“I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”
C.S. Lewis - Introduction to "On the Incarnation" by St. Athanasius
11.02.08
Posted in Literature, Uncategorized at 5:40 pm by Adam B.
It has been a few years since I read Ender’s Game and I thought I would give the series another chance. I didn’t really enjoy Ender’s Game but I was desperate for some new friend-recommended books that I could get my hands on without going to a library. This was the first to come across my desk.
For those who don’t know, Ender’s Shadow is about a character in Ender’s Game named Bean. This book tells the same story as Ender’s Game, just from Bean’s perspective.
I loved it!
The psychological journey of Ender was not so impressive to me, but Bean held me captive from the very start. Every character in this book was not only believable but sincerely cared for by Card. He knew them well and gave them ample opportunity to explore their personalities. Besides Bean, my favorite character was a nun that floated in and out of the story. Instead of using her as an opportunity to show some dark underbelly to the Catholic church Card wrote a beautiful character that was sincere in her faith and love for others while being savvy enough to function in the real world. Rarely have I seen such grace displayed in modern writing when dealing with a Christian character. All too often Christians are either two faced or idiots (or both), not real characters but a caricature of some Christians’ worst and most misunderstood qualities.
Bean’s personal journey from being defensive and self-centered to genuine trust and affection was brilliantly accomplished. I appreciated how he was misunderstood by those he cared for but was powerless to change their opinion of him. He was both great and incomplete in his heroism, for in the end he was never able to connect with people the way Ender always could. If I remember right, I didn’t care for Ender because he had an emotional insight into people that I found frustrating as a reader. Bean, who was also insightful but on a more intellectual plane, was more acceptable to my sensibilities.
It is hard to tell if I enjoyed this book more simply because I identified with the main character more, or because Card had really developed as a writer. I may need to go back and reread Ender’s Game to find out.
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11.20.07
Posted in Literature at 5:39 pm by Adam B.
So, the other day I am talking to a friend about how frustrating it is that I can’t get my hands on the books I want to read. I’m like, “they should make it as easy to get a book as it is to rent videos. You know, I just go down to the local video store and give them a buck or two and I have a movie for a whole week.” Then I started to expound on this awesome idea I had about setting up an online community book swapping thing.
He was unimpressed. “Why don’t you just go to the public library?”
Now, you will have to excuse me for the moment, but I was not at all familiar with this word “library”. Unfortunately, the only thing “public” that came to mind was restrooms, so I thought my friend was making a crude reference to the “literature” that graces the walls of such locals. After we sorted through the misunderstanding he informed me that a library is a place where you can read books without buying them. I was intrigued.
I did a search for “librarys in Portland Oregon” and it turns out there is a public library as close to my house as the local video store. Fancy that. I decided to visit it this afternoon. Like the video store they asked me for my personal information and ID and issued me a rental card. I quickly found the books I wanted and went to the register. (The Phantom Tollbooth was all checked out. Typical.) As the woman scanned the books I handed her my library card and thumbed through my wallet for some cash. When I handed her a five she said, “No sir, we don’t need that. This is a library.”
“Oh, sorry. This is my first time. Do I pay when I bring them back?” I asked.
She gave a wry smile, “That’s not how it works. You don’t have to pay anything.”
I returned her wry grin, “Okay, what’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch, sir, as long as you bring them back before their due date-”
“Ah ha! What? Outrageous fees? Is that how you get us?” I said pointing my finger at her and standing very tall.
“If you bring the book back late it is 10 cents a day. Are you finished?” She seemed suddenly impatient.
“Yeah… uh, thanks.” I was dumbfounded. What a crappy business model. How do they make any money at all? Well, I guess I shouldn’t look a gift book in the binding. Either way, you will all be happy to know I have found the local “library” today and I start reading your recommended books.
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10.26.07
Posted in Literature at 10:54 am by Adam B.
