Recently two bloggers wrote reviews of Leland Ryken’s new book on translation: Understanding English Bible Translation (which I cannot link to for purchase with a good conscience).
One of them is written by Tim Challies, a self-employed web-designer with a degree in history from McMaster University, whose also done some interesting writing on culture & the church.
The other is written by Joel M. Hoffman, who has “a PhD in theoretical linguistics and has taught Bible in religious settings and translation theory at Brandeis University and at HUC-JIR in New York City”
Very different views of the same book.
Challies writes:
Though not quite an academic book, neither was it particularly easy reading. Still, it did a good of presenting arguments for what Ryken calls an “essentially literal” approach to translating the Bible.
And Hoffman writes:
Unfortunately, Ryken’s work is marred by a disdain for scholarship, rhetoric disguised as argument, and a lack of attention to the very biblical text he claims to be investigating.
I’ll let you read the rest…
(HT: Bryan Lilly – I don’t actually read Challies’ blog…)
Valerie Martin has her actor/narrator in The Confessions Of Edward Day say, “In general the actor’s memoir is divided into two parts: stirring tales of my youthful artistic suffering followed by charming profiles of all the famous people who admire me. I’m not sure why this genre is popular, as nothing could be more boring than an actor’s life and actors are such a self-absorbed and narcissistic lot, they’re unlikely to make good narrators.” I heartily agree.
I was never able to believe the characters in her book were close to being people, nor that Edward Day could be trusted with accounting for life on or off stage. You may find the book interesting if you have dealt with Chekhov’s Uncle Vanyaas Chekhov is a competitive sport for both professional, university, and amateur theatre people. They all have secretly channel Chekhov at some point in their life. Charles Marlin
So I had a Hawaian fish called “Opah” while in Idaho at the Cottonwood Grille restaurant. First have to say that this was a great place to eat if you are ever in Boise, ID. Great atmosphere and food. I generally have no use for beef or red meat selections. There are cows everywhere and I don’t have to travel 500 miles to eat prime rib. So I tend to go local or seafood.
Well, on the menu were a couple of intruiging seafood choices, Opah, and something else–a fish described as a deep Pacific fish. Let’s just say I’m not going to run into these options back in DC on regular basis. So I went for the Opah.
So here’s the general deal with Opah. It was really moist and the flavor was very good. The problem with eating a fish once is that you can’t easily separate its flavor from the sauce. So I would need a couple more tries to ferret out its distinctiveness. But it was a delicious meal.
Here’s what they look like:
According to the linked website, these things range in weight from 60-200 lbs. Now my initial question when I see something that looks like this is, who came up with the idea that this would be delicious to eat? Pretty gross, but I’m glad someone stepped up.
BTW, sometimes we think of fish eating as pretty obvious, but I note that Jared Diamond, in his book, Collapse, talks of the Greenland Viking population that died out of starvation in a couple of centuries becuase they had a taboo against eating fish.
A Million Miles In A Thousands Years
What I Learned While Editing My Life
By Donald Miller
Book Description:
Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man’s opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.
Years after writing a best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and avoiding his publisher. One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.
But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don’s life for film–changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative–the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.
Excerpt:
A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Donald Miller
My Review: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
When I started reading this book, I enjoyed hearing the story about how Donald Miller discovered that using the same principles of story that helped him edit his memoir for a movie also helped him change his life. He has a way of telling his story that was interesting and engaging. But as I read further, I began to see how these same principles could be applied to my life. I saw where my story was stalled and what I needed to do to tell a better story in my life. By the time I finished this book, I found that it not only impacted me, but it started me down a road to changing my life – to writing a better story for my life. This is one of the most influencial books I’ve ever read. I can’t give it a higher recommendation. In my opinion, everyone should read this book. It’s that good. But be warned. It will change the story of your life for the better.
Free Book Giveaway:
Leave a comment on this post, and you will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. You must enter by Saturday, October 3, 2009.
First off, I highly recommend this book. It’s overdue from the library right now because I couldn’t give it back yet.
Take This Bread is labeled as both “A Radical Conversion” and “The spiritual memoir of a twenty-first-century Christian.” Sara Miles was an atheist until she wandered into a neighborhood church and found a home.
She didn’t just find a church home, though (and she didn’t always get along well with others in the church). She became a new kind of church planter.
Sara Miles decided to start a food pantry at her church. But it wasn’t just a food pantry. It became a church service of a kind itself, and a new congregation. And her food pantry has gone on to help plant other food pantries. To Miles, giving away food is Holy Communion, every bit as much as handing out wafers or bread in a traditional service.
The food pantry has had its own problems. This isn’t a story of perfect miracles. In fact, Miles makes some disturbing statements about Russian and Chinese people in San Francisco. But it’s an incredible story, well worth reading, especially for anyone who has been disillusioned by the institutional church.
This Is the Van that Dad Cleaned, By Lisa Campbell Ernst, Simon and Schuster Publisher, 2005.
We checked this book out from the library, and it’s one of the funniest books I’ve read, especially to a parent. How many of you are guilty of dirty cars inside and out? I’m sure if you have kids, you might have spilled Cheerios or cracker crumbs on the floor and seats, dirty handprints, mud, spills… If you can relate, then this is the book for your family to read. It’s great for young kids because it’s repetitive, and they can help read it. Ketchup, old candy stuck to toys, french fries…these are some of the things you’ll find in this van. Impossible for Dad to keep it clean.
Reading Black, Red, and White, I was (and am) astounded at your ability to weave a compelling plot, create a plethora of flesh and blood characters, and bring it all together in such a way that the reader never stops to realize it’s nothing more than words on paper. You communicate clearly, beautifully, creatively. That’s amazing, and I love it.
So I read Green.
Maybe I missed the memo. Because I wasn’t aware that Green would be “Twilight meets the Circle Trilogy.“
I don’t appreciate an excess of blood and gore, when as much could be accomplished via other means. I don’t appreciate sappy romances between a human and—oh, speaking of which, I also don’t appreciate your efforts to include the descendants of Alucard. I’m not a normal seventeen year old. I don’t have a crush on Edward Cullen and I don’t want to read about his relatives.
It doesn’t really matter to me if Green is yet another literary masterpiece. I was disappointed not with the writing, but with the slow closing of the gap between the Circle books and modern fiction junk. Don’t cater to the Twilight crowd. I’ve read plenty of good books that manage to get by without the inclusion of a vampire.
Richard Brautigan was like the John Dillinger of poetry, robbing from the rich, giving to the poor:
Mooresville, Indiana, is the town that John Dillinger came from, and the town has a John Dillinger Museum. You can go in and look around.
Some towns are known as the peach capital of America or the cherry capital or the oyster capital, and there’s always a festival and the photograph of a pretty girl in a bathing suit.
Mooresville, Indiana, is the John Dillinger capital of America.
Recently a man moved there with his wife, and he discovered hundreds of rats in his basement. They were huge, slow moving child-eyed rats.
When his wife had to visit some of her relatives for a few days, the man went out and bought a .38 revolver and a lot of ammunition. Then he went down to the basement where the rats were, and he started shooting them. It didn’t bother the rats at all. They acted as if it were a movie and started eating their dead companions for popcorn.
The man walked over to a rat that was busy eating a friend and placed the pistol against the rat’s head. The rat didn’t move and continued eating away. When the hammer clicked back, the rat paused between bites and looked out of the corner of its eye. First at the pistol and then at the man. It was a kind of friendly look as if to say, “When my mother was young she sang like Deanna Durbin.”
The man pulled the trigger.
He had no sense of humor.
There’s always a single feature, a double feature and an eternal feature playing at the Great Theater in Mooresville, Indiana: the John Dillinger capital of America.
A friend of the poet, Keith Abbot, says, “Over the nineteen years I knew Brautigan, I never heard him refer to any people of the Northwest by name—not his sister, mother, father or stepfathers, not his girlfriends or teachers… The effect was ghostly, as if Brautigan’s past had faded into a kind of surrealist museum whose holdings were indicated only by chalk outlines. He once recalled his abandonment in a Montana hotel by his mother when he was nine or ten and he mentioned to me that he had met his biological father twice, once in a barbershop and once in a hotel room. Each time his father gave him some money to go see a movie.”
Perhaps you felt bad when she said that thing to you. She could have told it to someone else: Somebody who was more familiar with her problems.
That is my name.
Or it was a game that you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting at a chair near the window.
It’s 1947 in Magrit, Minnesota, and the men haven’t come back from the war. Not that there were many men to start with, judging by the very short list of them in the opening chapters… It mainly follows Irini, a spirited 19 year old who works in the testing kitchens at the factory that is the heart of the town, best known for its cereal Sweetwheats. The book is narrated by Irini’s daughter, who begins with a caveat that she lies and so did her mother when she recounted the story, so any or all of the events might be a falsified. When the owner of the factory is looking for ways to promote his cereal over that of the rivals, he decides to buy a chimp and dress it up as the figurehead of Sweetwheats. His wife suggests that they start an all-girls baseball team, who can tour the local area and play the boys teams, promoting the factory and looking for husbands all at once. The team has to overcome the rivalries between Upper- and Lower-Magrit, between siblings and between other towns to become a success. Meanwhile, someone is writing controversial answers to the Agony Aunt column in the Sweetwheats newsletter and suspicion is directed at Irini.
A description of the events of the book makes it sound like there are actually events in the book. There aren’t. Not a great deal happens. Sometimes some of the characters go for a walk in the woods. Then they come back. There’s a sauna built at one point, but then everyone leaves the sauna and it’s still cold outside. Irini apparently isn’t very good at cooking, so the recipes created in the test kitchen are given to her to try, as if she can make it, so can anyone. There’s a fair amount of loose description of cooking, or drinking, or walking, or talking.
