Book Reviews

Takeaway: The intro by CS Lewis is worth the cost of the book. But the rest proves his point.

CS Lewis is known for advocating the reading of old books. And while he put that in print in a couple of places. The best known of these is his introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation.

He advocates not only the reading of old books, which he advocates not because they are better, but because they have a different set up biases and blind spots. And when I read Athanasius I did run up against some of those blind spots, like this quote:

Even children hasten thus to die, and not men only, but women train themselves by bodily discipline to meet it. So weak has death become that even women, who used to be taken in by it, mock at it now as a dead thing robbed of all its strength. (my emphasis, On the Incarnation, Location 731 in Kindle)

But most of what is here is clear presentation of ancient understanding of the importance of Christ’s bodily incarnation, his life on earth and his physical death and physical resurrection. I would not support every positions, nor would I support every position of any modern author either. But there really is something important to reading directly.

I am going to have a long quote from Lewis’ introduction to On the Incarnation. One that is emphasizing a different point than old having different biases.

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about “œisms” and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire. This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul””or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself. (On the Incarnation Location 32 in Kindle)

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Summary: An outcast finds out yet another reason for her to be outcast.

Akata Witch is the fourth book by Nnedi Okorafor that I have read in about 18 months and I will keep reading Okorafor’s books. I started Akata Witch immediately after finishing The White Thread, the third book in the contemporary young adult fantasy series Gateway Chronicles. The two  are very different settings, characters and styles, but both worth reading.

Nnedi Okorafor is a writing professor at University of Buffalo. She is exactly one year younger than I am. Her parents came to the US from Nigeria for school. Okorafor was born in the US but moved back and forth between Nigeria and the US as a child and teen. According to Wikipedia, Okorafor was diagnosed with scoliosis at 13 and at 19, due to a rare complication, was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. It was during this time of paralysis that she started writing. She eventually went on to get a Masters in Journalism and a Masters and PhD in English Literature.

Okorafor and several others, primarily women authors, have become known for writing science fiction and fantasy from a distinctly African or Caribbean perspective. I have not read widely in this area yet, but American Street and Akata Witch certainly are examples of Magical Realism in modern Fantasy and come from a distinctly non-US/European cultural perspective.

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Summary: The last book ended in tragedy. Now Darcy, and the others want to fix their error.

The problem with reviewing a series is that the longer into the series, the harder it is to discuss the book without giving away important plot points from earlier books that are essential to the describing the story for the later books.

I am going to still be vague here, but I may give up on that by the next book. My short version review is that I have very much enjoyed this series so far and I stayed up until 2 AM earlier this week to finish up The White Thread.

KB Hoyle continues to play with young adult fantasy conventions and leave a ton of references to other books for the readers that are probably a bit older and more widely read. The White Thread is ultimately a quest book like most fantasy stories. But in that quest there is a clear reference to the third Narnia book as well as the Odyssey and other quests. As some point I want to ask the author if she is dropping in these references intentionally to lead the reader somewhere or if she is writing the story and some of the reference sneak in initially and she just goes with it. I would guess that these are pretty intentional. But I have read plenty of interviews with authors that have suggested that many of the references that others read into their books were not put there by them. (In response to this review, KB Hoyle and I had a good conversation about references and allusions in writing. I am adding a paragraph at the end of the review because of that conversation.)

At the end of The Oracle, Darcy was forced to pay a price for the answer to her question, that price was significant. She spent the whole year at home trying to figure out how she might solve the problem. But there are two other problems that develop at home. First at the end of the Oracle, the boy at camp that knows about the magical world, but is not with The Six because he appears to be a supporter of the evil ruler disappears. Darcy gains a new level of empathy for him because she observes his father beating him.

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Summary: Does the prophecy (which says that the six will overcome the evil) really mean what it seems to mean.

Young Adult fantasy is a popular category for both adults and teens/pre-teens. It is common to ridicule it, but there is something comforting about YA Fantasy. As I have thought about it previously, and written before, part of what is different the last couple decades in the Fantasy world is that clear separation between good and evil is no long popular. It is not that older fantasy writers like Tolkien or Lewis made all of their characters one dimensional or perfect, but that even in showing the weaknesses of Edmund in the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe or Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, there was a sense of the weaknesses and wrongness of decisions were character defects and things to be overcome or repented for or at the least, part of the reason for the necessity of a balanced group.

Much, but not all, of modern adult oriented fantasy like Lev Grossman’s Magician series or VE Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic have blurred the lines between good and evil. There are good reasons for that, you need conflict, and you have to push boundaries in genre fiction because even though conventions exist, flaunting them is one way to get noticed. YA fiction then tends to be one of the places that adults can return to for a clearer sense what it means to fight evil.

