God Knows by Joseph Heller
Copyright 1984 by Scapegoat Productions, Inc.
Simon & Schuster, Inc.
I can't decide what I think about this satire on the life of the Biblical King David. Heller certainly knows his biblical material and masterfully weaves together this first person account. David is now old and chilled and is remembering his life. Almost everything is included, not only from David's life, but also from story of the Israelite people, the patriarchs. I enjoyed reading this history in a narrative form, and was reminded of much that I had learned this year studying with my daughter for her Bible curriculum at school.
I did get tired of reading about David's sex life - but with Bathsheba, that was the main thing, even in the Biblical account - and was the step to his downfall.
David's attitude seemed to me to be distinctly postmodern. Neither words, nor history has any meaning other than what each individual wants it to mean. There is little hope, or trust in God. David is on his own and no longer talks to God; he's still angry about God killing his child with Bathsheba.
I wondered if Heller was trying to say something about how, as a Jewish man, David, and all Jews, feel abandoned by God, when they were once His chosen people.
Or, I wondered if Heller satirically is painting a picture of what the postmodern mentality; and how ridiculous it looks on a traditional character.
I look forward to discussing these issues in the book club next month.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Long Time Gone
On March 7, 2007, I received a call from Jay with the news from Mom's friends that they had found her in her apartment - she had passed away in her sleep. Good for her; she had enjoyed a wonderful day and went to bed looking forward to the next; but did not wake up in this world. She woke up with Jesus. My world, however, had been turned upsidedown and inside out. The shock and grief, as well as the responsiblity of taking care of her estate, has been overwhelming. I have continued to read, but not to post my thoughts on the books. I'll make postings of the titles I have read, just to keep track, and a few thoughts if I can remember. But will then start fresh with more recent reads.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
An Old Tale in a New Time
The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
Avon Books, New York, 1992
Original copyright 1956
I enjoyed reading The Brave Cowboy. It had all the elements of an old western - not that I've read many of them. But I definitely recognized the long-gone cowboy riding back into town with the women and children coming out on the porch to silently watch his entry. Only this time, the cowboy had to cross a four-lane highway to get back "home."
Jack Burns is back to rescue his old buddy, Paul Bondi. "Paul, I've gone to a lotta trouble on your account. I came here to rescue you and by God I'm gonna do it." "But I don't want to be rescuted." "I'm gonna rescue you whether you want it or not." (p. 100)
Great use of images throughout:
Birds:
Contrasts between:
Avon Books, New York, 1992
Original copyright 1956
I enjoyed reading The Brave Cowboy. It had all the elements of an old western - not that I've read many of them. But I definitely recognized the long-gone cowboy riding back into town with the women and children coming out on the porch to silently watch his entry. Only this time, the cowboy had to cross a four-lane highway to get back "home."
Jack Burns is back to rescue his old buddy, Paul Bondi. "Paul, I've gone to a lotta trouble on your account. I came here to rescue you and by God I'm gonna do it." "But I don't want to be rescuted." "I'm gonna rescue you whether you want it or not." (p. 100)
Great use of images throughout:
Birds:
- canary: "I don't like to sing when I'm in a cage; - who wants to be a...canary?" (112)
- mockingbird: "Mockingbird Pass in Burns' childhood (124) "when he rested he heard a mockingbirdcall, a descending glissando of sweet lilting semitones - faintly derisive." (230) reminds me of Harper Lee, but To Kill a Mockingbird was completed in 1957 and published in 1960, after The Brave Cowboy.
- owls
- jet planes (272)
- ghosts,
- tumbleweeds spreading seeds,
- religious images (Trinity - atom bomb testing ground? 123, Threes - deer, owls, men hunting above)
Contrasts between:
- Burns' love of the mountains and the words of the sheriff deputies and air force: malignant, sheet insolence (252) Radio operator: "godawful stinkin place." (243) Johnson was in the middle: "Johnson remained for several minutes on his knees before thespring and the blue-veined altar of rock behind it, listening, scarecely thinking, surrendering himself to the strange and archaic snesations; he remembered his childhood, fortey years gone, and a dim sweet exquisite sorrow passed like a cloud over his mind." (243) Johnson seems to represent one who once loved nature, but has become lost in the modern world of progress of the city.
