Pascal's Pensees (Thoughts) and Provinciales (Provincial Letters) are both quite readable and enjoyable to entry level readers with no familiarity with their background or setting, although the Pensees cannot help but spur interest in both the uniqueness of Pascal and the commonalities with his age. Pascal's short epigrams are quoted constantly from the pulpit and his witty, pithy bon mots are oft cited to spice up otherwise staid essays. However, the fact that Pascal wrote in French always leaves one wondering how much got across in the English translations. The words perhaps, the ideas, likely, but the sense and sensibility?Natoli is at home here. Four of these essays were originally published in French, and some of the syntax seems to me reflective of this. The writing in this book therefore seems surprising (as English seldom does), as does Pascal's in the Pensees, which makes it a delight to read. That said, this is more a textbook than an entry level discussion. One very helpful aspect is that the author translates nearly all of the French quotes into English, with the exception of a few footnotes.Natoli is also the author of Nietzsche and Pascal on Christianity, and many places he seems to come down closer to the former than the latter, particularly in the conclusion, "Watchman, What of the Night?" Next to Alban Krailsheimer's slim "Pascal", Natoli has given me the best sense of the millieu of the Provincial Letters. But I was most intrigued when he turned to the Pensees, a perennial favorite.In "Proof in the Pensees" he asks what constitutes a "proof" in Pascal, of interest because the Pensees, left as unfinished fragments, was meant as the core of an apologetical work for Christianity. He comes up with some witty sentences himself, such as "There are, I think, reasons for posing this question aside from a pedantic urge to ask any question that can be asked." Elsewhere, however, he does seem to be asking any question that can be asked, not surprising, as Pascal criticism has become almost a French cottage industry.The many classical quotes from such authors as Seneca greatly enliven the text, but it's not always obvious if Pascal can be so compared, given the immense difference in the two eras. The effect is undeniably inspiring, however, and I'd like to read more of that sort of thing if Natoli feels so inclined to write. Here the author is very much comparing philosophers, as with Nietzsche and Pascal.In Pascal's famous "night of fire" however, he embraced "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus Christ," and specifically "not the God of the philosophers. This is why, I think, many readers can pick up the Pensees and connect with Pascal. Natoli's here is very much the God of the philosophers, and thus, as a philosopher, he has trouble with the unknown (hidden) God of Pascal. I find the same thing in George Steiner's In Bluebeard's Castle, a dazzling work I read and reread. In the end he says, effectively, the modern situation looks like nothing more than the schrapnel from the Fall, and there does seem to be human evil or sin, but since that can't be it, we must look elsewhere.Natoli also comes back to the Fall and its mythic power. "The story of the one God, the Fall, and the Messiah is arguably, as proclaimed by no less an authority than the cinema, the Greatest Story Ever Told." Read the first page of his "Afterword" and stop there, and you will have Pascal's answer, and not the answer of the philosophers.