I so wanted to enjoy the book. I can’t even say I didn’t enjoy it, it’s just… nothing happened in it. The most climatic moment in the whole thing was when a bus carrying the Sweetwheat Sweethearts (as the team is called) crashes and rolls over, but no-one is really hurt and then they go home again, after spending the night in a nearby Summer Camp that was empty (as it isn’t summer). Oh, spoilers by the way. Sorry.
meh.
PS. Sorry about not updating the blog on Thursday, like I said I would. I could make an excuse about the keyboard (which is still a bit on the sticky side) or being busy or something, but truth is I suck at timekeeping! Anyhow – stay tuned for the next installment. I’m sure it’ll be dreadfully exciting.
RT Rating: ****½ Publisher: MIRA Published: October 2009 Type: Contemporary Romance
Combining sentiment with sarcasm and sweetness with spice, Wiggs concocts a terrifically tasty holiday confection sure to be enjoyed by fans and new readers alike. A keeper.
Summary: Librarian Maureen Davenport has been involved with Avalon’s holiday pageant for most of her life. This year, she’s in charge — and she intends to make it memorable. But her co-director, ex-child star Eddie Haven, doesn’t share Maureen’s vision. His biggest claim to fame is a well-loved Christmas movie, which is ironic, since he hates the holiday and everything associated with it.
Once she gets to know Eddie, Maureen swears she’ll change that, but he’s a tough sell. Against the odds, the two wind up together … but it’s certain to end in disaster, because the one thing Maureen and Eddie have in common is terrible luck when it comes to matters of the heart. Unless a Christmas miracle happens, that is! (MIRA, Oct., 384 pp., $21.95) MILD
Nothing is right anymore: Roxanne’s mother is in Israel caring for her sick sister, her father is working long hours as a cab driver, and she is left looking after her little sister, Gayle.
Meanwhile, fitting in at middle school is no easy thing, especially without the right clothes and the right hairstyle: the difficult to construct “wings” of the title.
When a new girl moves into the cursed pink house on her street, life becomes more interesting. Liat is also Israeli; she is also motherless, although permanently so, her mother having been killed in a bombing in Israel; she’s tough; and she doesn’t care about what other kids think of her.
Liat puts Roxanne’s troubles into a new light, and she matures as she deals with her situation.
Unfortunately, the setting of the book in the 1970s, with the TV shows of those years, will not draw in readers, and the concept of a house with a curse (which does play out once again at the end of the book), is a plot device more suited to a younger audience.
Ruba, an eight-year-old Lebanese, Maronite Christian girl is of an age where she is becoming more aware of family tensions, as well as being concerned with real and imaginary childhood issues such as the taunting of her Muslim friend, Karim at school, and her belief that a neighbor woman is a witch who must have put a curse on her depressed father to cause his nearly immobilized condition.
Her older brother, Naji is spending less and less time playing with her as he falls in with some older boys who are engaging in dangerous play.
Her mother and grandmother try to hold the family together emotionally and financially, and the visit of Uncle Wadih lightens the mood temporarily. Ruba, however, discovers that there is a family secret, which everyone but she knows, and which somehow explains her father’s depression and strange rages.
Meanwhile, Israel has invaded Lebanon, and the shelling comes closer and closer to their town. When the bombing finally arrives, the whole family is forced to deal not just with the present danger, but with the painful past.
An interesting book about a culture and history that may be unfamiliar to many Western readers, but with which we can identify emotionally through Abi-Ezzi’s strong writing, even as we learn from it.
In the same three story style as Dog and Bear, Harper tells short stories about two friends. Like Dog and Bear, there is the clever, caring friend (Bear and Lulu) and the care-free, more ego-centric friend (Dog and Mimi).
While Harper’s story telling (easily recognized themes with short and sweet execution) is excellent, just as Seeger’s is excellent, there is something about Harper’s illustrations that turn me off. What animals are they, anyway?
I can’t wait to see how the kids react. I used to think David Shannon’s illustrations were odd but his books are now among my favorites after seeing the kids enjoy them.
This is William Boyd’s ninth novel. He has always enjoyed playing with different genres, and I have always enjoyed his straightforward, unpretentious storytelling. This is an intelligent thriller and a rollicking good read, pacy and hard to put down. I’m glad I didn’t have to; that’s one of the joys of reading on holiday, to have the leisure to read straight through a book at a single sitting.
Today was full of books. At my desk I had open ‘Adobe PDF Forms’, ‘PDF Hacks’, and ‘The Adobe Acrobat Bible v6.0’, all at the same time. I had a particularly juicy problem in trying to automate a business form. The calculation fields weren’t working and I needed a crash course in Java Scripting. Alas, my Java skills are limited to ordering a Grande-mocha-frappa-whatzit. My form will work but without that one bell and wolf whistle I had envisioned.
Those books are a perfect example of ‘The Technical Read’ on my personal rating system. Browsing those tomes took me through lunch and with a little side serving of Boing Boing I felt pretty good. My actual for-fun read is waiting for me right now. I’m half way through a library book called ‘How to Live – A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They’re Still On This Earth).’ The author is Henry Alford who is a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. I know this because I am very culturally literate, and because it was on the back cover.
Also on the back cover, I’m just noticing, is a small collection of bite marks. Apparently one of my dogs, and I know which one, decided to consume some literature while I was out. The erstwhile reader/nibbler is Roscoe. You all know by now my deep abiding affection for Chihuahuas but Roscoe is no Chihuahua. I don’t care what the photocopied flyer on the grocery store bulletin board said; he’s not a Chihuahua. We were tempted by that one floppy ear that was clearly much too large for his head. He is an adorable little package of white, tan, brown and busy.
I covet every dog I see. I can’t help it; even the neighbor’s dogs aren’t safe. I sneak out to the back yard and throw dog biscuits over the fence whenever I can. When I don’t have the biscuits or can’t toss them over because the neighbor is, very inconsiderately using his own yard, I have to duck and water my plants while they whine and toss around like kindergartners at cookie time. I tried to tell myself for weeks that Roscoe was a Chihuahua, ‘no really, he’s just a big Chihuahua’ and ‘he’s just….’ No more, I can’t deny it any longer. He’s a Jack Russell Terrier. There should be horror movie music right there. Let’s try: Duh duh duuhhhhh!
Okay, that didn’t work, but there’s a huge difference between the breeds and I’m having trouble coping with it. Jack Russell’s are smart, they’re active, they like to play and figure things out. This is not a good fit for me because my chosen breed is just stupid. Chihuahuas are dumb as a sack of hammers, with a six-second memory function and massive separation anxiety.
I just realized that this blog has nothing to do with the book about wisdom and old people. Fact is the book is pretty short on wisdom. It’s an okay read, not great, but nobody’s being wise. The author is being wise-ass but that’s not his premise, is it?
Maybe I’m sticking with it because I’m hoping for some wisdom from old people. God knows I haven’t gotten any from my family. My grandmother died before I was old enough to learn anything useful, but she did a great job of grandmothering me when she was here.
Whenever my mother got on one of her chase-the-allergy kicks and put me on a restricted diet, my grandmother would take me for the day and stuff me full of comfort food. My mom got so mad but Grandma just grinned and sneaked me some ribbon candy. From Grandma I learned that life is short so don’t waste it on fake food. Eat dessert first because you might get hit by a bus before the cheese course.
My husband’s great aunt came to visit very late in her life. Her wisdom was contained in one phrase, ‘Old age will get you’. She wasn’t smiling when she said it and she said it a lot. From her I learned to do everything now that I would otherwise save for retirement. If we still get there, we’ve had a lot of fun along the way.
My mother didn’t give me much wisdom, only two statements that I remember. One was to pay attention to how a man treats his mother because eventually he’ll treat his wife the same way. This has been good advice. My husband was a saint with his mom, caring for her at home during her lengthy illness until just two days before she died. He loved her with all his heart and I get the same kind of love. That was wisdom and very good advice.
Mom’s other nugget of wisdom was ‘Never wear red shoes because that’s what hookers wear’. I have to confess that as soon as I got old enough to buy my own shoes I bought a pair of red heels. Oh gosh, rebellion was fun when you’re fourteen. I never wore them but I liked having red shoes in the closet. These days I wear my favorite color shoes; green. It’s true, my favorite color is green and I like being able to see it whenever I look down, even if I have to lean out a bit to do it.
So that’s wisdom from old people. Not so hot a book, not such great advice, but still kind of fun. Let’s sum up: eat good food, don’t waste your time, make sure you do something every day to make yourself happy. Oh, and keep the books up out of the way of ersatz Chihuahuas and learn to tell the difference before you fall in love and it’s too late.
I first heard about “Annie’s Ghosts” on NPR. A Journalist Uncovers His Family’s ‘Ghosts’ was both an interview and a book promo with author and Washington Post editor Steve Luxenberg. Half-listening while driving, it was interesting enough for me to scribble down the title and subsequently reserve it at the library… and I’m so glad I did.
Annie’s Ghosts – A Journey Into a Family Secret must have been an extremely difficult book for Steve Luxenberg to write. It is honest in the face of dishonesty and loyal where he could have turned away. Digging into the dark corners of his family’s past, Mr. Luxenburg exhumes the complicated history of his ancestors in hopes of revealing a family secret once mentioned by his now deceased mother.
I don’t know how I was born in the Detroit area and never heard of “Eloise”. The psychiatric hospital which closed its doors in 1979 would have at best been historical information, and at worst a schoolyard jeer. One would think that an institution that once housed “nine thousand mentally ill, infirm, and homeless people” from the state of Michigan would have caught my attention at some point. However, it wasn’t until I read about Annie that I learned of its existence.
