attacked Mr. Corzine for not supporting a Constitutional amendment outlawing flag-burning.
That confrontation on the Sept demonstrated Cersei's poor forward planning: she has just armed a group of crazed religious fanatics while hinting that there's all manner of sin lurking amid the King's Landing aristocracy, then she engineers a position in which her son is sent out to the city where he is branded an abomination by the watching crowd.
Green played the clumsy district attorney in a bad court-room melodrama, accusing him of concealing his religious identity and hinting at sinister intrigue.
That cool flash of hot metal was a recurring theme, neatly done by Richard Nicoll as silvered finishes illuminating sportswear or gliding over the surface of suits while Meadham Kirchhoff inserted hints of religious embroidery in a collection otherwise focused on a set of garbage bags.
This not only applies at the much simpler operational and field level – where, for example, anything that even hints at religious expression and practice is studiously shunned by secular aid programmes – but even more so to the far more complex issues surrounding progress, development and the meaning of civilisation.
At the same time, her "lover and partner" was diagnosed with heart disease and underwent some procedures that made her fear that she "would be bereft of his physical presence," a gingerly phrasing that hints at religious belief: "I tried to remind myself of the illusory nature of the world and my conviction that death is a transition, not an end, to discipline my fears".