So I started reading Dune two weeks ago. I had to stop… almost immediately. If there are 5 things I hate about literature this book does them all. I hate that the main character is supposed to have super intuitive powers. I hate that everything is given a kookie alienish name. I hate that I have no clue what is going on, and every page only makes things worse.
After my first failed attempt to enjoy this book I put it down for two weeks. I tried again last night. It only added more fuel to the fire. So far the only thing I have enjoyed is his description of the fat baron. Now I want to read this book, I want to enjoy it, honestly, but he’s got to give me something. So please, if you have read this book, give me a reason to give it one more try. I am starting to think I hate science fiction. Maybe I should try Jurassic Park instead.
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08.28.07
Posted in Literature at 10:43 am by Adam B.
If there is anything I hate in literature more than poor writing it is lengthy description. Its not that I’m some action whore and cannot wait for things to get moving, it is more that I have a difficult time picturing what authors are describing so description becomes cumbersome to my mind. I started to read a fantasy book by Terry Brooks in middle school. The book was large and the print was small. In the first two pages the author described a room, specifically a desk in a room. That was enough for me. I have been gun shy against him ever since.
While I hate description in general I love description of persons. So far the only two authors to blow me away in this category are women, Jane Austin and now Harriet Beecher Stowe. Despite the weighty material in Uncle Tom’s Cabin I often find myself laughing out loud and how perfectly she describes people, their motives, looks and idiosyncrasies. Especially satisfying are her conversations between men and women. Even the best husband (that I have read so far) has no clue how to understand his wife. While there is no mistaking her intelligence and sophistication the man cannot comprehend it, so he tries to accommodate his weaker and more emotional half in many ways, but each only proves he knows nothing of the fairer sex. Still the wife appreciate the misguided effort and his sincere desire to please her. The conversations between this couple are as subtle as real life, and just as humorous to an outsider looking in at any real live couple. You can sense in Stowe a liberated woman just waiting for the men of her generation to catch up, yet happy in her place in time and existence all the same.
I provide a brief reading here so you can get a feel for what I am talking about. Now, I hate reading quotes and excerpts in other people blogs, so feel free to pass over this and pick up after the italics if you are so inclined.
Now, little Mrs. Bird was a discreet woman, – a woman who never in her life said, “I told you so!” and on the present occasion, though pretty well aware of the shape her husband’s meditations were taking, she very prudently forbore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her chair, and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord’s intentions, when he should think proper to utter them… [he proceeds to announce that he must agree with her and help the slave get to Canada even though he is a senator that just past a law forbidding it]… “Your heart is better than your head in this case, John,” said the wife, laying her little white hand on his. “Could I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?” And the little woman looked so handsome, with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that the senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow, to get such a pretty creature into such a passionate admiration of him.
Every chapter brings new characters and new conversations that delight and inspire me to work harder at my own observations. It is this realism she brings to her work that makes here conclusion inescapable: blacks are just as human as whites. While it almost sounds prejudice to say such a thing in our day it was a shocking conclusion in hers, but inescapable because of her sensitivity to the heart and soul of every person.
If you are averse to reading Austin because she wrote “girly” books, try Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her understanding and appeal to the human heart is unmatched in anything I have read before.
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08.19.07
Posted in Literature at 10:30 pm by Adam B.
I am reading again. (For those friends making suggestions I haven’t forgotten you, I just haven’t been to a library lately.) I have a few books left in my house I still need to read and one of them is Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It is arguably the most influential works by an American writer in the 19th century and was written by a woman who had never written a book before. I have just read a few chapters.
Early on we see a small worship service in the negro’s home on the plantation property. The son of the landowner reads the scripture and they all sing and pray together. A few things about her description of this scene have caught my attention.
1. They use the same Bible some churches still use today, the KJV. This impresses me because the language in the book, even though it was published in the 1850s, is not that different from our own. Surely the KJV was as difficult for them to understand as it is today, but it was all they had. Still, it is incredible to think that I can dust the the exact same book off my shelf that was read and inspired the world so long ago. The slaves and slave owners both read the same book and followed the same Jesus that I follow.
