Book Reviews

Summary: Maybe our need for interpretation and our finiteness as humans is a feature of our creation, not a consequence of the fall.

The more I read James KA Smith, the more I appreciate his perspective.

The Fall of Interpretation was Smith’s first book.  It was an adaptation of his Ph.D. dissertation that he lightly edited and re-released in 2012.  Last fall, it was briefly on sale, and I picked it up because it was written by Smith, without really knowing what it was about.

Like normal for Smith, this is a book that has way more philosophy than I understand.  But also, like normal, I can follow the argument without always understanding some of the minor details.

Smith’s argument is “To be human is to interpret, to encounter the world and entities within the world” and “something of an encounter conditioned by the situationally of human finitude”.  He is suggesting that our finitude is not something to be overcome, but something to be embraced as a feature of our creation.  (Yes, the language can be a bit overly academic, but it is understandable.)

The problem is that,

“At root (and roots, of course, are usually buried, unseen and hidden) the linking of interpretation to fallenness may be understood as the product of a dominant Western interpretive tradition, a broadly neoplatonic understanding of creation and Fall, an understanding that is itself an interpretation. I believe that this tradition, which has significantly influenced aspects of the Christian tradition, remains plagued by an incipient Neoplatonism (or gnosticism) that continues to construe creational finitude and human be-ing as “essentially” fallen and therefore ties hermeneutics to such a corrupted condition.”

What was important about this book for me was his discussion of the finiteness of humanity.

Read more

Summary: Basis of the movie and beloved TV show, and well mined by them both for ideas.

Every night my senior year of college MASH was on at 10 PM and was watched by whoever happened to be around.  Long before that I had seen most of the episodes, but it is a testament to its quality that college kids were devoted fans to a show that started the year before most of us were born.

Last week the novel was the Audible deal of the day so I picked it up.  And mostly I enjoyed it.

Read more

Summary: A farce in the style of PG Wodehouse (or vice versa) poking fun at the triviality of Victorian society.

I know that Wilde has the reputation of being funny, but the only other work of his that I have read was the Portrait of Dorian Gray.  And while I appreciated the book, I did not think it was great and it certainly is not a comedy.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy.  It is also a play and it has been a while since I have read a play with stage directions and character dialogue.  And I am not sure I have ever listened to an audiobook of a play, which is what I did here.

Two friends both are leading double lives, in part because they can.  Algernon is meeting with his friend who is known as Earnest.  Earnest wants to propose to Algernon’s cousin, but Algernon discovers that Earnest’s cigarette case has the inscription “From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.”  So Earnest admits that he is actually named Jack (or John) but uses the name Earnest when he comes to London to get away from his country house.

Algernon admits a similar deception when he wants to get away from London, he pretends to visit a sick friend named Bunbury.

Read more

Summary: A helpful look at a reforming movement within Catholicism, but a lot of inside baseball.

I have read a number of positive reviews of Evangelical Catholicism from people I trust.  But more than anything, this book reminded me how little I actually know about Catholicism.

This is a book that is very inside baseball.  For those of us outside the Catholic Church, a book that was about 1/3 the length would have been appropriate.

As a non-Catholic, and one that was made very aware of my lack of knowledge it is hard to review this book.  But there are things that really stood out to me.

One, I think the main reoccuring theme of the book, that the church has done a very poor job catechizing (teaching) its members is true.  John Paul II started a program of “˜new evangelicalization’, which is a dual, active focus on evangelizing those outside the church, and catechizing those inside the church. I think almost no one really disputes this.  How it is done I am sure has lots of controversy.  But the fact that it is needed, I think is probably less controversial.

Read more

Summary: Collection of humourous short stories, but the dog one is not to be missed.

I was complaining that I needed something different to read a few weeks ago and Seth Simmons, one of Bookwi.se’s regular contributors suggested PG Wodehouse.  Like so many authors, I was aware of him as a great humorist, but I had not actually read anything.

The Man With Two Left Feet is one of about 30 of his books that are in the public domain and available for free as kindle books.  And several of those have Audible discounts if you buy the kindle version first.

I wasn’t paying attention when I picked this up, because it is a collection of 13 short stories.  I am not a particular fan of short stories.  I prefer a full length book that really develops characters.

Read more