Having always eagerly described herself as an only child, Beth Luxenberg (the author’s mother) did her best to conceal a sister long hidden away at Eloise. However, after her doctor mentioned a mysterious comment to Mr. Luxenberg, the author felt compelled to prove the existence of an aunt he’d never met. With the deftness of his trade, Luxenberg tempers his unyielding journalistic skills with empathy and sensitivity as he coaxes his older relations into pasts best left forgotten.
“Pursuing the secret would ultimately lead me back to the beginning of the twentieth century, through Ellis Island to the crowded streets of Detroit’s Jewish immigrant communities, through the spectacular boom of the auto industry’s early years and the crushing bust of the Depression, through the wartime revival that transformed the city into the nation’s Arsenal of Democracy, through the Holocaust that brought a relative to Detroit and into my mother’s secret, through the postwar exodus that robbed the city’s old neighborhoods of both population and prosperity.”
And this is exactly what Steve Luxenberg does. As we move back in time, the anticipation builds as more pieces fall into place ultimately bringing us closer to solving this mystery. At times horrific, Luxenberg holds your hand as unbelievable truths come to light. Poignant yet informative, this is the gift that keeps on giving. Full of Detroit’s colorful history, the bigger mystery is why it wasn’t chosen as a 2009 Michigan Notable Book.
A NOTE: When I began asking people if they had heard of Eloise, they usually talked about it as a sight for paranormal activity. When I tried to look at footage of Eloise, YouTube seemed to back that up. However, there are legitimate sites and some pretty cool information on Eloise and its remaining structures. My condolences to those of you whose relations remain nameless and faceless in the mist of Eloise.
Taken from a review by http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/books/14maslin.html?_r=1
In short : Fasten Your Seat Belts, There’s Code to Crack
My Rating : 3.5/5
One of the theories espoused by Dan Brown’s new book is that when many people share the same thought, that thought can have physical effects. Let’s test it on Tuesday. Watch what happens to bloggers, booksellers, nitpickers, code crackers, conspiracy theorists, fans and overheated search engines when “The Lost Symbol,” Mr. Brown’s overdue follow-up to “Angels & Demons” (2000) and “The Da Vinci Code” (2003), finally sees the light of day.
As a man whose ideas have had their share of physical effects, Mr. Brown is well aware of how widely read and closely scrutinized “The Lost Symbol” will be. He even lets a character joke about this book’s guaranteed popularity. Dr. Katherine Solomon specializes in noetic science, with its focus on mind-body connections. She admits that her field is not widely known. But when her story comes out, she suggests, noetics could get the kind of public relations bump that Mr. Brown gave to the Holy Grail.
Dr. Solomon accompanies Robert Langdon, the rare symbologist who warrants the word dashing as both adjective and verb, through much of this novel, his third rip-snorting adventure. As Browniacs have long predicted, the chase involves the secrets of Freemasonry and is set in Washington, where some of those secrets are built into the architecture and are thus hidden in plain sight. Browniacs also guessed right in supposing that “The Lost Symbol” at one point was called “The Solomon Key.” That’s a much better title than the generic one it got.
So much for safe predictions. What no one could guess, despite all advance hints about setting and subject matter, was whether Mr. Brown could recapture his love of the game. Could he still tell a breathless treasure-hunt story? Could he lard it with weirdly illuminating minutiae? Could he turn some form of profound wisdom into a pretext for escapist fun? By now his own formula has been damaged by so much copycatting that it’s all but impossible for anyone to get it right.
Too many popular authors (Thomas Harris) have followed huge hits (“The Silence of the Lambs”) with terrible embarrassments (“Hannibal”). Mr. Brown hasn’t done that. Instead, he’s bringing sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead.
The new book clicks even if at first it looks dangerously like a clone. Here come another bizarre scene in a famous setting (the Capitol, not the Louvre), another string of conspiratorial secrets and another freakish-looking, masochistic baddie (tattooed muscleman, not albino monk) bearing too much resemblance to a comic-book villain. “If they only knew my power,” thinks this year’s version, a boastful psycho and cipher calling himself Mal’akh. “Tonight my transformation will be complete.”
Mal’akh appears in the stereotypically sinister prologue, disguising his identity as he is initiated into the highest echelon of Freemasonry. Next up is the return of Langdon, first seen here on a private plane en route to Washington. He has agreed on short notice to give a speech at the behest of Peter Solomon, Langdon’s mentor and Katherine’s brother. Why is Langdon in such demand? He’s barely off the plane when a woman brings up his last book, the one about the church and the sacred feminine: it seems to have created some kind of stir. “What a delicious scandal that one caused!” she says. “You do enjoy putting the fox in the henhouse!”
Langdon heads for the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol building, where he is to speak. And here comes Mr. Brown’s first neat trick: The Solomon summons was fake. There’s no audience waiting. Just as Langdon realizes he has been lured to Washington under a false pretext, a shriek arises from the Rotunda. Some fiend has deposited Peter Solomon’s severed, tattooed hand right above the Capitol Crypt — and right below the dome art that depicts George Washington, founding father and Freemason, as an ascending deity. “That hardly fits with the Christian underpinnings of this country,” huffs the tiny, irritating C.I.A. official who serves as this book’s Jar Jar Binks, when Langdon starts holding forth about the “Ancient Mysteries” the Capitol hides.
Meanwhile, at the Smithsonian Museum Support Center in Maryland (the book gives street addresses if you don’t want to wait for the official Dan Brown bus tours), Dr. Solomon is in her lab. It is located within an immense, highly guarded building that also houses Mars meteorite ALH-84001 and an architeuthis (a k a giant squid). And here it’s worth bringing up that Mr. Brown has a sideline as a walking crossword puzzle. His code- and clue-filled book is dense with exotica, from Futhark to Eiomahe to the Kubera Kolam. As for actual symbology, there’s a fabulous moment when Mal’akh has Langdon trapped in a box that is rapidly filling with water. He suddenly shows Langdon a 64-symbol-encoded grid. If Langdon doesn’t figure out its meaning in less than 60 seconds, he’ll stop breathing and something truly terrible will happen: We won’t get to hyperventilate through another mind-blowing Langdon story.
Mr. Brown’s splendid ability to concoct 64-square grids outweighs what might otherwise be authorial shortcomings. Within this book’s hermetically sealed universe, characters’ motivations don’t really have to make sense; they just have to generate the nonstop momentum that makes “The Lost Symbol” impossible to put down. So Mal’akh’s story is best not dissected beyond the facts that he is bad, self-tattooed, self-castrated and not Langdon’s friend.
Also, the author uses so many italics that even brilliant experts wind up sounding like teenage girls. And Mr. Brown would face an interesting creative challenge if the phrases “What the hell
…?,” “Who the hell … ?” and “Why the hell … ?” were made unavailable to him. The surprises here are so fast and furious that those phrases get quite the workout.
Then again, Mr. Brown’s excitable, hyperbolic tone is one the guilty pleasures of his books. (“ ‘Actually, Katherine, it’s not gibberish.’ His eyes brightened again with the thrill of discovery. ‘It’s … Latin.’ ”) It’s all in a day’s work for Langdon to ponder “a single solitary image that represented the illumination of the Egyptian sun god, the triumph of alchemical gold, the wisdom of the Philosopher’s Stone, the purity of the Rosicrucian Rose, the moment of the Creation, the All, the dominance of the astrological sun” and so much more in that cosmically mystical vein.
“The Lost Symbol” manages to take a twisting, turning route through many such aspects of the occult even as it heads for a final secret that is surprising for a strange reason: It’s unsurprising. It also amounts to an affirmation of faith. In the end it is Mr. Brown’s sweet optimism, even more than Langdon’s sleuthing and explicating, that may amaze his readers most.
Mr. Brown was writing sensational visual scenarios long before his books became movie material. This time he again enlivens his story with amazing imagery. Some particularly hot spots: the unusually suspense-generating setup for Katherine’s laboratory; the innards of the Library of Congress; the huge tank of the architeuthis; and two highly familiar tourist stops, both rendered newly breathtaking by Mr. Brown’s clever shifting of perspective. Thanks to him, picture postcards of the capital’s most famous monuments will never be the same.
Finally, there’s the jacket art for “The Lost Symbol,” its background covered with hundreds of symbols that form tiny coded inscriptions. These are so faint that in order to see them you need to pick up an actual copy of the book. You were probably going to do that anyhow.
This is the first of what will probably be many book reviews. Yes, it is indeed just another way to put easy content up on my site. Since school started I have less time for this, but I’m still reading as much as I can. Any feedback would be wonderful. I’ll post the review criteria at the bottom of this review, and probably make an individual post about it so the criteria can be easily accessed. Also, any suggestions for other categories to review would be appreciated (or suggestions to remove categories).
J.P. Moreland’s The Recalcitrant Imago Dei is a work that outlines a case against naturalism based on what a Christian would define as the “image of God.” These recalcitrant (as far as naturalism is concerned) facts include consciousness, free will, rationality, a substantial soul, objective morality, and intrinsic value.
J.P. Moreland has, I believe, outlined a rather magnficent critique of naturalism in this work. Chapter by chapter, he lays out philosophical defeaters for naturalism that are based on some of the most basic facts of human life. Each chapter contains clear, though often intellectually challenging, arguments against naturalism based on such things as consciousness or free will.
The chapter on Consciousness was, I believe, great, but I’ve read almost all the material in other works (specifically, J.P. Moreland’s Consciousness and the Existence of God and William Lane Craig/Moreland’s Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology). I believe that current apologists are certainly on to something when they consider the argument from consciousness, which I would consider a rather impressive defeater of naturalism. Moreland’s version of the argument is actually an argument for theism, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes it even better.
The next chapter considers the case of the freedom of the will. I believe that Moreland is correct in suggesting that naturalism generally, and physicalism specifically are almost certainly defeaters of the freedom of the will. Morelands argument in this chapter is again similar to some of his other works (here it would be Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview), but there is some material here that is both not recycled and very useful. I believe that this is a chapter I will continue to open to in my debates with physicalists.