2. They sang some of the same songs we sing today. In their service Stowe describes them singing a song that I believe is On Jordan’s Stormy Bank. This song was recently covered by Jars of Clay on their Songs of Redemption album. I didn’t have to imagine this quaint group singing, I could hear it. It is unreal to me that the same book and the same song they used could be heard in some churches today. From a marketing standpoint that might be repulsive, but historically and culturally it is beautiful.
3. They worship the same as we do today. To hear her describe what went on there you’d think you were in a pentecostal church. This book, written over 50 years before the legendary Azuza street revival that kicked off the pentecostal movement, perfectly captures every practice pentecostals are know for, except speaking in tongues. I have heard it said that Pentecostalism is noting more than negro religion taken up by the white man. I can see why they might say that. From the singing to the praying and the shouting and the enthusiasm, a remarkable parallel.
Stowe is thoroughly descriptive and sensitive to the slave’s plight. The work is gripping because it is real and yet so unbelievable. Her foreshadowing in these first few chapters makes me scared to read on.
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01.08.07
Posted in Literature at 3:55 pm by Adam B.
I read this book on the plane coming home from visiting my family in Michigan. It was the first time that I had read it, although I am told I tried once before and I am sure that I should have read it in High School but didn’t. Of all the books I’ve read lately it was not my favorite, though I can understand its enduring value.
This book was written in 1960 and has some harsh criticisms of racism. The father in the book is a noble lawyer whose feelings about guns rival Macgyver and the narrator is his daughter, although I thought she was a boy until page 32. This book had a habit of tricking me into thinking I was reading about one thing when I was actually reading about something else; not that it was supposed to be that way, I’m sure. I just found myself frequently confused. I read one section three times before I figured out that it was referring to a guy peeing on his front lawn. By the end of the book I was used to the vague style so it hardly bothered me that it never actually said who killed the guy. And yes, I know what really happened… it was aliens.
The children in this work were innocence embodied and racism is a learned madness. In order to cope with the pervasive insanity one must appear insane to be different and yet left alone. This was wonderfully illustrated by the man who drank coca-cola out of a bag so that people would think he was a drunk and not bother him about living with blacks. The father/lawyer in the book was let off the hook by the people (though not completely) because he was a single dad doing the best he could. Time and time again he shows compassion mingled with wisdom and a determination to raise his kids straight in a crooked world. He is the hero who never goes looking for a fight but always finds himself in the middle of the action. If injustice is a white shirt he is the stain of justice that cannot be bleached out.
I have been happy to see that many classic works unashamedly exalt Christian values and even Christ himself, while offering criticisms of Christians in general. This even handed way of dealing with ideal Christianity vs. actual Christianity allows the gospel to be a key player in a novel without overpowering the reader with a three point presentation about sin, faith and the resurrection. In this book, as in many other, the church is a place of both forgiveness and prejudice, of persecution and of love. Such is the balance of law and gospel that we all must maintain. To know the difference between Good and Evil is to be like Adam (and Eve), to offer forgiveness in spite of that knowledge is to be like Christ. While innocence is used to accentuate and illuminate the problem of racism in this book it was not the innocence of children that made the difference but the wisdom of the father. Our only hope is to move from the blissful shores of innocence, through the gates of knowledge and into the twin fields of wisdom and compassion if we hope to be like Christ.
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12.16.06
Posted in Literature at 9:33 am by Adam B.
The Christmas Carol by Dickens was a surprise in many ways. First off, I was surprised it was a book. I knew that Dickens wrote the Christmas Carol, but after so many movies have been done by anyone from the Muppets to Mickey Mouse you begin to think that he originally intended it as a screen play. The second surprise is that it is short. Dickens, it is no secret, is typically long. I expected no less in this work until I pulled it off the shelf in the library. An easy read for an afternoon. The third surprise is that most of the movies (apart from the addition of Gonzo) actually follow the book closely. Its brevity and poignant message lend it nicely to film, especially a film around Christmas when we think more about giving.
