Book Reviews

No longer free – Sorry

Audible is giving away a free audio drama of The Oedipus Plays. This is a pre-order with a release date of June 14th. It may still be free after the release and/or this may be the free audiobook of the month from Audible.

Description:

The three Theban plays by Sophocles – Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone – are one of the great landmarks of Western theatre. They tell the story of Oedipus, King of Thebes, who was destined to suffer a terrible fate – to kill his father, marry his mother, and beget children of the incestuous union. He does this unknowingly but still has to suffer terrible consequences, which also tragically affect the next generation.

These three plays were written around 450 BC, with the playwright following the established convention of presenting the story through main characters but using a chorus – sometimes one voice, sometimes more – as an independent commentator that also occasionally participates in the drama. When the audiences of ancient Athens went to the amphitheatres to see the plays, they would have known the basic story of poor Oedipus.

Read more

Summary: Short profiles of 13 theologians from the 20th century.

Last year Fortress Press had a sale and I picked up several books. I started reading the Fortress Introduction to Contemporary Theologies almost immediately. But because it is a book that profiles different theologians and does not need to be read all together (or in order), I have spent more than 6 months dabbling in it. It was originally published in 1998, so it is not a new book, but I do not think it is a dated book either.

Read more

Summary: A missionary to aliens has marriage problems.

The concept of The Book of Strange New Things is so simple that it really did not catch my attention when I first heard about it. But it was recommended several times by different people and when it was on sale I decided to pick it up. (Vikki Huisman reviewed it for Bookwi.se when it first came out.)

The story is simple, Peter, pastor with a history of drug abuse and alcoholism prior to becoming a Christian is hired to go to the planet Oasis to minister to the aliens there. A lot has been made of this being a genre defying novel, but I did not think that it was widely outside of either Literary Fiction or Science Fiction and fans of both should consider it part of the genre they prefer most.

The main story of the book is really about the marriage of Peter on Oasis and his wife, Bea, back in England. They can communicate, but only via email like plain text. And then, only when he is at the main human complex and not when he is living with the aliens. The physical distance matters. But the experiential difference matters more. For Peter, he is absorbed in his work and the transition from the alien settlement to the human settlement is always a cultural shock. Add to that the increasing desperation of Bea, and Peter emotionally hides.

Read more

Takeaway: Sometimes the best thing we can do in the face of tragedy is continue to face life.

I picked up The Comedians when it was on sale at Audible because it was by Graham Greene and I really liked The End of the Affair. I started reading it because Shusaku Endo was frequently compared to Graham Greene (and Greene’s endorsement of Silence is one of the more famous endorsement lines–“Endo, to my mind, is one of the finest living novelists”).

It was really my desire to understand Endo, more than my enjoyment of the book that kept me listening to the audiobook. The reader was intentionally dry. That matched the content, but did not enhance the listening. The book started and ended well, but there was some meandering in the middle that makes sense in the larger context of the books but I got a bored for a good 100 pages.

It really was not until about 1/3 of the way through the book that Greene references the reason for the title. In a public conversation with a woman that Brown (the main character) is having an affair with, he suggests that they are all really comedians. He is using an older meaning of comedian, the idea that Greek actors held different masks. But also (not mentioned, but I think understood) that Greek Comedies were usually poking fun at the powerful of the age. It is not really satire. But there is some hint of that idea.

The book opens with Brown, Smith and Jones all on a boat headed toward Haiti. Brown owns a hotel in Haiti during the oppressive government of Papa Doc Duvalier. Jones is an unknown, but suspected from fairly early on of being a con man. Smith (and his wife) are from the United States. He was a very minor presidential candidate that is a proponent of vegetarianism as a way of life and a method toward world wide peace.

Read more

Summary: Many of the shifts of theology and practice makes sense in historical context.

My first quarter of Divinity School I had a history of Christian thought class. There were four or five courses in the series but we were only required to take one. The one I took covered approximately 600 to 1400 AD, which was an era that I knew almost nothing about. I learned a great deal in the class, but I was a bit frustrated by the teaching style. Mostly we were covering philosophical issues, but those philosophical and theological movements were abstracted from the broader history of the era. I need context to help frame the theological changes and give reasons for why the theological and philosophical shifts were occurring.

The History of Christian Theology course covers a much longer history (all of it) and necessarily went into less depth, but also gave much better context to the theological shifts. The lecturer assumed Christian faith and background, although explained the nuances of the theology well.

One of the features that I found most helpful was continually thinking about the implications to the average believer. As theology shifted, the questions that plagued the average believer, and the pastoral care needed also shifted. So simple returns to these basic questions and comparing different theological systems was very helpful.

Read more

The new Marvel movie Captain America Civil War opens this weekend. The reviews are very good. I have been looking forward to it, but I still haven’t seen Winter Soldier or Age of Ultron. So I am probably not going to go see Civil War this weekend.

For the past two weeks I have been somewhat obsessively reading comic books, mostly the Marvel Civil War series. I started because the Ms Marvel books were on sale and I wanted to finish the series. Then I saw that the Civil War books were on sale, I picked those up.  (I do want to note that if you are not interested in keeping them, Marvel Unlimited has a month free trial right now, so you can read all of these during a free trial and cancel.)

I have read one review of the movie and heard from some people that the comic and the movie have the same themes and broad outlines, but are very different in the specifics.