One argument that continues to pique my interest is the argument from rationality. In this chapter, Moreland doesn’t so much employ an argument from reason for the existence of God as he uses the existence of reason as a defeater for naturalism. I believe many of the aspects of the argument from reason tend to mirror some of the teleological argument’s claims, and because of this I generally am biased against it, but I find Moreland’s methodology of using it against naturalism rather than as a proof for God quite interesting and will probably use it in application.
The chapter on the substantial soul is, I believe, less useful as an argument against naturalism (I think naturalists who argue that the soul is a physical object are, well, generally ignored nowadays), but the chapter contains several pages of highly useful definitions. It’s another chapter I will almost certainly continue to open to in order to clearly outline my responses.
Objective morality is a continual problem that I don’t see naturalism having any way around. I’m a huge advocate of the moral argument, and while Moreland doesn’t advance any specific moral argument in this chapter, he uses the idea of objective morality as a defeater for naturalism (and vice versa). Further, he argues that naturalism has no way to give humans intrinsic value, due to the idea that, according to naturalism, humans are merely animals and have no significant differences between them and, say, a dog as far as the physical world is concerned. His discussion in this chapter and the previous chapter on the errors of various philosophers using species relations when they should be discussing genus relations is highly interesting, though I’m unsure of the applicability.
The appendix has a few useful things, but it is mostly just Moreland observing various philosophical trends. He does offer an argument against naturalistic dismissivism that I will probably make use of in the future.
Overall, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei is a fantastic work. Although some portions of it are clearly recycled, including almost an entire chapter, it is a work that I will almost certainly use again and again. Moreland’s style of writing is almost always clear, but he sometimes suffers from an overuse of philosophical terms that are usually obvious in meaning, but could probably have been better said in a simpler fashion (like qualia, desiderata, etc.). I got this book hoping it would have some good arguments in it to help formulate a general critique of naturalism and I was not disappointed. I recommend this book highly, but be aware of the fact that it is certainly not easy reading.
Contents:
Naturalism, Theism and Human Persons: Identifying the Central Crisis of Our Age —1
Naturalism, Consciousness and Human Persons —16
Naturalism, Free Will and Human Persons —41
Naturalism, Rationality and Human Persons —67
Naturalism, a Substantial Soul and Human Persons —104
Naturalism, Objective Morality, Intrinsic Value and Human Persons —143
Appendix: Dismissive Naturalism: Responding to Nagel’s Last Stand —165
Scores:
Quality of Arguments (if it applies): 8
Overall Content: 9
Difficulty: 7
Clarity: 9
Theology/Doctrine: N/A- other than fairly fundamental Christian belief, this doesn’t really have enough to judge the work based on Doctrinal or Theological stances
Value (price): 8- Amazon has it for around 30-40$ The book’s actual material (before the notes/index start) comprise 180 pages. Normally I think this is a little low for a 40$ book, but there is no wasted space here.
Relevance: 9
Review Criteria:
The Quality of arguments is just what it says. Obviously this is subjective. Do I think the arguments presented in the book (if there are any) are valid and/or useful?
Overall Content is a general judge of how good I felt the book is.
Difficulty is the amount of work it takes to get through the work. Higher values don’t necessarily mean the book is better, just more difficult to read.
Clarity simply outlines how clear I believe the author was.
Theology/Doctrine is my judgment, clearly based on my presuppositions, of how good I felt the author’s theological or doctrinal content was (if there is any).
Value is a determination of whether I believe the book is worth the asking price.
Relevance outlines whether I think the book has real-life applications. A low score in this doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad, just that I believe there may not be much to use. In other words, a book could score low on this criterium, but I might still find it quite good.
I finished reading Dan Brown’s new book, The Lost Symbol, last night after a long weekend away. This review, of sorts, is my first impression. To undertake a full scale review of the book is a task best left for the professionals. My review is simply from the perspective of an ordinary Christian who is likely to be engaged in conversation over the book with friends & co-workers.
Note: There may be some spoilers in here, so if you don’t want me to ruin it for you, read the book first.
The Good
It is a fast moving story that grabbed my attention. I had a difficult time putting it down, and think it will probably make a good movie. I have an interest in reading about conspiracies and secret societies, so this book was right up my alley. Throw CIA into the mix, and it makes for a decent thriller. There are some glaring errors, tortured sentences, and a couple of slow moving parts. It wasn’t a bad read, but there are some things that are no so good.
Apologetics
At the outset, let me state emphatically that no serious apologetic against Christianity appears anywhere in this book. Anyone with even minimal training in apologetics will recognize that the author is working with a view of Christianity that is a caricature. The Scriptures, when they are used, are simply a device to move the plot along, quoted as a proof text to reinforce the presuppositions of the characters in the story. It is the same technique that is used in an evangelical sermon, where the speaker quotes scripture out of context to make a point, or uses Jesus merely as a reference but never interacts with Jesus as He presents Himself.
I seriously doubt that there is anything here that the thinking Christian will find challenging to their faith, but weaker brothers & sisters among us may have some trouble discerning the errors contained therein.
If there is an apologetic for anything in his book, it is an apologetic for Free Masonry. At several places, the author downplays any questions surrounding the ties between the occult (in the demonic sense of the word) and Free Masonry, and speaks glowingly of their service to mankind. His solution to all of the religious tension in the world is to present The Masonic Brotherhood as the system that will allow all of the competing faiths to worship “God” together.
In all of the discussions that go on about other religions and “isms” however, nothing is treated in an apologetic way. The religions of the world and ancient mysteries are presented as fact, without question, except for one; Christianity. And none are presented as contradicting each other. They are simple steps we take toward our own godhood.
Higher Criticism
Much of the same arguments that are found in The Da Vinci Code are recycled here through the use of higher criticism & proof texting to support the view that Jesus is not who He says he is. One wonders if the author has ever seriously considered the truth claims of Christ and read a serious apologetic presentation, or if he merely dabbles around the edges of the faith.
Scripture is presented as being on par with other sacred writings, with no real difference between pagan texts and the Word of God. No attempt is made to view scripture through any other lens than that of a syncretistic world view that sees all religions ending at the same point, worshiping the same god who merely goes by different names.
History
I find it odd that a book can be filled with so many references to Christianity, and be so concerned with presenting everything in its place historically, but make no mention whatsoever of the Reformation. Arguably one of the most pivotal events, not only in church history but human history as well, the Reformation is apparently absent from the author’s view of Christianity.
I don’t know if that is a good thing or not, but suspect that if the author did mention the Reformation in his works that it would receive the same shabby treatment as the rest of Christendom. Maybe he is saving that for his next work.
Consequently, I would have to say his view of history has a gaping hole in it, and suggest that if he did have some understanding of the impact of the Reformation on Christian thought, his view of Jesus might be different.
Spirituality & Worldview
As I mentioned before, in the author’s world view all religions end at the same point. The hidden message of The Bible is that you are a god, and you just don’t know it, along with a lot of scientific stuff if you read between the lines. Yawn. This is the same worldview that he and others have been pushing for years, and this worldview is exactly where the emergent church is headed. Much of what is argued by way of dialog in the book I have read before in the writings of some emergents.
The instructional value in reading a book like this, for those of us who do have a Christ-centered world view, is to see the errors, misrepresentations, and logical fallacies present in the book and to be ready with an answer when we discuss it with our friends who will read & have their worldview reinforced.
In evaluating the various belief systems and phenomenon presented in the story, experience, it turns out, is the final authority. Katherine witnessed certain things happen, therefore she believes that they are real. This is true not only of her character, but with all of the characters in his book. Doctrines & dogma are bad. Spirituality, and more importantly, spiritual experience, regardless of the form or truth claims, is true and almost always good in some way.
There is also the concept that individual words have the ability to create reality (The Secret, Joel Osteen, et al) and that the thoughts of millions of people thinking the same thing can influence the present world in a supernatural way. It is truly inconsistent that the supernatural demonstrations of Christ’ authority over creation as recorded in Scripture are dismissed, but the supernatural acts of Noetics are accepted as fact.
Conclusion
I will not go into anymore detail regarding the errors in the book. There are a couple of doosies, but I’ll leave finding them to the reader. So what makes this a “Lutheran” review?
First, any student of the Reformation should see the errors in the way that Christianity is presented. Since Lutheranism holds to a high view of Scripture, the Lutheran reader should clearly see that the Word of God is misused and abused throughout the book.
The substitute gospel in this book is a form of justification by enlightenment. That is to say, justification in the secular sense and not in the Biblical. God’s Word (& Lutheranism) teaches justification by faith alone on account of Christ alone. There is no concept of sin in the Biblical sense here. The only thing wrong with man is his lack of knowledge, his inner gnostic remains in darkness as long as his man-made religion keeps getting in the way.
What man really needs to do is to dump all of the doctrine & dogma, the creeds that separate religions and keep them in competition with one another, and embrace the light of the Masonic Order.
As a Lutheran, I find the treatment of Christianity minus the Reformation almost comical, and as a follower of Christ I find the author’s suggestion that all religions lead to the point of man becoming God to be not only disingenuous, but sloppy as well. If you are going to interact with a belief system, the least you can do is present it in truth. But, that may be a bit much to ask considering the author’s previous work.
I would not recommend this book for young people who are not able to defend their faith, or for those who are easily swayed by the popular culture. For those who are more mature and are looking for connecting points with their friends who will read the book, it will be helpful to be well versed in apologetics along with a careful read of the Lost Symbol.
Title: Teaching the Story: Fiction Writing in Grades 4-8 2nd ed.
Author: Carol Baldwin
Publisher: Maupin House Publishing
ISBN- 978-1-934338-35-3
Note – Tomorrow I will be posting an interview with author Carol Baldwin about this book.
