Literature

Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning

Posted on October 29, 2015 by albrooke

I just finished Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances (2015), and although I am not usually a fan of short fiction, I was intrigued to read a Gaiman Sherlock Holmes story (“A Case of Death and Honey”), a Gaiman Dr. Who story (“Nothing O’Clock”) and (best of all!) a new Shadow story (“Black Dog”).

Shadow is the main character in American Gods (2001), so it was good to remember that very original book a decade and a half later. Anansi Boys (2005) was the sequel and both were great fun, though Neverwhere (1996) is still my favorite Gaiman novel.

As usual with Gaiman, there is much to populate your dreams or nightmares (note the subtitle), so caveat lector.

Reflection on a Year’s Reading

Posted on October 25, 2015October 25, 2015 by albrooke

One nice thing about this site is that it gives me a place to keep track of the books I am reading. It has allowed me to be a little more introspective about what I read. (I seem to require a couple of books a week to maintain my sanity.) About a third of my reading is re-reading, which makes sense to me, anyhow. Wouldn’t you want to go back and visit old friends in addition to meeting new ones?*

My favorite newly-discovered author of the last year is probably Emily St. John Mandel. I read Station Eleven, then picked up Last Night in Montreal, and The Lola Quartet, and enjoyed all three. Yes, they are quirky and have some repetitive elements, but I liked Ms. Mandel’s writing and will continue to follow her.

The best new** fiction I read this year includes (in no particular order) Andy Weir, The Martian (2014), Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel (2014), Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (2014), William Gibson, The Peripheral (2014), Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (2014), David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks (2014), and Neal Stephenson, seveneves (2015). All were well-crafted and enjoyable, but I will let you look elsewhere for reviews. I usually pre-order anything by Gibson, Carter and Stevenson, and will probably add Mandel and Weir to that list.

I read two excellent new** nonfiction books: Margaret Lazarus Dean, Leaving Orbit (2015); and Jeff Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison (2015). Mr. Smith was the most horrifying book I read recently,*** as it was an account of a politician who was sent to prison for a year for lying about a fairly minor campaign violation.

Eric Metaxas’ Miracles (2014) was strikingly different from C.S. Lewis’ book of the same name. Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor (2014) was an encouragement about the significance of work. Roger Kahn’s Rickey and Robinson (2014) was a great story about baseball and society by someone who lived through those important years when baseball was being integrated.

And how did I miss this one when it first came out: Cheryl Strayed, Wild (2012), a fascinating account of a troubled woman who walks the Pacific Crest Trail? Rick Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light (2013) (last part of WWII in Europe) was well worth the 900-page investment.

Caveat Lector. It should go without saying that some of these will be uninteresting, unedifying, or even upsetting for some readers. What I think I can assure you is that none of these books are poorly written. Let me know if you have any thoughts about these or others on my sidebar.

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*My favorite old friend this year was probably Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (1996), though I did love (again) the Sword of Honor Trilogy, Pattern Recognition, LoTR, and That Hideous Strength.

**Published since January 2014.

***This is saying a lot since I also read Michael Faber, Under the Skin (2000) and Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1998), two astoundingly creepy books.

Uneasy reader

Posted on October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 by albrooke

Thus the value of great fiction, we begin to suspect, is not just that it entertains us or distracts us from our troubles, not just that it broadens our knowledge of people and places, but also that it helps us know what we believe, reinforces those qualities that are noblest in us, leads us to feel uneasy about our faults and limitations.

John Gardner, The Art of Fiction 31 (1983).

Of course Gardner does not hold this thought without reservation (notice the “we begin to suspect”), but he reasonably prompts us to add this to our internal lists of what fiction is for. I had forgotten how enjoyable this book is.

Cromwell’s rule

Posted on August 25, 2015 by albrooke

This was a favorite saying of my Jurisprudence professor (William Powers) in law school:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.

Thomas Carlyle, ed., Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, vol. 1, 448. (Harper 1855).

Even Christians who are very sure that they know the mind of God ought to reserve some uncertainty. We all recognize that we are flawed and sinful and that we are subject to confusion and delusion. Let us all take one small step back from certainty. We may be unapologetic in our faith in the redemptive work of Christ without claiming that we have the final word on everything.

Contagion

Posted on August 12, 2015August 21, 2015 by albrooke

Holy hands, unholy world

Mark 5:21-43

In 1976, a particularly nasty contagion took the lives of 151 people in Sudan and another 280 in Zaire. The disease recurred in Sudan and took the lives of another 22 people. It lay dormant for 15 years, then took 97 lives in Gabon and 254 lives in Zaire from 1994-1997. The virus took two years off. From 2000-2004 Central African countries lost 484 more people to this disease. Two more years without deaths. We are up to 1,288. From 2007-2012, another 291 people died: 1,579 in all. The most severe outbreak of all occurred in December 2013, leading to 11,385 deaths in Africa and beyond. Last week there were another 20 confirmed cases of the disease in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

In all, about 13,000 people have died from one of four strains of the Ebola virus. The most deadly strain — Ebola Zaire — has a 90% death rate. It is a hemorrhagic disease, transmitted by blood, saliva, milk, semen, urine, vomit.

It is a horrible disease. I am not going to explain it. We live in a seriously messed up world.

Let’s pray.

* * *

I invite you to turn to the book of Mark, chapter 5, verse 21. Jesus is in the early part of his ministry, teaching in and around the large lake in the north of Israel which is called the Sea of Tiberius, of the Sea of Galilee. It is about a.d. 30. He had been on the eastern side of the lake and was returning to the western shore, perhaps near the town of Gennesaret or Capernaum.

5²¹And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. ²²Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet ²³and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.

A great crowd surrounds Jesus, who is in danger of becoming a celebrity. He is in the midst of a large number of people who have heard of his teaching, his exorcisms and his healings — they are interested in seeing what he will do next.

Continue reading Contagion

Leaving Orbit

Posted on July 25, 2015July 25, 2015 by albrooke

“Only when an era ends do you get to figure out what it means.” Margaret Lazerus Dean, Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight 69 (2015).

An enjoyable read, covering the end of the shuttle era of American Spaceflight. I wish this book had been out when I was teaching my Beyond Fiction class, because it would have formed a perfect inclusio with Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. MLD has a comfortable competence as a writer and observer, so it is as though the reader is listening to the experiences of a good friend.

Television and books

Posted on July 25, 2015 by albrooke

This may not be original, but it occurred to me today that “television” is very different than the television I grew up with. It used to be that if you wanted to “follow” a show, you had to make yourself available at the same time every week. You had to be “in the mood” for Cheers or MASH or All in the Family (dating myself, of course) when it was on. (Perhaps this kept me from being much of a connoisseur of television.)

Eventually, there was potential for videotaping, and time-shifting the shows you were interested in.

Now, though, you can pretty much “pick up” any series you want on Netflix or Amazon Instant Video or iTunes or one of the other video-streaming services. Watch whenever you want and go quickly through an old series if you wish.

That was the way I always read books. As a kid, I would read a string of old Hardy Boys or Tom Swifts or Nero Wolfes or Perry Masons or . . . .

And I have to say, this is a better way of consuming television. It probably encourages better television, since it permits longer narrative arcs and more complex character development.

I’d still rather read a good novel.*

*And then read everything else the author wrote.

The Book of Strange New Things

Posted on July 17, 2015July 17, 2015 by albrooke

Honestly?

A decidedly odd book which reminds me more of The Sparrow than anything else, in that it is about a minister to alien people who finds that his understanding of God is stirred. A different, more dystopian vision, but beautifully written.