I was not surprised, however, that it was an amazing work. I have never read something that was so moving about how we all ignore the poor. In the movies it is too easy to think that Scrooge alone is the miser and we are not so much like him. It may be that I am more mature now then when I last saw a film but this book was very convicting. I am Scrooge in so many inescapable ways. In the book he is perfectly black and then makes a complete transition to being perfectly good. What is scary about that is Dickens is showing how evil the attitudes he had are. He is not a poor writer who cannot draw good characters. The character in this book are simple because the attitudes he is talking about are simple. You are either a Scrooge or not and if you are you need to change, its as simple as that.
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12.08.06
Posted in Literature at 8:46 pm by Adam B.
I had no idea when I started reading “Art of Rhetoric” that I would receive a full education in ethics as well. It seems that Aristotle has a hard time talking about any subject without first saying everything he knows about everything else. Some of his teachings are helpful, though, like the “seven causes” of human action: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, anger and desire (Rhetoric I x. 8 ). You may see this list and feel you can add to it but Aristotle will waste no time demonstrating why your addition is subsumed under his seven, and you will feel quite the fool. Personally I liked the list because modern philosophy (or at least John Piper) has assumed only one cause for behavior, desire. Nonsense.
Aristotle also has a lot of helpful insights about women. In his discussion about noble actions he says, “Virtues and actions are nobler, when they proceed from those who are naturally worthier, for instance, from a man rather than from a woman.” (Rhetoric I ix. 21-22). Harsh.
When Aristotle address the virtues he holds two above the rest, justice and courage (also self-control, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, practical wisdom, speculative wisdom – Rhetoric I ix. 4-6). Courage is not a Christian virtue, per se, but it is understandable among a people who participated frequently in war. Justice is also not a virtue, according to Christians, for the Christian virtues relate to the perfection of the soul. Christians are encouraged to seek justice, but it not considered a virtue in the proper sense. In Aristotle, justice, just as all the virtues, is seen as good in its own right, and the pursuit of justice is always noble. Aristotle teaches, “To take vengence on one’s enemies is nobler than to come to terms with them; for to retaliate is just, and that which is just is noble.” (Rhetoric I ix 25.). Jesus taught that there is more “nobility” (to use Aristotle’s language) in love. Love as the highest end, when compared to the virtues of Aristotle, takes on new meaning. Any virtue, or any good, that does not work itself out according to the principal of love is no longer noble or good. Of course we are not talking about sweaty palm, heart racing, head swimming love, but the consideration of another person before oneself, even if that person hates you.
Some of Aristotle’s “virtues” are shamed by the Christian ethic. Magnificence, for example, is the virtue of greatness. Anything that is great is virtuous (good in its own right, and always good to pursue) and beauty falls in this category. Beauty is virtuous. According to Scripture beauty is vain, that is, it has no positive affect on the soul. While it is not considered evil it is seen as superfluous as it is not helpful in the pursuit of righteousness.
Thus far I have enjoyed Aristotle’s tangents into all subjects as I wait for his discussion on the art of persuasion, but I am increasingly glad that in these last days we have been taught the true nature of virtue by the Son of its author.
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11.27.06
Posted in Literature at 4:30 pm by Adam B.
Over the weekend I finished Crime and Punishment. This book, when compared to something like Eragon, reveals what I feel to be the major difference between literature and popular fiction. It is not that literature is old, where popular fiction is new. I have read a number of old books that, although still read today, are more like popular fiction than literature; books like Around the World in 80 days or Treasure Island. It also has nothing to do with how widely read a book is. Harry Potter, among other popular works (possibly even Eragon), have been translated into multiple languages and widely read around the world. It is also not the presence of themes or insight. I am sure even smutty romance novels have themes even if they are shallow like: Evil people always die terrible deaths and people with true hearts find true love, or: The man you least expect will have large pecs and will sweep you off your feet.