So on to the review of the comic books. I am not sure I read comic books correctly. I want a good story. And I want art that is interesting and enhances the story. These collections have different artists although mostly the art is somewhat similar in style.

The central idea of the series is that Iron Man and Captain America react differently to the governmental response to an accident that kills hundreds of people. A reality TV Superhero show (COPS style) tries to take down some minor league super villains. This goes badly when it causes an explosion that destroys an elementary school and kills over 600 people, mostly children, while being filmed.

That accident turns public opinion against superheroes and a movement starts to requires registration of all heroes and requires all heroes to work for SHEILD if they are going to use their powers, making all heroes government employees. Anyone refusing to register will be arrested.

Read more

Takeaway: We need to think theologically about the importance of elders and sharing wisdom.

A few days ago on Facebook, someone that I know was lamenting the lack of wise elders in their life. I was reminded (in part because I was reading Rohr) that because one has acquired age, does not mean that one has acquired wisdom. The two sometimes go together, but not always. And in some ways I think age and wisdom are probably less associated now than previously (unwise people I think had a decent chance of dying because of their lack of wisdom in previous ages.) We are in an odd cultural place. We need wisdom, we are living longer than ever and culturally we embrace youth culture more than ever.

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest and popular speaker and writer. I have read several things by him and generally found him helpful and wise. I originally read Falling Upward when it first came out just over five years ago. I think that was my first exposure to Rohr. When I first read it, I found the book a bit difficult and was not as clear about some of his language. I did not re-read my review until I finished the book for the second time. My original review was one of the earliest reviews on Bookwi.se and it feels very dated to me. It is a sign of the progress of time that many of the things I found difficult on the first reading I did not find difficult on the second. I have read a lot more Catholic writers in the past five years and am much more comfortable with the subtle differences in meaning in some of the language of Catholics and Protestants. And where there are more commonalities than I   understood five years ago.

Rohr understands how to sound profound. That is not to say that many of the things that he writes about are not profound. His writing drips with significant insights. But Rohr is also obscure and opaque at time and I think that is sometimes seen as wisdom as well. Rohr is a mystic. And part of being a mystic is believing that the world is not completely understandable or describable. I agree with that, but I am also less satisfied with the esoteric descriptions of the world that Rohr gives in this reading. I think some of the book could have been tightened up and made less esoteric and more clear. And it would have been a better and more helpful book. But maybe viewed as a bit less wise.

The main organizing metaphor is the first and second halves of life. This is modeled in the difference between the Odyssey and the Iliad. The two voyages are examples which Rohr refers back to frequently of how in the first half of life we are interested in identity and personhood. Finding not only who we are, but also establishing ourselves, building families, creating careers, finding relationships (romantic and other). All of these are good and important. But in the second half of life we tend to be less dualistic, more about building up others and passing on wisdom. The first half of life is about understanding the rules and institutions of life and their importance. The second half of life is about understanding the role of grace in breaking rules and circumventing institutions for people.

Read more

Takeaway: The big stuff matters to good stories.

I participate in a private Facebook group with Christ and Pop Culture Magazine subscribers. There was a discussion the other day about the quality of writing of a popular series. The important part of the discussion for this review is that good stories transcend a particular telling. Elements of good stories are often found in other stories. The major themes of life, finding and loosing love, purpose and meaning of life, etc. are almost always found in some form in any good story. Good stories can be told in an original manner, but are rarely completely original in theme.

Ms Marvel made new in 2014 when it first came out because the main character is a 16 year old Muslim immigrant living in New Jersey. She was a unique voice in the superhero world. I read and reviewed the first volume just over a year ago. But the rest of the series has not gone on sale until this week. I enjoy the occasional comic book, but I am cheap.  Amazon/ComiXology is having a sale on Marvel comics through today. So Vol 1 is $4.50, Vol 2 is $5.50, Vol 3 is $8.00 and Vol 4 is $9.00.

Comics are something that I should read more carefully. I tend to fly through them too quickly because I want the story and then not go back and read them more slowly to really enjoy the art. But the art is one of the complaints that I have with this series. There has not been a consistent art team and so the art has varied and I have definitely liked some of it better than others.

The first volume was interesting because it was introducing a new character. The second volume I think lacked the punch of the first because it attempted to make a point. Ms Marvel was confronted with some of her peers that were willing to give up when faced with difficult problems. That could have been handled better but ended up being a complaint against her whole generation instead of a motivation for working hard to do what you can.

Read more

Takeaway: Life if not permanent.

I have had an odd reluctance to read Housekeeping (and Home) because Lila and Gilead have been some of the best fiction books I have read. I do not want to be disappointed. Marilyn Robinson has not written a lot of books. Authors that have written dozens of books I assume have a couple that are not all that good. Robinson has four fiction books and all of them are critically acclaimed, although not necessarily acclaimed by general readers. (All four books average four stars at Amazon and only have about 50% of the reviews as five stars.)

If you are looking for action or romance or really even much of a plot, you are probably not going to like Robinson as a novelist. Her strength is characters and description. The internal dialogue of the main character is always the focus.

In Housekeeping, Ruth is the youngest of two girls. They are growing up in their grandmother’s house. They were abandoned by their mother, who committed suicide in the nearby lake after she left them. They never knew their father. Their grandmother dies and two spinster great Aunts come to care for them before pawning them off on their odd Aunt.

Read more