Teaching the Story: Fiction Writing in Grades 4-8 2nd ed. is one of the most effective and engaging books I have ever seen on how to teach creative writing to young students. With a gentle and yet authoritative hand, author Carol Baldwin brilliantly leads student through such topics as: Discussing the Basics, Creating a Character, Setting the Scene, Developing the Plot, Writing the First Draft, and Editing and Revising.
Developed as an instructional guide, Baldwin guides the teacher through detailed, organized and clear lessons that help students learn the craft of short fiction, foster critical-thinking skills to carry those skills over into informational writing.
Baldwin does this in part by introducing genres that kids love including: sci-fi/fantasy, history, sports, and mystery. Each lesson keeps the student audience in mind though its use of kid friendly and genuinely interesting examples. The book also comes with a CD that allows for course personalization and adds an element of new technology “coolness” to the course by connecting the students’ writing through wikis, digital media, and podcasts.
As an example of the typical teaching style, to help students understand the many levels at which revision can occur – from smallest to largest, Baldwin presents these often complicated concepts to the student by using the effective analogy of a neighborhood with in a city within a state.
House – word choice: Has the writer used the most specific noun, vivid verb, or descriptive adjective?
Street – sentences: Is there a variety of syntax? Are the tense and speaker/subject consistent from one sentence to the next?
Neighborhood – punctuation and capitalization: Are they correct?
City – paragraph: Do paragraphs make sense? Are there transitions? Should paragraphs be rearranged? Are there new paragraphs each time there is a change in speaker?
State – content of entire work: Did the piece accomplish its purpose? Was it organized well? Did transitions make sense?
Each of the 20 mini lessons are clearly laid out with goals, teacher preparation points, instructional tasks, lists of resources, and adaptations of the lesson for older students.
All instructions are clear with lessons building on previous knowledge. To aid in the understanding, there are plenty of examples of what not to do followed by what the student should do. For example when discussing dialogue:
Don’t:
“Hello,” said Barbara.
“Hello,” answered Jerry.
“How are you?” asked Barbara.
“I’m OK,” Jerry relied. “How about yourself?”
Try Instead:
Barbara and Jerry slunk into the room at the same time. “Hi,” Barbara offered tentatively. “You look better.” Her hands were sweaty and her mouth felt like it was full of sand. They hadn’t seen each other for ten months. What would this first meeting be like?
An impressive and clearly written guide, Baldwin manages to move the teaching of creative story writing from intimidating to fun and productive.
Melinda is entering her first year of high school as a complete outsider. She is branded as a high school untouchable by not only the entire school but by her best friends as well – all because she called the cops on an end of summer senior party. What no one knows is that she called the cops because she was raped. Melinda’s grades drop and loneliness sets in as she finds it increasingly difficult to speak – why bother anyways right? Ultimately Melinda will face a decision, continue down the spiral she’s on, or speak the truth.
Speak is a story of teenage loneliness and depression, one that is relatable to more than those who are carrying the weight of a secret like Melinda. For many it is the perfect depiction of high school: struggling to fit in, parents and teachers who don’t understand and complete and utter loneliness. The other characters of the novel also add considerable depth and dimension to Speak. Heather, the new girl in school, struggles to fit into new cliques, and the art teacher, Mr Freeman, struggles through his own oppression and demons. What also makes this story stand out against the plethora of other high school narratives is Laurie Halse Anderson’s astonishing ability to verbalize the inner sanctum of the teenage psyche. Her dialogue and narrative is not only dead-on, in some aspects it is poetic. This book comes highly recommended for teenagers and adults alike. The story of Speak is very relevant to today’s young adults, and the style it is written in makes it a fun and easy read. This would be a great addition to a library.
Other books by Laurie Halse Anderson: Chains, and Fever 1793,
My home has been quiet this weekend because we’re mourning the loss of a most-loved pet. We’ve gone out a couple of times and spent some time at my girlfriend’s home to try to life some of the cloud of sadness that drifts through our house. I’ve been through loss before, I know the steps of grief and I’ll move through them eventually. I can see them laid out on the floor before me like adhesive steps in a dance lesson diagram. Right now I’m working on even believing that it happened. You would think that I would be eager to move on through this step but I’m afraid of those times when I forget for a while that she’s gone and look for her at the window or on her favorite cushion. Realizing she’s not there is like discovering her loss all over again. It’s tempting to hold it in my mind like a mantra, ‘she’s gone, she’s gone’, just to avoid that moment of realization.
Instead of doing that, I borrowed a book from my friend and read it through. It was Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. This is the author’s first published work and it’s an impressive effort. The story centers on the Naumann family and their daughter Eliza. She had been taken for a mediocre child and the academic father had invested his time in his older child, a son who seemed destined for rabbinical studies. When Eliza very nearly wins the national spelling bee, her father transfers his time, energy, and affection to his daughter. His son reacts by becoming detached from this already emotionally distant family and pursuing his own spiritual path in Eastern enlightenment. By the time his father awakens to the damage he has done to his son, the teen is embroiled with the Hare Krishna movement and ready to become a devotee.
Eliza’s mother has never been close to her family. She takes the opportunity of her husband’s obsession to fall ever deeper into her mania, using stolen objects to construct a kaleidoscope of objects that represent the perfect world.
Eliza welcomes her father’s help until he reveals that her spelling bee skills should open a pathway for Jewish mysticism and studies of the kabala. The girl engulfs herself in a spiritual journey that uses words and letters to seek oneness with God in the hope that her perfection of form and devotion will restore her family and win the approval her controlling father.
The story is engrossing and each character is finely detailed, remarkably so. Their history, desires, fears, and inner voice are laid bare for the reader and one can’t help but love each person, even while recognizing the damage they shaping each day. This is a story of obsession in many forms and the search for an overwhelming spiritual experience to substitute for the mundane quality of everyday life. But, even as the characters are laid out like a buffet dinner at Hometown Buffet, there’s still a quality of separateness in the book. I had the recurring feeling that I was sitting in the story, within touching distance of each person, and yet they never raised their eyes to look at me. This is the most inward story I’ve read. Perhaps it’s the terrible reserve of this family; they don’t speak of what is happening to them even while consumed by regret. The sharing of information is only accomplished in great pain, as a weapon in an argument spun out of control. This isn’t the normal reserve of a family trying to avoid another fight or the polite fictions that are maintained to keep love floating through the home. This family lives with tremendous secrets and a reserve that kills affection and confidence. The Naumann family is damaged long before mental illness and anger causes an obvious rift.
Reading this book is kind of frustrating because you can’t tell the father to knock on the door instead of standing in front of it uselessly. You can’t pull the daughter away from the father and tell her to protect herself from her father’s obsession with mysticism. What use to recognize that each person is using a form of OCD to escape from daily pain and that nurturing the habit won’t bring them closer to God because He doesn’t want ritual and mind-numbing repetition. It’s a frustrating book for all that it’s a well-written story with excellent depth and coloration. This story won’t leave you uplifted and won’t satisfy in many ways, but you will have experienced a very real family with terrible problems that engage your mind and heart. Read Bee Season by Myla Goldberg, published by Anchor Books.
I was surprised by how much I liked this book. My mother read it before me and she found that though it got off to a good start, it eventually lost steam and became boring. Not so for me. I spent a few chapters in the middle of the book in tears. The ones where she learns the truth about her marriage and tries to cope with it and the many betrayals both real and perceived.
This is not to say I did not have my problems with the book. The first problem came up around Chapter 16 where we find our supposedly intelligent heroine, Alessandra, about to do Something Stupid (why is it the woman who always falls victim to this particular plot device?). There is a murderer in Florence, killing and mutilating people, two women and a man at this point, and Alessandra decides to sneak out of her family’s palazzo in a final of act of rebellious freedom against the confines of women. Alone. At night. And let us not forget the hovering threat of the French army on their doorsteps, or the ever increasing ascetic vitriol of Savanarola. I know she was only sixteen at the time, but, geez.
My other problem isn’t quite so big, more of a mosquito-like irritant, buzzing around in high-pitched discord at places in the dialogue. Erila’s dialogue to be precise. In places, I thought it was far too modern.
All in all, I liked this book very much, greatly enjoying my trip to the waning glory of Renaissance Florence. Enough so, that, eventually, I plan to read the sequels, In the Company of the Courtesan and Sacred Hearts, which explore other female roles of the time.
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson explores the darkest recesses of the troubled mind of a teenage anorexic coping with the death of her best friend. For a mother of young girls, this was a most terrifying reading experience.
Lia and Cassie were best friends growing up, making a dangerous pact to stay thin and always support each other’s habits. But after 9 years of best friendship, they stop talking.
When Lia’s parents put her in a treatment center for eating disorders, Cassie’s parents warn her to stay away from Lia, who they perceive as a bad influence. But what Cassie’s parents don’t know is that Cassie is a bulimic and in very serious trouble physically. At the time of her death, Lia and Cassie hadn’t spoken in several months, but for some reason Cassie tried to call her 33 times the night she died.
Lia is haunted by obsessive thoughts of her friend, and visual and auditory hallucinations of Cassie encouraging her to stay strong, eat less, and join her. She can even smell Cassie’s presence.
Obsessive thoughts rule Lia’s existence. Thoughts of Cassie and thoughts of food. Everything has a number. Apple (75) half a bagel (185) 10 raisins (16). The book is written in a stream of consciousness style that is compelling and painful. I felt like I was witnessing this girl, this character I cared about, slowly killing herself, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Her family is desperate to help her but Lia is critical of all their efforts. Lia believes they are clueless and that they don’t care, but it’s clear they love her and will do anything to make her well.