- Air force men are wimps, childish; cowboy (who dodged the draft) is tough and smart
- Value of a helicopter over a man
Men who are animals:
- Sheriff Johnson's animal behavior - he's the only one with such explicit descriptions of bodily functions?
- Guttierez - the "Bear"
Journey from the confines of jail to the open rugged territory of the mountains and escape
Hope in Old Mexico, danger (and death) in New Mexico.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Through different eyes
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Random House, 2003
Well, I know it's only January and there are months of reading ahead, but so far, this is my favorite read of the year! It is a "memoir in books," in which Azar Nafisi tells her story of teaching English literature in Iran, primarily to young girls struggling in that country full of revolution and religion mixed with politics. First of all, I must admit that I will never be able to discuss this well. I have no idea, although now just a glimpse, of what their lives were like and can only barely grasp how the English novels affected them living in Iran. I know now only a little bit of how much I don't know about women whose lives are such. I dare not try to speak of it.
The book is divided into four sections: Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen. Of these four, I have never read anything by James, but would like to suggest it to my reading group. I just finished Lolita. I read Gatsby in high school and can only remember pastel colors and a swimming pool. And of Jane Austen, I know only Pride and Prejudice.
The first thing that struck me in the Lolita section was the difference between my perspective and "take" on the novel and that of Nafisi's "girls." I related to the villain, Humbert, and his struggle (or lack of) with his despicable nature. The Iranian girls' related to Lolita, who had not only her future taken from her, but her past and present stolen as well. I learn from this that much goes into reading a novel, and the lenses through which I read have much to do with it's meaning to me. When Nafisi describes to her reader (me) the story of Lolita, she says, "This was the story of a twelve-year-old girl who had nowhere to go....the desperate truth of Lolita's story is...the confiscation of one individual's life by another. (p. 33)
Of Lolita, her students and herself, Nafisi writes, "It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom." (p. 28)
Other good words from Nafisi:
We are also informed of her "real" name, Dolores, the Spanish word for pain. (p. 36)
Nafisi's Manna: "It's strange," she said, "but some critics seem to treat the text the same way Humbert treats Lolita: they only see themselves and what they want to see." (p. 50)
The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted....I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes. (p. 94)
A novel is not an allegory...It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. (p. 111)
It (a novel) can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.
The chair trick: "I asked a few students to stand in different places around the room, and asked both those standing and those sitting to describe the same chair. You see this is a chair, but when you come to describe it, you do so from where you are positioned, and from your own perspective, and so you cannot say there is only one way of seeing a chair, can you? (p. 199) Postmodernism? The description of the chair may very with perspective, but do they all agree that it is a chair?
I believe this is how the villain in modern fiction is born: a creature without compassion, without empathy. (p. 224)
And then there is The Ambassadors, I continued, where we find several different kinds of courage, but the most courageous characters here are those with imagination, those who, through their imaginative faculty, can empathize with others. When you lack this kind of courage, you remain ignorant of others' feelings and needs. Does that sound like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird? Walking in someone else's shoes.
I really enjoyed this book and what it has spoken to me about not only reading fiction, but about women in Iran.
Random House, 2003
Well, I know it's only January and there are months of reading ahead, but so far, this is my favorite read of the year! It is a "memoir in books," in which Azar Nafisi tells her story of teaching English literature in Iran, primarily to young girls struggling in that country full of revolution and religion mixed with politics. First of all, I must admit that I will never be able to discuss this well. I have no idea, although now just a glimpse, of what their lives were like and can only barely grasp how the English novels affected them living in Iran. I know now only a little bit of how much I don't know about women whose lives are such. I dare not try to speak of it.
The book is divided into four sections: Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen. Of these four, I have never read anything by James, but would like to suggest it to my reading group. I just finished Lolita. I read Gatsby in high school and can only remember pastel colors and a swimming pool. And of Jane Austen, I know only Pride and Prejudice.