In the second book of the Gateway Chronicles, the six return to the fantasy world of Alitheia. Evil was pushed back at the end of the last book, but not defeated. The six are all excited to return, but Darcy, the main protagonist, is uncomfortable with the prophecy that has foretold her marriage to Prince Tellius. Tellius is just as uncomfortable with the idea and Darcy starts to understand how knowing of the prophecy from birth has impacted Tellius’ life.

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Takeaway: Skip the audio and do this book in print.

Four years ago, I was very favorable toward How (Not) to Be Secular, since then I have read a number of books that have interacted with Charles Taylor, although none of them have attempted what Jamie Smith has attempted here. In How (Not) To Be Secular, Smith is attempting to summarize Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age while at the same time critiquing some of A Secular Age’s weak points. Other very helpful books have talked about broad ideas or using A Secular Age as a jumping off point. In some ways, it is easier to understand Taylor if you do not have to take the full range of ideas and the full development of Taylor’s argument.

After four years and a number of books about Taylor, I have decided that this fall I need to start reading Charles Taylor directly. I have a couple reasons for that, but primarily what I am interested in is Taylor’s work on how we create identity differently in our current world and how faith works in created identity. I am going to be reading Taylor with a strong eye toward how minority (both racial and other) identity works in his system of understanding the world around us.

Charles Taylor is intimidating, and not just because of the page lengths. Too many people that I know, and respect as smarter than I, have talked about how difficult Taylor can be to understand. I picked up How (Not) to Be Secular as a preparation. I tend to change formats with second readings. And because the audiobook of How (Not) to Be Secular was released recently, I picked up the audiobook.

Audiobook is not a format that works well with this book. The narration was fine. But this is a book that is constantly referencing something else, whether Taylor or another author or subject and the constant reference without the visual cues of what is being referenced make comprehension difficult. Also the constant references to pages of A Secular Age, which make sense in print, do not make the same type of sense in audio. There were paragraphs that referenced specific pages number 4 or 5 or maybe even more times, which made the ability to follow the point difficult.

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Takeaway: We are actually supposed to be praying the Lord’s Prayer.

I grew up reciting the Lord’s Prayer as part of worship. I have no idea when I memorized it, but it was probably when I was very young. About 10 years ago a friend published a book about the Lord’s Prayer (Living Prayer: The Lord’s Prayer Alive in You) that changed my approach to the Lord’s Prayer.

Since that time I regularly pray the Lord’s prayer, both simply and straight through and as a guide, expanding each line as a prayer prompt.

I have read a few books on the Lord’s Prayer since then, but most I thought were not particularly helpful. NT Wright’s The Lord and His Prayer is not new (written in 1995) and while there are a couple of editions of it that are slightly different all are less than 100 pages. I listened to the audiobook (2 hours) during a round trip to a meeting last night. As with many books on prayer, I should probably reread it again in print.

The format of The Lord and His Prayer is exactly like Ben Myers’ excellent book on the Apostles’ Creed, a line by line exploration. NT Wright is both a scholar and a pastor. And what I really appreciate about his writing is that he is always pastoral in tone. He is writing about the Lord’s Prayer because he thinks it is an important part of our lives as Christians. He wants us to understand what we are praying and the context of historic Christianity that has used the prayer historically as well as the historic 1st century culture when the prayer was originally taught. 

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Summary: 16 Letters to his Godson about virtues.

Maybe I am just getting old. But as I spend more time studying spiritual formation, both for my own benefit and to assist others in their own spiritual development, the more that I think the church as a whole has lost the thread of the development of character and virtue as an aspect of Christianity.

I know there are some good reasons for this loss of interest in virtue. Virtue and behavior management has been used to be socially and personally controlling. It has focused on cultural and encouraged a belief in white supremacy. It has been misused to prop up powerful people that lacked character for utilitarian reasons. But with the loss of authority around virtue and the loss of focus on virtue, individuals and communities have lost out on part of what is important about spiritual formation as both individuals and communities.

We are always christians within a culture. Our culture today is highly individualistic and while we as a Church should push back against that in many ways, we cannot pretend that the individualism of culture does not impact the church. Part of what this means is that we cannot assume that the older generation will automatically work toward the training of younger Christians. The older concept of godparent has been lost in part because of the mobility of our society.

In the fairly lengthy introduction to The Character of Virtue, Samuel Wells, the father of the godson being addressed by Hauerwas, gives a background not just on the letters to come, but the concept of godparent and how Hauerwas in particular came to be the godparent of a child in a different country. Because of the distance, Wells asked Hauerwas to write a letter a year on the anniversary of his godson’s baptism, about a different virtue.