A starving girl does not make the most reliable narrator. She is deeply disturbed and in so much pain. She calls herself names and has such horrible self-talk that it was very hard (as a mom) to read:
::stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat/
stupid/baby/stupid/loser/stupid/lost::
Her brain is at war with itself throughout the book as she tries to convince herself that she doesn’t need food. Anderson shows the reader how conflicted she is by using a strike-out technique with great effectiveness. Here’s an example:
“My traitor fingers want that fudge. No, they don’t. They want a seven layer bar and some weird muffins and those pretzels. No, they do not. They want to squish the marshmallows and stuff them into my mouth. They will not.”
This is a fabulously written, intensely compelling book. I love how it doesn’t solve the problem or give any easy answers, because there aren’t any. It’s such a complicated issue. Laurie Halse Anderson is an amazing YA novelist who takes on the most difficult subjects. I’d highly recommend Wintergirls to anyone looking for a book to take over their lives for a couple of days, but most especially to those who deal with teenage girls on a regular basis or who want a better understanding of eating disorders.
Rachel Muenz Makes Children's Book Selections For Adults - Photo Courtesy of Stockexpert.com
By Rachel Muenz
Often, people read books as children that they think are the best things ever only to be disappointed when they return to them as adults. But there some children’s books that, whether you re-read them or explore them for the first time as an adult, are still great adventures.
Here, in my opinion, are the best kids’ books anyone of any age can enjoy:
1. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy
Yes, technically it’s three books, but each part of the trilogy is so good that it would be a shame not to include all of them in the top spot. Pullman does not dumb down his writing yet still gives us an amazing story and characters we’ll never forget.
2. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
While the first two books aren’t as fun to read as an adult, from book three onwards, the series gets darker, more exciting and more mature. Also, though the characters are lumped into simple good and bad categories at first, they get more complex as the series progresses. And the excellent story still pulls readers in long after they’ve grown up.
3. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Reluctant hero Bilbo Baggins makes this tale of dwarves, wizards, elves and a dragon stand out even in today’s massive fantasy genre which the book essentially started. Clever writing and a great adventure keep both children and adults coming back to The Hobbit.
4. Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux
This simple story of a mouse and his adventures is actually more complex than it first seems. The writing is beautiful and the characters are not just good and evil like they are in many children’s books. DiCamillo does not cover up the darker side of life, making this book something that anyone can relate to.
5. Roald Dahl’s Matilda
Pretty much anything by Dahl is fun to read no matter how old you are, but Matilda’s playful, funny narrator and over-the-top characters like Miss Trunchbull make it especially good to liven up a boring afternoon.
One of the most praised books to come out in a long time, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was written by the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson and translated by Reg Keeland. For me, the book was enthralling and tedious at the same time. A strange combination of compelling story and colorless, plodding prose that nearly had me screaming at the late author to move the story along. The plot inventively weaves Sweden’s economic issues, political issues and relations within Europe. Unfortunately, it comes with a frequently plodding style that is as absent of verve as an art house film. That’s an issue throughout the book. At page 100, 20%+ of the way through the book, I was still waiting for the action to start.
The story unfolds in as Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who has made a career exposing business corruption, gets convicted of slander of a prominent Swedish business man throwing his life into a personal and professional crisis. A parallel story involved the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander, a Goth punk investigator for a well established security business, does an in depth background check on him for a lawyer for the Vanger family. It is she who suggests he was in some way setup to become a victim in the. This setup and the initial meeting between Mikeal and Henrik Vanger takes about the first 100 pages.
Vanger, an 82 year old Swedish industrialist, Wennerström, is the man behind the deep background check on Blomkvist. He has his lawyer speak with him and convince him to come to his home in the north during the Christmas holidays to discuss a ‘job’ he has for him. Once there, Vanger tells him about their own family link through his father, a machinist that worked for Vanger. Bomkvist remains aloof and disinterested, until the story goes into the story of the missing teenage Harriet Vanger. Unwillingly, he is drawn into Vanger’s tale – one told in excruciating detail. All Vanger asks is that Blomkvist write a family history, even if there is just one copy in the Vanger family, and find out what happened to Harriet Vanger that terrible night so many years ago. He offers access to all the family source material. Even more important is the staggering amount of money he’s willing to pay Blomkvist – and an opportunity to get revenge on Wennerström, the corrupt industrialist who won the libel suit. An irresistible opportunity.
The story of Lisbeth Salander stays separate from Blomkvist, other than her initial background research, to page 262, over half way through the book. It is through Lisbeth and the individual chapter headings that the emerging theme of sexual violence against women plays out. Sweden’s peculiar laws on Guardianship of function adults come into play when Lisbeth becomes the victim of a violent sexual abuser who is her newly appointed Advokat. Her own lack of emotional response as well as physical pain never quite come thru. It’s here that I first realized why this book wasn’t fully engaging me – it’s too emotionally distant. More than that, it’s coolly analytical, to the point of dryness. That distance is more than Lisbeth’s mental problem with emotional disassociation, it’s the author’s style. Bloodless calm. It takes away a great deal of the authenticity to the whole story.
Lisbeth does what she has always done and deals with her attacker in her own way. But she now has another problem, Blomkvist is at her door in her apartment asking a lot of questions. He obviously knows she’s hacked his computer, but once he makes it clear he’s not there to threaten her or blackmail her, she’s willing to listen – and admit she’s drawn to the man. The break that Blomkvist makes requires her skills to make make it bear fruit. He’s faced with another problem. Henrik Vanger had a massive heart attack and Cecilia, a niece with whom Blomkvist had a relationship while staying on the island, now adamantly opposes any more investigation by him into what happened to Harriet. But Blomkvist owes Vanger now, the man helped save his magazine, so the debt is a personal one that goes beyond his contractual obligation. He finally found something new, and like any good newsman, he doesn’t want to let go, no matter what.
The last third of the book really starts moving the story along as various plot elements regarding Harriet and the trail of what appears to be a serial killer begin coming together. Lisbeth is now living in the cottage with Blomkvist and she initiates an affair with him. The whole Wennerström project had been on hold for 6 months and the promised payoff was smoke and mirrors. But the key to the whole thing is already there and the last 100 pages move at lightening pace as Blomkvist pulls together the second plot in the book.
Mr Larsson was a journalist in Sweden and he gives a unique take on European politics that American author could match. He also provides a unique insight into the the mindset of a Swedish adult with regard to sex, violence and child rearing. The reader is left feeling that he imbued his Blomkvist character with many of his own beliefs and characteristics. His personal political views tend to leak thru. I suspect that’s why the dialogue so often reads like a lecture or speech, especially in the first half of the book which is more stilted than the second. The horror that should accompany various repugnant sexual perversions and grisly murders is so muted it’s almost abstract. It should have been gruesome and stomach churning, instead it was just mildly disturbing. That makes The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo a rather tedious book. At times the sentence structure was beyond awkward, perhaps the fault of the translator. I can’t blame the translator for the colorless prose. The plot was original, but it kept getting bogged down in those lectures and banal dialogue. I normally associate journalists turned authors (John Sanford, Carl Hiaasen, Stephen Hunter, even Mike Lupica) with very crisp, spare prose, incisive wit, and a fast paced story, but all are notably lacking here.
The trope of a shrewd, inherently honest man who is used to unravel and Machiavellian plot while he plays a second role that only much later becomes apparent is not a new one. The real original here is Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo. Maybe it’s a good thing her character has an emotional attachment problem, because Larsson’s writing isn’t up to handling anything else and he does an admirable job portraying this brilliant misfit. Even the intricate, convoluted plot cannot completely compensate for the stark, emotionless tone. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is by turns oddly compelling and stultifyingly dull and devoid of emotional depth. The last third of the book is so different from the first two-thirds that it’s almost like a different, and much better, book. Overall. I can appreciate The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on an intellectual level, but I’ll never consider it a great read or a great mystery. It was good enough that I will likely read his next two books as well.
Sprout Bradford has a secret. Everyone knows it. But no one talks about it. It isn’t what you think. His secret has nothing to do with his green hair, his romantic relationships, or even his dysfunctional family life.
All of the characters might know the secret at the center of Sprout (2009) by Dale Peck. But after finishing the novel, I still have no idea.
The premise behind Sprout is rather clever. Preparing to compete in a state essay contest in Kansas the chapters of the story are, for the most part, Sprout’s practice essays as presented to his writing coach Mrs. Miller. This conceit gives the novel a very meta quality–Sprout knows that he is writing the story and so do you. But in a weird, jarring way, it works. It makes the story interesting. It seems so clever.
The first part of Sprout was a blast. Peck introduces a bunch of truly screwball characters–all flawed but all somehow likable in spite of it. Or maybe because of it. Sprout’s narrations were also funny and witty. Here’s a sixteen-year-old boy you’d really love to meet in real life.
Then I got to the halfway point and everything fell apart. A new character was introduced. The writing style changed. Characters that were likable became loathsome. And I was certain that the novel would. Never. End. Because it dragged so much. I can’t really explain why, because it would be an epic spoiler, except to say I think what was meant to be the focus of the story was introduced too late. I was ready to read one type of book when the author threw a totally different type at me that I was unprepared to deal with.
Sprout is a boy who keeps himself at a remove. The strongest parts of Sprout come when he is observing his world and describing it. That aspect of the story was lacking in the second half when things verged a bit to closely to the surreal for my tastes.
After breezing through the first half of the novel, and loving it, I was truly disappointed to find the second half not only lagging but also lacking anything in the way of a true resolution at the end. The story was so open-ended that I still don’t really know what happened to most of the characters. And then, honestly, what’s the point of reading about them?
“The closest description of what I have is probably Asperger’s syndrome. It falls on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum.” It is as good an answer as I can give (p 186).
Though many have commented on the slow-paced beginning, I was immediately hooked. Marcelo’s thought process is fascinating, as are people’s reactions to him. I am evious of many of his perceived faults: he thinks carefully before speaking, is guided by a clear sense of right and wrong, has an affinity for animals.