The first thing that struck me in the Lolita section was the difference between my perspective and "take" on the novel and that of Nafisi's "girls." I related to the villain, Humbert, and his struggle (or lack of) with his despicable nature. The Iranian girls' related to Lolita, who had not only her future taken from her, but her past and present stolen as well. I learn from this that much goes into reading a novel, and the lenses through which I read have much to do with it's meaning to me. When Nafisi describes to her reader (me) the story of Lolita, she says, "This was the story of a twelve-year-old girl who had nowhere to go....the desperate truth of Lolita's story is...the confiscation of one individual's life by another. (p. 33)
Of Lolita, her students and herself, Nafisi writes, "It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom." (p. 28)
Other good words from Nafisi:
We are also informed of her "real" name, Dolores, the Spanish word for pain. (p. 36)
Nafisi's Manna: "It's strange," she said, "but some critics seem to treat the text the same way Humbert treats Lolita: they only see themselves and what they want to see." (p. 50)
The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted....I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes. (p. 94)
A novel is not an allegory...It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. (p. 111)
It (a novel) can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.
The chair trick: "I asked a few students to stand in different places around the room, and asked both those standing and those sitting to describe the same chair. You see this is a chair, but when you come to describe it, you do so from where you are positioned, and from your own perspective, and so you cannot say there is only one way of seeing a chair, can you? (p. 199) Postmodernism? The description of the chair may very with perspective, but do they all agree that it is a chair?
I believe this is how the villain in modern fiction is born: a creature without compassion, without empathy. (p. 224)
And then there is The Ambassadors, I continued, where we find several different kinds of courage, but the most courageous characters here are those with imagination, those who, through their imaginative faculty, can empathize with others. When you lack this kind of courage, you remain ignorant of others' feelings and needs. Does that sound like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird? Walking in someone else's shoes.
I really enjoyed this book and what it has spoken to me about not only reading fiction, but about women in Iran.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Eruptions of Grace
The Cloiser Walk by Kathleen Norris
Riverhead Books, New York, 1996.
This was a selection (my genre of choice: memoirs) for our CPC reading group for February discussion. It was recommended in Gladys Hunt's Honey for a Woman's Heart and by Dr. Calhoun, in my Ancient and Medieval Church History class at Covenant Seminary. I've owned the book for over a year, but hadn't gotten to read it yet. It is Presbyterian Mrs. Norris' memoir of her two nine-month stays at a Benedictine monastery. I love memoirs more than any other genre. Maybe it's because they are easier to understand - no figuring out symbolism or meaning...just reading someone else's story. I always benefit from hearing from others. I know I have a ways to grow in my fiction reading, and I want to, but I always look forward to reading these real life stories.
I have lots of notes for this book. I will have to lead our discussion in a few weeks, so hopefully this will help me organize my thoughts. I asked the book club to jot down things that resonated with them, but also things that caused them to raise an eyebrow.
Here are some of mine:
(nod) The monastic perspective welcomes time as a gift from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather than allowing us to be used up by it. (xix)
(eyebrow) Doctrine and dogma are effectively submerged; present, but not the point. When I quote from scripture in this book, I am not trying to convince the reader that I have some hold on the truth. I am telling the story of the Liturgy of the Hours as I have experienced it, as "an open door, which no one is able to shut" (Rev 3:8). (xxi)
Her purpose - fair enough.
In just a few days I'd be back with my husband, to take up life in the ruins. (p. 3)
(nod) And when the "thorns of contention" arise in daily life, daily forgive, and be willing to accept forgiveness. Remember that you are not the center of the universe but, to use Benedict's words, "keep death daily before your eyes." (p. 8)
Can I say this? Regarding St. Therese: She herself had become impoverished by the loss of a sense of God's presence that had been with her all her life. She saw this as grace, that God should permit her to be overwhelmed by impenetrable darkness. Again, she adresses God: "Lord, your child has understood your divine light: she asks pardon for her brothers, and consents to eat for a long as you wish it the bread of sorrow, and she will not rise from this table, which is filled with bitterness, where poor sinners eat, until the day you have appointed"....Therese concludes boldly, "I told [the Lord] that I am happy not to enjoy heaven here on earth in order that he may open heaven for ever to poor unbelievers." (p. 28)
(vigorous nod/some eyebrow too) I began to despise mathematics when I sensed that I was getting only part of the story, a dull, literal-minded version of what in fact was a great mystery, and I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them. If we teach children when they're young to reject their epiphanies, then it's no wonder that we end up with so many adults who are mathematically, poetically, and theologically illiterate. (p. 60)
(nod) If faith, like poetry, is a process, not a product, then this class will be messier than we imagine. (p. 62)
(eyebrow?) "When it comes to faith, while there are guidelines...there is no one right way to do it...." She quotes Martin Buber: "All of us have access to God, but each has a different access" Does this mean different gods, or simply different stories? I think it's the latter....we each have a different, but significant story. We don't need someone else's story.