We also make a mistake if we say the difference between popular fiction and literature is that literature is good and popular fiction is not. While tempting, this is just haughty. Popular fiction can be judged as “good” if it’s popular, for that’s the goal. Literature may or may not be popular in its own day, but works of literature are not judged on whether or not they make the New York Times best sellers list. I will not try to describe what makes good literature because I am just a student.
I think the main difference between literature and popular fiction is that literature is demanding while popular fiction is entertaining. A reader of popular fiction says to the book, “impress me, move me, trick me with that twist of plot.” A book is considered enjoyable based on the experience of the reader. If the book made you laugh, cry, excited then it worked, it was good. The goal is to make the work as accessible and enjoyable to as many people as possible. Tools like subtlety are not just useless in popular fiction but rejected. If a reader misses something it is better left out. Everyone who reads a book of this type should have nearly the same experience, that is, they will understand or “get” everything. If any questions remain at the end of a book it is merely to whet the appetite for a sequel. The same is true of popular non-fiction. It must be understandable to the lowest common denominator or it will not sell. This alone should make any popular work that tries to teach you something suspect. Luckily, popular fiction rarely has anything to teach. If it did it might be too demanding.
In contrast, literature asks a lot from its reader. If nothing else it asks the reader to sit still and keep read. A lot of literature is not satisfying until the reader has finished. Authors like Dickens, Austen, and Dostoevsky have sections, sometimes long sections, that take discipline to get through. But the pain is worth the effort. Some things cannot be simplified, in many cases it is profane to try. In Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky deals with the role of suffering to expiate guilt, the torment of the soul and isolation caused by sin, how wicked people can do loving things (and how those loving things do nothing to ease the suffering of the wicked), and a host of other things I am sure I missed. Popular fiction must ignore these kinds of issues or simplify them beyond recognition. Like self-help books the best they can do is offer simple answers to complex and difficult questions. It is best if they leave such issues alone.
Literature is also demanding in that it forces the reader to think and reflect. If a “popular” work demands that a reader think about what is being said it is doomed before it hits the shelves. Thinking is work, and people who are looking for entertainment do not want to work while they read. The author should do all the work for them. In order to enjoy literature, on the other hand, the reader must engage the work. Literature is written to make people think. Sometimes it even asks the reader to change. That’s a lot of unexpected work for the reader who approaches literature looking to be entertained. If the reader tries to pass over the elements in literature that demand reflection he will miss the most enjoyable parts, the very things that makes literature great.
To sum it up, Eragon can be read, enjoyed and forgotten. Crime and Punishment will not let the reader get off so easy.
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11.20.06
Posted in Literature at 4:59 pm by Adam B.
I am a little behind on my reading in Crime and Punishment because of a video game, but that is all over now. I have resumed reading at my regular rate.
Two times now Razumihin has had discussions about politics. (He is the best friend of the main character. I say this only because of his kindness towards him, not because the main character has any friends.) The first discussion was with the fiance that I mentioned before. The fiance was of a mind that the best way to live was to do everything for yourself. In doing this there would be maximum benifit to the entire community. I would not have know that this discussion was about politics (perhaps it is more about philosophy) except in the movie Beautiful Mind the gladiator makes a theory that contradicts the theory that the fiance is espousing in this book. In Beautiful Mind he says that all things should be done for the individual and the community for maximum benifit. This is the sum of my knowledge on this subject.
The second discussion Razumihin had while he was drunk. His idiot friends thought that all individualism needed to be erased and that everyone should be the same, to the point of denying their own nature.Â
Razumihin heatedly contradicts both of these views. In my understanding of the book Razumihin is the source of true wisdom and love so he would be the most fit to carry the authors opinion on the subject. Unfortunatly, I am so deficient in this area of knowledge that I am not sure what anyone is talking about. If anyone has any notes of clarification, or an online article I can read about these political philosophies (if indeed that is what they are) that would help.
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