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Summary: Short focused chapters on the meaning of the Apostles’ Creed.

I have been more focused on catechesis (the training and instruction about matters of Christian faith) over the past several years as I have both become more liturgical in  theological bias and more focused on spiritual formation.

Discipleship (which in some ways is another way of thinking of catechesis), means growing to be more like Christ. It is not about becoming a particular culture or look or personality or knowing certain things, but it is about growing to become more like Christ.

Part of what I have become convinced is that we should not be training people to avoid sin, although I am not denying the reality of sin or the harm that it does, but training them toward right desires. I think porn is one of the most simple ways of illustrating this, I have heard from many that their desire to consume porn could not be managed away. Knowing porn was bad for them and simply trying to be better was not what has worked for many that I have talked to. Understanding the subject of the porn as created in the image of God and distorting the goodness of sex and their bodies for the titillation of others, usually strangers, by my anecdotal evidence, seems to be more effective. The right understanding of good things and the right desire for those good things is more important than personal desire to not do wrong.

What does that have to do with the Apostles’ Creed? The Apostles’ Creed is one of the oldest distillations and positive affirmations of the Christian faith. The Creed was likely first used as a baptismal statement of faith. An affirmation of what we believe and who we believe in. The Apostles’ Creed is a positive statement. If you know some church history you can see where some of those statements are blocking false beliefs, but it is mostly about what we positively believe.

Ben Myers is setting out a straight forward, exploration, sometimes word by word, of what the Apostles’ Creed means. It is not super long. The chapters are short. It would make a very good small group study or personal devotional reading. Just in the past couple years I have read books on the creed by Hans von Balthasar, Derek Vreeland and JI Packer and attempted a video series on the Apostles’ Creed with a small group.

Of the books I have read on the Creed, none have been horrible, but Myers’ book on the Apostles’ Creed is the one I would recommend first. There are a couple of reasons,

1) it is ecumenical. The biggest problem with von Bathasar and Packer’s books on the creed where they were assuming either Catholic or Reformed understandings of Christianity. Meyers is a Protestant and probably has a few statements that are too Protestant for Catholic or Orthodox readers, but he does not, as Packer does, complain about other streams of Christian faith’s understanding of Christianity while explicating one of the most important ecumenical statements of faith.

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Summary: Detailed biography about a historical figure that most know very little about.

Harriet Tubman is a figure that almost everyone knows, but most know little about outside of her work helping slaves escape. The most striking to me initially is that Harriet Tubman lived until March 1913. Like many slaves Tubman was not sure when she was born, but most estimate that it was sometime in 1822. The length of her life was long, although her mother lived about the same length of time and her father not much less.

My grandfather, was born the year before Harriet Tubman died. I intellectually know that slavery legally ended in 1865, but the personal connection to my grandfather, who passed away in 2005, means that as someone in the middle of my life, I really only have to go back two lives to be connected to slavery.

Harriet Tubman is fascinating. A small woman, and one that suffered a serious head wound from abuse of a slave owner early in her life that caused life long problems, Tubman lived a life of service. Through her work with the Underground Railroad, she helped about 70 slaves to escape directly and assisted with the escape of another 50-60. This is not as many as her legend suggests, but her courage to return at least 13 times to assist slaves to escape is important. However, her story does not stop there.

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Summary: An American man in Paris has a hard time choosing between his fiancée and a beautiful Italian immigrant. 

One of my reading goals this year was to read some of James Baldwin’s fiction. Giovanni’s Room is my first of his fiction book. Baldwin is an incredible writer. I have appreciated his non-fiction writing for its clarity and intelligence and passion. Baldwin’s fiction writing is lyrically beautiful. I will definitely read more, but the actual characters and story in Giovanni’s Room were not my cup of tea.

The protagonist, David, is nearly 30. He is living in Paris without much direction or purpose. The book is told skipping around in time, so we know from nearly the beginning that Giovanni is to be executed, but the reader does not know why until near the end of the book.

David gives some back story with an early gay sexual experience and his family that he is escaping from to Paris. Soon we are introduced to Hella, David’s girlfriend. When the main story really starts, she is visiting Spain to decide if she wants to marry David. While she is gone, David runs short of money and while trying to borrow money from an older gay man, Jacque. During that meeting David meets Giovanni. Jacque tries to uses David to help him pick up Giovanni, but David and Giovanni hit it off and before long they are living together. David and Giovanni appear to be happy for a while. Giovanni has a decent job as a bartender and David for a while is happy to live with Giovanni.

(Spoiler alert for the rest of the discussion)  

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