There is an element of mystery in the style of “Erin Brockovich.”
There is romance but nothing like the sappy, love-struck or overwhelming romance saturating contemporary YA literature.
The supporting characters ellicit many emotional reactions from readers: anger, frustration, disgust, compassion.
It is a well structured, intricate story that I hope is a front runner for the Printz!
Exposure
by Brandilyn Collins
Zondervan Publishers
Someone is watching Kaycee Raye. But who will believe her? In Kaycee’s newspaper column she’s known for writing of her paranoia and fears. Is the new danger real—or is she going crazy? In this story of terror, twists, and desperate faith, the startling questions pile high. But Kaycee’s descent to answers proves even more frightening.
Description:
When your worst fear comes true. Someone is watching Kaycee Raye. But who will believe her? Everyone knows she’s a little crazy. Kaycee’s popular syndicated newspaper column pokes fun at her own paranoia and multiple fears. The police in her small town are well aware she makes money writing of her experiences. Worse yet, she has no proof of the threats. Pictures of a dead man mysteriously appear in her home—then vanish before police arrive. Multisensory images flood Kaycee’s mind. Where is all this coming from? Maybe she is going over the edge. High action and psychological suspense collide in this story of terror, twists, and desperate faith. The startling questions surrounding Kaycee pile high. Her descent to answers may prove more than she can survive.
My Review: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
If you enjoy Christian Suspence/Thriller that keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what terrifying thing is going to happen next, then read this novel. Brandilyn Collins keeps us on the edge of our seats in this novel from the first page until the thrilling finish. The fear that Kaycee, the main character feels is described so well, you can’t help but look over your shoulder to see if you’re being watched. I also love a suspence novel that I can’t figure out easily. This was such a novel. I don’t want to tell you anymore for fear I’ll ruin it for you. But if you start reading “Exposure”, don’t expect to be able to put it down, and make sure you sleep with the lights on. I highly recommend this novel.
Not many reviewers hold poetry books to the same standards I do. In fact, none that I know of.
I am unique among reviewers.
Let me begin by stating that I received the book straight from the publishers. The copy that I ordered was hardcover. The book was beautifully wrapped in a fine tissue paper and lacked only a wax seal. The care taken in its presentation leaves the reader with the impression that this is a book (and poet) that the publishers are proud of.
After receiving this beautiful book, I promptly left it on the roof of my car and drove off. Several hours later, I recovered the book from the off-ramp of I-91. This alone is remarkable. The book was able to stay on top of my car for some 23 miles at speeds of just over 70 miles per hour. This bespeaks a slender volume with subtle curves able to withstand gale force winds.
I then put the book next to my favorite chair.
Whereupon one of my little girls knocked over my freshly filled glass of ice tea (I had just been preparing to review the book). CALENDARS was soaked (along with some other books). I then did what I do with all my books that get caught in lemon iced-tea downpours.
I put it in the oven (which has a pilot light) underneath my 1940’s edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia.
I then forget that the book is in the oven and crank the oven to a pizza-ready 475 degrees. As any good lit major knows, paper burns at 451 degrees, hence Fahrenheit 451. Fortunately, the smell of broiled Columbia Encyclopedia and roast Finch alerted me to the impending book burning. I removed the books. Very hot. Very dry. Very bent.
I noted that the binding and glue had withstood both gale force winds and a controlled propane explosion. I promptly placed the roast Finch under my beloved 1938 Webster’s Encyclopedia (all 11 or 12 pounds of it) to straighten it out. Finch is small. Webster’s is big. I forget about the roast Finch until last week. Upon recovering Finch from her premature burial, I discover that the book is straight and, to the untrained eye, looks good as new.
So, I can now say without reservation that the quality of the book is outstanding and highly recommended.
Printed by Tupelo Press.
About Annie Finch
A brief biography of Annie Finch states that she was born in New Rochee, New York in 1956. She studied poetry and poetry-writing at Yale. (I’m not sure of the distinction between poetry and poetry-writing, but then I didn’t go to Yale.) Of interest to me is her collection of essays called The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self (2005), A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women (1994) and After New Formalist: Poets on Form, Narrative. And Tradition (1999). She’s a formalist. (I normally don’t care for the term because I am not formal, but Finch uses it.) Finch is currently directing the Stonecoast Masters of Fine Arts program in creative writing at the University of Southern Maine. And of final note: Calendars was shortlisted for the Foreward Poetry Book of the Year Award.
Annie Finch is incredibly productive.
Now to the Poetry: Understanding Them
Reading Finch is a bit like reading Yeats in the following way: They are both steeped in a spirituality that uses “code words”, symbols and associations that the average reader may or may not be familiar with. Anyone who does a little research on Finch will learn that she’s a practicing Wiccan and that to more thoroughly understand her poetry is to more thoroughly understand her spirituality. Fortunately for readers of Yeats, a reader’s guide is available and indispensable. But what if you’re reading Finch? Well, as it turns out, the publishers have provided what they call a “study guide“. Clicking on the image at right will download a PDF from Tupelo press.
If you download it, you will find that the guide consists of a series of leading questions for each of the book’s poems. The questions are meant to provide readers with avenues of investigation that will presumably provide clues to or reveal the poem’s associations, symbols and meaning. By way of example, here is the first poem (normally I wouldn’t reprint an entire poem, but readers might enjoy following the text as Finch reads the poem in the video below):
Landing Under Water, I see roots
All the things we hide in water
hoping we won’t see them go—
(forests growing under water
press against the ones we know)—
and they might have gone on growing
and they might now breathe above
everything I speak of sowing
(everything I try to love).
Here is the first of the two questions found in the study guide:
Finch dedicates this poem to Rita Dove in the “Acknowledgments” and has mentioned during readings that this poem came to her after reading Dove’s verse play The Darker Face of the Earth. The play, which retells the story of Oedipus among slaves on a nineteenth-century plantation, concerns the influence of a family’s past history on the present. Are these themes reflected in “Landing Under Water, I See Roots”?
Is one to assume that, in order to fully appreciate the themes in Finch’s first poem, one must read and have a knowledge of “Acknowledgments“? This seems to be the implication. How many readers are going to want to pursue this research? I, for one, am not. I have a whole pile of books yet to read, all on the floor next to my chair, all ready to soak up my next glass of iced tea. I generally don’t care for poetry of this sort. My own bias is to believe that a poem that isn’t self-sufficient, whose meaning can’t be plumbed without the aid of footnotes or endnotes, hasn’t done its job. It’s unfinished. But that’s my bias. I know that other poets enjoy this kind of poetry and many readers enjoy this kind of pursuit.
And here is the poet reading the poem:
As it stands, Finch’s first poem is beautifully written (if obscure). Who hides things in water? I don’t. And if we don’t take it literally (which I don’t think we’re meant to) how exactly are we to interpret “water”? Another reviewer, Tim Morris at the University of Texas at Arlington, has this to say:
Annie Finch’s work consistently makes us read a line twice. You are never sure just where a line or a thought is going. But in contrast to one dominant poetic school in America at the moment, descended from John Ashbery, where the reader does not know or for that matter care where the next thought is going, in Finch’s poetry one always cares.
I would modify that second sentence just a little: You are never sure just where a line or a thought went.
OK, never is too strong a word, but perhaps you take my point. There can be an opaque quality to Finch’s poetry, the feeling that you just had to be there. Finch’s poems can be like sentences without nouns. One isn’t quite sure what’s being described or conveyed. I personally am dubious about this kind of poetry but, as Morris asserts, Finch’s associative leaps pale in comparison to an Ashbery. There are readers who enjoy this sort of opacity and I do think it is possible to enjoy Finch’s art without fully understanding her references. In no way do I want to dissuade readers from reading her poetry. My reactions are to be taken with a grain of salt.
But besides that, what’s with the study guide anyway? A whole host of questions beg to be asked. Was it thought to be necessary? If so, why? Is the text to be considered complete without it? Why wasn’t it included with the book? Doesn’t it imply a certain level of presumptuousness? Is Annie Finch so established that her poetry now comes with study guides? Are readers obligated to read the study guide alongside her poetry? I’m certain she and the publisher would say no, but there it is. I must admit, I would probably have a near death experience if my own poetry were issued with a study guide, but I would also be just a little embarrassed. Shouldn’t I be dead before this happens? Mind you, only some of these questions relate to the quality of her poetry. That said, they’re questions I inevitably ask myself. If a book of poetry comes with (or requires) a study guide, what’s missing in the poetry?
All the same questions could be asked of Yeats, but then Yeats was Yeats. He was writing, unapologetically, for the Irish. Who is Finch writing for? – other women who happen to be wiccans? It’s a question that will occur to some readers through the course of the book and in poems like The Menstrual Hut, Without a Bird, Summer Solstice Chant. None of this, by the way, is a criticism so much as a description of what you will find.
On the other hand, not all of Finch’s poems are so oblique.
A Wedding on Earth is rich with earthy exuberance. At Religioustolerance.org the Wicca religion is described as neopagan, earth centered religion. Finch’s poem is nothing if not earth centered. It’s imagery is concrete, sensuous, and erotic, reveling in the five sense and the fecundity of the earth. There is no “earth as it is in heaven”. Heaven is earth. Relibious Tolerance, by the way, defines neopaganism as the following:
A Neopagan religion is a modern faith which has been recently reconstructed from beliefs, deities, symbols, practices and other elements of an ancient religion. For example, the Druidic religion is based on the faith and practices of the ancient Celtic professional class; followers of Asatru adhere to the ancient, pre-Christian Norse religion; Wiccans also trace their roots back to the pre-Celtic era in Europe. Other Neo-pagans follow Hellenismos (ancient Greek religion), Religio Romana (ancient Roman religion), Kemetism (ancient Egyptian religion) and other traditions.