(eyebrow) Quoting Bishop John V. Taylor: "Imagination and faith are the same thing, giving substance to our hopes and reality to the unseen.
(nod) The Psalms defeat our tendency to try to be holy without being human first. ( p. 96) (Allender/Longman's The Cry of the Soul)
worship in community: One soon finds that a strength of the monastic choir is that it always contains someone ready to lament over a lifetime of days of "emptiness and pain" or to shout with a joy loud enough to make "the rivers clap their hands" (p. 101)
I frequently take consolation in Gregory's sense that with God there is always more unfolding, that what we can glimpse of the divine is always exactly enough, and never enough. (p. 113)
"Listen" is the first word of St. Benedict's Rule for monasteries, and listening for the eruptions of grace into one's life - often from unlikely sources - is a "quality of attention" that both monastic living and the practice of writing tend to cultivate. (p. 143)
Riverhead Books, New York, 1996.
This was a selection (my genre of choice: memoirs) for our CPC reading group for February discussion. It was recommended in Gladys Hunt's Honey for a Woman's Heart and by Dr. Calhoun, in my Ancient and Medieval Church History class at Covenant Seminary. I've owned the book for over a year, but hadn't gotten to read it yet. It is Presbyterian Mrs. Norris' memoir of her two nine-month stays at a Benedictine monastery. I love memoirs more than any other genre. Maybe it's because they are easier to understand - no figuring out symbolism or meaning...just reading someone else's story. I always benefit from hearing from others. I know I have a ways to grow in my fiction reading, and I want to, but I always look forward to reading these real life stories.
I have lots of notes for this book. I will have to lead our discussion in a few weeks, so hopefully this will help me organize my thoughts. I asked the book club to jot down things that resonated with them, but also things that caused them to raise an eyebrow.
Here are some of mine:
(nod) The monastic perspective welcomes time as a gift from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather than allowing us to be used up by it. (xix)
(eyebrow) Doctrine and dogma are effectively submerged; present, but not the point. When I quote from scripture in this book, I am not trying to convince the reader that I have some hold on the truth. I am telling the story of the Liturgy of the Hours as I have experienced it, as "an open door, which no one is able to shut" (Rev 3:8). (xxi)
Her purpose - fair enough.
In just a few days I'd be back with my husband, to take up life in the ruins. (p. 3)
(nod) And when the "thorns of contention" arise in daily life, daily forgive, and be willing to accept forgiveness. Remember that you are not the center of the universe but, to use Benedict's words, "keep death daily before your eyes." (p. 8)
Can I say this? Regarding St. Therese: She herself had become impoverished by the loss of a sense of God's presence that had been with her all her life. She saw this as grace, that God should permit her to be overwhelmed by impenetrable darkness. Again, she adresses God: "Lord, your child has understood your divine light: she asks pardon for her brothers, and consents to eat for a long as you wish it the bread of sorrow, and she will not rise from this table, which is filled with bitterness, where poor sinners eat, until the day you have appointed"....Therese concludes boldly, "I told [the Lord] that I am happy not to enjoy heaven here on earth in order that he may open heaven for ever to poor unbelievers." (p. 28)
(vigorous nod/some eyebrow too) I began to despise mathematics when I sensed that I was getting only part of the story, a dull, literal-minded version of what in fact was a great mystery, and I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them. If we teach children when they're young to reject their epiphanies, then it's no wonder that we end up with so many adults who are mathematically, poetically, and theologically illiterate. (p. 60)
(nod) If faith, like poetry, is a process, not a product, then this class will be messier than we imagine. (p. 62)
(eyebrow?) "When it comes to faith, while there are guidelines...there is no one right way to do it...." She quotes Martin Buber: "All of us have access to God, but each has a different access" Does this mean different gods, or simply different stories? I think it's the latter....we each have a different, but significant story. We don't need someone else's story.
(eyebrow) Quoting Bishop John V. Taylor: "Imagination and faith are the same thing, giving substance to our hopes and reality to the unseen.
