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Summary: The American Revolutionary War won freedom from Britain. It took another six years to create 13 separate states into a single country.

Since I have been all things Alexander Hamilton lately, a friend suggested that I read The Quartet. Joseph Ellis has written well reviewed biographies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams and several other books about the revolutionary period.

The Quartet particularly focuses on the movement from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. After winning freedom from Britain, there was little desire for another national government. The Articles of Confederation were an intentionally weak (and ultimately failed) attempt to partner together as states without really becoming a single country. As Ellis suggests several times, the initial understanding of the Confederation was more similar to the European Union than a single country.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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