44 replies to this topic

[SZPT]

Don't forget Mein Kampf, Moby Dick, War and Peace, and Prometheus Unbound.

[Persona]

[Andrew]

This hearkens back to a former thread on Coupland (I'll leave it to Peter to do the 'ahem' thing). I'll just mention that, FWIW, I much preferred 'Girlfriend in a Coma' - I found its theme to be just as compelling, with a much stronger narrative accompanying it. Oh yeah, and I liked the sci-fi elements in it, too...

[stu]

Hmmm.

'Girlfriend..' I have read twice now, and I can't work out what my verdict is. I have a feeling that he tries to impose too much meaning on it all, if you see what I mean. I think maybe the story is a little too confused, and he felt he had to tell us a bit too much what it all meant. It's very interesting, mind, especially the very end - the idea that the redemption they are offered is conceived as a mission and purpose, it's not something self-centred. To put it in more obvious terms - they lose their lives and in doing so gain their lives. That said, I still think that the story as a whole has a slightly disjointed feel.

But lots of Smiths references, which is no bad thing.




'We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry, and talk about precious things.'

[Christian]

The recommendations are coming fast and furious, Ezz. If you need a few more, each week the Washington Post's Michael Dirda carries on an online chat with readers. These are chock full of recommendations, mostly for books I've never read. The link will take you to transcripts of all those conversations. You might want to bring along a notepad and pen, and keep a list of titles.

Also, I've been thinking of picking up Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, which includes recommendations for the best books in each of several categories (Biography, History, etc.).

[ezz]

Good stuff, I'll be checking out that site, Christian.

Anyway, I just finished THEM: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson. I really recommend it! It's pretty funny and fascinating.

[SZPT]

I bought The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling to read to my 2 1/2 year-old son. Silly me, I thought that it would be similar to what Disney had made out of it.

Think of the animated film (and other adaptations) as the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The book is the Marianas Trench.

It's depth is so vast, and it is still a wonderful read - very adventurous and noble and thrilling. Mowgli is nothing like his Disney counterpart. Neither are any of the animals. It won't take long to get the Disney voices out of your head as you read.

I'm probably enjoying it more than my son is, but he loves it too.

[Mark]

Wow, you guys are so well-read it reminds me I have some serious catching up to do ...

But ezz, if you're still looking for suggestions and enjoyed Flannery O'Connor's short stories, check out her novel Wise Blood . Very powerful ... brutal stuff, like most of her stories, but wonderful reading.

Also, if you're interested in any other Philip Yancey suggestions ... have you read Soul Survivor ? I'm reading it now, and it's a great book for anyone who has struggled with the dissonance between Christian ideals and practices. He devotes each chapter to a role model who helped him through a particular challenge in his faith life.

And now for something completely different ... for sports and non-sports fans alike, check out a novel called Tyrus by Patrick Creevy. It gets inside the head of Ty Cobb in the period of time when he was drafted by the Detroit Tigers and his mother was awaiting trial for killing his father. Fictionalized, obviously, but it reads like a suspenseful psychoanalysis of one of baseball's most hated characters.

[Becky_K]

[Spoon]

[BethR]

Yesterday on Fresh Air, I heard an interesting interview with Tony Hendra, author of Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul. Sounded like a very interesting spiritual memoir. I haven't read it myself, but Hendra sounded sincere.

[Andrew]

Hendra's book is on my must-read list - a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times' Sunday book reviewer gave it a glowing review.

Even higher on my list is Heidi Neumark's 'Breathing Space' - her memoir of 17 years as a Lutheran pastor in the South Bronx.

[Mark]

[Christian]

I first heard of Tony’s book on the Don Imus show. The host promotes books relentlessly, then brags when they hit the New York Times Bestseller list – and it’s true, ever since he promoted “I Was Amelia Earhart,” his show HAS become one of the few venues that can actually push books onto the bestseller list. Rather remarkable, considering his radio show, even when combined with the ratings for MSNBC (which televises the morning radio show), is not top-rated in most of the major markets.

Anyway, he started pumping the Hendra book a few weeks ago. It got to number 4 on the bestseller list the next week, and Imus kept grumpin’ that the publisher was unprepared for the publicity and therefore didn’t print enough copies of the book. Otherwise, Imus said, the book would’ve been number one.

But back to the content of the book. Imus wouldn’t go into detail about the plot; he kept saying people would have to read it for themselves, and be surprised. But he mentioned something about an affair with an older woman, and a priest.

So I tuned in to “Fresh Air” yesterday to listen to the interview. First, I was surprised to learn that Hendra is the guy who played Spinal Tap’s manager in “This Is Spinal Tap.” So I DID know who he was. Anyway, he claims the book is autobiographical. It tells of when he was 14 years old, and an affair he had with an older married woman. The woman’s husband had decided to have sex only for procreation, and even then, he had been taught that sex should never be enjoyable. The frustrated wife found some solace in the arms of the (barely) teenage Hendra, but when the husband discovered the affair (he walked in on them), instead of flying off the handle, he calmly instructed Hendra to go visit Father Joe, a Benedictine monk.

So far, so good, I thought. But that’s where the interest ends for me. Because Hendra’s spiritual teacher informs him that his sin is one of selfishness, and, as Hendra describes it in the interview, that selfishness is the root of most sins. I suppose there’s something to that, although I think it might have been a bit clearer to say to Hendra, “You violated one of the Ten Commandments – the one that forbids adultery.” But such directness is so unfashionable in this day and age.

I wish Hendra well on his spiritual journey, but I'll skip the book. I've got lots of other stuff queued up for the summer.

Edited by Christian, 15 June 2004 - 01:49 PM.

[Mark]

Christian, I was troubled by exactly the same stuff. Andrew Sullivan writes in his review,

[becca]

[becca]

[rm39]

Here are some of my favorite works of strong Christian fiction:

Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos
Therese by Francois Mauriac
The Vipers' Tangle by same
Woman of the Pharisees by same
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The "Adultery Trilogy" of novellas by Andre Dubus: "Adultery", "We Don't Live Here Anymore", and "Finding a Girl in America."
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

[BethR]

This one sounds good. Description from A Common Reader, which is a bookseller with almost unerringly good taste (forgive the shameless plug):

> Nancy Malone's "Walking a
> Literary Labyrinth A Spirituality of Reading," which reveals, in Elie's
> words, how reading is "a lifelong adventure, a drama in which the self
> is lost and found." Charting her reading life through the works of
> Virginia Woolf and Patrick O'Brian, Saint Augustine and Sue Grafton, e.
> e. cummings and George Eliot (to mention just a few of the authors she
> attends to in these pages), Malone, a Catholic nun, has composed a sort
> of spiritual autobiography that examines -- and celebrates -- the
> intimacy and soulfulness the act of reading nourishes.

[Christian]