(nod) The Psalms defeat our tendency to try to be holy without being human first. ( p. 96) (Allender/Longman's The Cry of the Soul)
worship in community: One soon finds that a strength of the monastic choir is that it always contains someone ready to lament over a lifetime of days of "emptiness and pain" or to shout with a joy loud enough to make "the rivers clap their hands" (p. 101)
I frequently take consolation in Gregory's sense that with God there is always more unfolding, that what we can glimpse of the divine is always exactly enough, and never enough. (p. 113)
"Listen" is the first word of St. Benedict's Rule for monasteries, and listening for the eruptions of grace into one's life - often from unlikely sources - is a "quality of attention" that both monastic living and the practice of writing tend to cultivate. (p. 143)
Only one language of the soul
Walking from East to West by Ravi Zacharias
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2006.
This is Ravi Zacharias' memoir of his spiritual journey. I enjoyed reading it, gaining a better understanding of some of the cultural differences he experienced growing up in India. It is wonderful to see how God works in all cultures to bring his people to Himself.
In a proverbial sense, soil and soul define the "I" and "U," and if we do not understand this, we will never understand the East. Religion, language, and ancestral indebtedness are carved into the consciousness of every child of the East. And this is what makes conversion to any other faith an upheaval of titanic proportions...Being able to speak in two languages from opposite ends of the world helps you to be sympathetic and, I believe, effective in not just hearing but listening; in responding not just to the question but to the questioner. (p. 36)
To celebrate, I planted two mango trees...Forty years later, when I visited, they would greet me at towering new heights of thirty or so feet, with the present residents telling me they harvest a huge crop of mangoes each year from those two trees. They now shade the back lawn with the rich aromas of mangoes in season. (p. 51)
While the languages of the tongue and the anguish of experience may vary, the language of the soul is the same all over the world. (p. 229)
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2006.
This is Ravi Zacharias' memoir of his spiritual journey. I enjoyed reading it, gaining a better understanding of some of the cultural differences he experienced growing up in India. It is wonderful to see how God works in all cultures to bring his people to Himself.
In a proverbial sense, soil and soul define the "I" and "U," and if we do not understand this, we will never understand the East. Religion, language, and ancestral indebtedness are carved into the consciousness of every child of the East. And this is what makes conversion to any other faith an upheaval of titanic proportions...Being able to speak in two languages from opposite ends of the world helps you to be sympathetic and, I believe, effective in not just hearing but listening; in responding not just to the question but to the questioner. (p. 36)
To celebrate, I planted two mango trees...Forty years later, when I visited, they would greet me at towering new heights of thirty or so feet, with the present residents telling me they harvest a huge crop of mangoes each year from those two trees. They now shade the back lawn with the rich aromas of mangoes in season. (p. 51)
While the languages of the tongue and the anguish of experience may vary, the language of the soul is the same all over the world. (p. 229)
Love poured out
A Promise Kept by Robertson McQuilkin
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 1998.
This is an unforgettable story of a love between a husband and wife, Robertson and Muriel McQuilkin. As Muriel, with Alzheimer's, slowed down and found her only security in the presence of her husband, Robertson retired from his position as president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary to care for her at home.
No one ever needed me like Muriel, and no one ever responded to my efforts so totally as she. It's the nearest thing I've experienced on a human plane to what my relationship with God was designed to be: God's unfailing love poured out in constant care of helpless me. (p. 33)
Of course, the passion of his love for me never cooled. Even in the darkest hours, when I felt my grip slipping and I was in danger of sliding into the abyss of doubt, what always caught and held me was the vision of God's best-loved, pinioned in criminal execution in my place. (p. 62)
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 1998.
This is an unforgettable story of a love between a husband and wife, Robertson and Muriel McQuilkin. As Muriel, with Alzheimer's, slowed down and found her only security in the presence of her husband, Robertson retired from his position as president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary to care for her at home.
No one ever needed me like Muriel, and no one ever responded to my efforts so totally as she. It's the nearest thing I've experienced on a human plane to what my relationship with God was designed to be: God's unfailing love poured out in constant care of helpless me. (p. 33)
Of course, the passion of his love for me never cooled. Even in the darkest hours, when I felt my grip slipping and I was in danger of sliding into the abyss of doubt, what always caught and held me was the vision of God's best-loved, pinioned in criminal execution in my place. (p. 62)
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