Unlike with some of her other poems, it’s not essential to know that she’s a Wiccan or to know what Wicca entails, but it does inform the poem.
And as each fruit that drips down the earth’s strong chin
spills new sugar over an ancient face,
we all hold seeds that vibrate alive within,
and every hardened pod pulls the world’s embrace
from a new hiding place.
This is from the first stanza. The rich imagery and Whitmanesque rhetoric continue, unabated, through the entirety of the poem. Not all of the allusions or images make sense:
…bring
sand to emptiness, memory to the full..
Sand may have some Wiccan connotation of which I’m unaware. Without knowing, lines like this sound a little like words for the sake of words. They are like the witch’s chants – more incantation than meaning – creating a sort of sound and wall of imagery that’s meant to be like sounds and color. Like a magic spells, the words aren’t quite meant to make sense but to create a mood. The poem works. She moves in and out of incantation and exhortation:
Let your bodies make a body of bodies – cool
with the pores of a question, rich and warm
with answers quickening to beat and roll and spool
through the lost space anchored only by love’s vast charm,
where pools of kiss and hope and remembering meet,
crossed in a sculpting heat.
While we’re talking about content, you might not notice Finch’s mastery of form. And that’s the way it should be. Of all the poets who still right in the aural tradition, which is to say she uses meter and rhyme, she is the most skillful. Her lines are rich with enjambment. This is a poet who can think beyond the line ,whose inventive powers move over many lines at once. One doesn’t get the sense that she writes line by line – as one does with so many other formalist poets. Her thought and meaning move through the form – that is, Finch gives the illusion that the form is accidental. The poem feels as though it has created the form rather than the form creating the poem. Her poetry mercifully free of metrical fillers and the archaisms (in terms of word choice and grammar) that so frequently mar the efforts of other modern formalist poets. This is Finch’s singular gift and mastery.
The study guide provides a brief explanation of the meters and a sample scansion of all the poems in Calendar. Of the Wedding on Earth, the study guide writes:
This invented stanza uses the same line lengths, with the rhyme pattern of the Spenserian stanza. As befits a meter related to the Sapphic stanza—a meter that does not lend itself to substitution, since a particular pattern of different metrical feet constitutes its identity—this invented meter does not usually use substitution within the line. However, it does tend to leave off the final unstressed syllable of a line, lending the poem a more insistent, drumlike and ceremonial quality.
Notice the emphasis on the insistent, drumlike character of the meter – all in keeping with the feeling of the poem as incantation. This aspect of the study guide is especially useful and one wishes (or at least I do) that the publishers had included an appendix in the book itself – though I can understand why Finch, the publishers, or both opted not to. I fully admire Finch’s passion for the aural tradition, along with the varied exploration of the moods the different meters rouse in her. One gets the sense that the various stanza forms and meters are like musical keys to her. Different composers reacted differently to C Major, C# Minor or E♭major; and one gets the same sense that the different meters evoke commensurate moods and subjects in Finch.
And speaking of the study guide, I find some of its scansions puzzling.
For instance, the study guide scans the first poem as follows:
Notice that the second and fourth line of each stanza shows a missing unstressed syllable. This implies that the meter is what’s called Long Meter, which has a syllable count of 8,8,8,8 . In other words, the ballad meter should be read as Long Meter with a missing syllable in the second and fourth line. In fact, Finch’s ballad meter is a trochaic version of 8s, 7s. A wealth of examples can be found here at the Fasola web site.
I might be accused of quibbling.
The study guide adds: Line 2: The rest or omitted syllable, very unusual in the middle of a trochaic line, creates an emphatically strong stress on “won’t.
I wouldn’t scan it that way. If this was Finch’s intention, then she didn’t quite pull it off. The tug of the trochaic meter pulls too hard against her intentions. At best, one might scan the line as follows:
This would make the second foot spondaic. However, I suspect many readers would read it as follows:
This scansion makes the word won’t more of an intermediate stress. If Finch had created some syntactic pause after won’t, I think readers would be more apt to heavily stress the word. But such is the art and science (the nitty-gritty) of writing meter. And I love Finch for trying.
Finch’s poems are full of metrical niceties like these and even if I’m dubious as to the success of some of them, I’m in no way criticizing her. Her poems are richer for the effort and the scansions available in the study guide give the interested reader something to think about. Did it work? Did it not work? If so, why?
It’s refreshing to read a skilled craftsmen and, in effect, have her share her thoughts and poetic ambitions with the reader. In the hands of a master, the tools of the aural tradition add a layer that free-verse simply can’t reproduce. And Annie Finch is a master.
Her Imagery
Finch’s imagery is curious. It is primarily visual.
She rarely touches on the sense of smell; and when she does, it’s only in the most conventional way. In A Wedding on Earth, for example, she refers to the “fragrant dust” – a rather abstract allusion that carries few, if any, associations. Her sense of touch is also muted – which is strangest of all (especially for a poet so devoted to the Earth). She rarely goes beyond the most conventional descriptions. A stone is rough, the earth is damp, lips are soft, or hands are warm, for example. Other than that, she will frequently use the verb touch (in many of her poems), but rarely explores the sensation other than to say that she or something was ‘touched’.
Taste and Sound (Aural) are also muted. It’s really quite remarkable. I wasn’t able to find a single example of taste in any of her poems. However, I’ll concede that I wasn’t looking for this when I first read her poems and have only quickly thumbed through the poems the second time round. Maybe I missed something. The closest we come, again, is in “A Wedding on Earth” She writes:
And as each fruit that drips down the earth’s strong chin
spills new sugar over the ancient face…
A sense of hearing is also missing from her poetry except in the most conventional usage. The closest she comes may be in the poem Belly, where she refers to the “Humming sparrow touching my breast…” There’s the sense of touch again, but the imagery is abstract. Is she describing sound? Is she describing an inner sensation akin to touch? Even in her poem Faces with Poulenc, ostensibly about her reaction to the composer and his music, the sense of sound is conspicuously absent. Her poem, it might be said, recreates her experience of sound through visual motion. And this is what most characterizes Finch’s imagery.
Motion.
Her poetry is full of verbs, adverbs and present participles. Inks interpenetrate. The Sun tucks its way through the ground. Spirals bend into flame. There is whirling, spiraling, breathing, touching, meeting, curling, fish-rushing sparks, floating, evenings ravelling of slats to emerald. The wisteria raises its inchworm head. “Delve for me,” she writes, “delve down.” Then later: cradle the concrete ground till it softens. Things vine and sink and hide and pour. The sky is grass-moving. Consider the following lines: Indian grass lapping up the spattering sun; a great building that breaths under sunlight, currents of earth linger; You reach through your mouth to find me – Bursting out of your body. In the poem Churching she will “stay here looking” with her blood, she will “stay here holding up” her blood and “will stand here with” her blood but she won’t smell, taste, touch or hear it.
Hers is the visual imagery of constant motion. The verb reaching appears in poem after poem. The verbal imagery lends her poetry energy and richness but also, to me, gives them a monochromatic feeling. Each poem seems written in the same key. Taken one after the other, they begin to feel breathless and hyperactive. As I say, it’s a curious effect. And to be fair to Finch, she is not alone in overly favoring one sense. I can look back through my own poems (most of them on this website) and see that I seldom explore all five senses. In some, like my All Hallows’ Eve, I made a deliberate effort to exploit taste, touch, sound and smell, but that was a much longer poem. I suppose one might wish that she modulated the pitch of her imagery the way she varies the poems’ formal aspects.
To Whom She Writes
Traditionally, the poetry loved by the most readers (the poetry that is considered universal) is the poetry in which the poet, in effect, disappears. It’s the poetry in which the reader can say to his or herself: If I could have, that’s how I would have said it. The great poets help us find our own voice, help us express our own ideas and dreams. Guy that I am, I just don’t see myself ever wanting to recite The Menstrual Hut or Chain of Women while I’m bucking logs. To read Finch’s poetry is to see the world the way see she’s it – to experience the earth and spirit the way she experiences it. Hers is a very personal poetry.
The downside is that sometime the poet’s reveries are so full of personal significances, oblique chants and imagery, that the reader will feel excluded. They might feel as though they are watching a self-involved ceremony that is both secretive and voyeuristic.
And, as I wrote before, the reader might feel as though they just had to be there. Her various chants give that impression: Lammas Chant, Summer Solstice Chant, Winter Solstice Chant, the Imbolc Chant. I suppose they ought to be treated as part of a larger performance. (The book, after all, is called Calendars.) On the other hand, I think it’s fair to wonder at their intrinsic value. She herself writes:
Some are poems I decide I want to write for a certain occasion (“Elegy for My Father,” “A Wedding on Earth,” “A Carol for Carolyn,” the valentines, which are an annual tradition for my husband, and the five seasonal chants); in the elegy and the wedding poem, for example, I wanted to provide an earth-centered religious context for certain rituals of marriage and death.
You just had to be there.
Poems like the chants are probably best enjoyed for the mood they evoke. Enjoy them and her other poems for their rich rhythms and masterful control. Enjoy her poems for the incantatory spell they can cast on you. I wouldn’t recommend reading the book in one sitting. Read it like you would read the calendar, a day at a time. Then you will especially enjoy poems like Lamia to Lycius and the almost metaphysical conceit of The Intellect of Woman (a kind of companion or response to Wilbur’s poem Mind. You will savor her metrical skill, the subtlety of her enjambment and the vibrancy of her imagery.
She’s one of the best.
So the intellect of woman will not mind
the sight of where the diamond’s edge has moved.
Perfection’s habit opens us to find
cuts in a window we have never loved.
The Intellect of Woman
Note: I don’t recommend her book in any recipe, ovens or cauldron.
Annie Finch reads American Witch (not from Calanders)
