book thoughts

I suspect I will not make it to my goal of reading 50 books in 2010. However, I've read several recently:

3 and 4 The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through by Stephen R. Donaldson

Handsome one-volume edition given to me by Loving Husband, these books were my favorites in high school. I pored over them in multiple readings, certain that they held the spiritual truths that would help me understand God, Christianity, my faith, and why the world was so bizarrely crappy and beautiful. They did help. And upon an adult reading, they're still good. Not as life-changing as before, but well worth the read.

5 Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook

Interesting look inside not just Dr Who but a writer's process. Collected emails from a year of writing the TV show.

6 The Hunger Games and 7 Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Amazing. Absolutely fantastic. If you like things that are awesome, why haven't you read them yet?

In the future, North America has been destroyed and rebuilt as the Capitol and the Districts. The Districts (only twelve, now that District 13 was annihilated for insurrection)live hardscrabble, unstable lives under the thumb of the Capitol, constantly on the verge of complete starvation. Every year, the Capitol puts on the Hunger Games for which each District must supply two Tributes--a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18--and in which they must kill one another. The winner and last one standing will live a life of luxury.

Very well written from page one on. Engaging, complex, and a propos for our world of greed and environmental challenge.

8 The Teaching of the 12 by Tony Jones

A new translation and commentary on the Didache, a very early church "how to" document from one of the earliest Christian house-churches. The commentary is not particularly inspired, though it constantly points me back to the included text which is itself fascinating.

The Didache is probably contemporaneous with Paul's writings but seems to have no knowledge of him. It includes a brief order for the Eucharist which includes no references to the Last Supper or Jesus' death and resurrection.

What to make of this little document? Ought we take it's insights to heart because of its age? Or is it just a small off-shoot of Christianity which was left behind for a better way?

book thoughts

You may have heard about the Fifty Books Project--it's a viral, communal challenge to read fifty books in one year, approximately one book per week. I've done it in years past and was surprised to find I broke fifty each year. Last year, pregnant and then a new mom, I failed completely. Unless you count multiple, nuanced readings of Pajama Time and Mama, Do You Love Me?

This year, I'm determined to beat fifty books with a mix of theology and fiction. Follow along, won't you?

---

1 Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne
Challenging book suggesting that we take Jesus' words seriously rather than neutering them--what if he meant for us to make peace and sell our belongings? At times abrasive and often deeply moving, it convicted me and the complacence I've fallen into.

2 Kidnapped Santa Claus by Alex Robinson
Fun, graphic novel take on the L Frank Baum short story--pretty, pretty art and elves with schoolgirl crushes. Plus, bad-ass Repentance--fun for the whole family!

logos

...[T]he very existence of such powers argues a counterforce. We call powers of the first kind dark, though they may use a species of deadly light as Decuman did; and we call those of the second kind bright, though I think that they may at times employ darkness, as a good man nevertheless draws the curtains of his bed to sleep. Yet there is truth to the talk of darkness and light, because it shows plainly that one implies the other. The tale I read to little Severian said that the universe was but a long word of the Increate's. We, then, are the syllables of that word. But the speaking of any word is futile unless there are other words, words that are not spoken. If a beast has but one cry, the cry tells nothing; and even the wind has a multitude of voices, so that those who sit indoors may hear it and know if the weather is tumultuous or mild. The powers we call dark seem to me to be the words the Increate did not speak, if the Increate exists at all; and these words must be maintained in a quasi-existence, if the other word, the word spoken, is to be distinguished. What is not said can be important--but what is said is more important.
--The Sword of the Lictor, by Gene Wolfe, p 124-125.

book thoughts

Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton

One of the greatest books I've ever read. It's educational (sounds animals make), silly ("three singing pigs"--genius!), and open-ended ("what do you say?"). It even has ambiguity, both in its open-ended-ness and, more importantly, in the representations of the characters. Boynton's art style offers animals whose attitudes are far from clear. What might look like sadness on the surface might, upon further contemplation, suggest despair or confusion. A face alight with glee might also be one of manic loss-of-control. A pig uttering its species-appropriate "oink" looks strangely disgruntled, perhaps even filled with longing for the days of show-biz.

What more could you ask from great literature?

book thoughts

Began reading (or skimming, really) the new Evangelical Lutheran Worship today. There's good stuff in there--prayers, liturgies, music--but I was most interested in the illustrations. I know, went to school for three years and all she can talk about is the pictures.

There's one at the beginning which is an image of Jesus as the cycle of the year--it's stunning. Very simple and clean-lined but clearly evocative of the cycle of life and death and of Jesus' part in it. And on the first page of the Psalms is a marvelous image of the tree by the stream of living water which plays such a large role in Jewish poetry. These images speak to me, perhaps more than the words they are inspired by. They would make striking tattoos.

I haven't yet gotten to the copyrights page to find out who the artist is but I live in anticipation.

book thoughts

Time's Arrow by Martin Amis

Amis' protagonist is a disembodied voice living another man's life backward--he begins at death, slowly grows younger, meets lovers at the moment of break-up and leaves them with the quiet grace of a first meeting. He is concerned that the world doesn't make any sense. His host is a doctor and a horror: people come to the hospital perfectly healthy and happy, then are mangled beyond recognition and leave in tears. How can this make any sense? And so, as preparations are made for war (as countries repair the damage of war), the protagonist becomes more and more excited about the world being fixed by this sudden violence. Perhaps you see where this is going. Imagine, says Amis, the bodies of the Jews being taken from the ovens, revived with gas, and then clothed and reunited with their families, tearfully returned to their homes and welcomed into German society.

What tells me that this is right? What tells me that ll the rest was wrong? Certainly not my aesthetic sense. I would never claim that Auschwitz-Birkenau-Monowitz was good to look at. Or to listen to, or to smell, or to taste, or to touch. There was among my colleagues there, a general though desultory quest for greater elegance. I can understand that word, and ll its yearning: elegant. Not for its elegance did I come to love the evening sky above the Vitula, hellish red with the gathering souls. Creation is easy. Also ugly. Hier ist kein warum. Here there is no why. Here there is no when, no how, no where. Our preternatural purpose? To dream a race. To make a people from the weather. From thunder and from lightening. With gas, with electricity, with shit, with fire. [120]

Brilliant. The only way events like the Holocaust can possibly make sense is if they're experienced backwards.

It startles me how much I am suddenly obsessed with the Holocaust. Sunday's Psalm included a line about God counting all the stars and knowing all their names. I remember God saying to Abram--who was also told to sacrifice his only son Isaac to the glory of God--that his descendants would number as the stars--the Jews are numerous and so beloved of God that God knows every single one of their names. Every person who died in World War II is known and beloved. And, if we look at the story backwards, it all makes sense. Only when told in reverse, the Holocaust--the holy fire, the sacrifice--is indeed holy.