The Violent Bear It Away, by Flannery O'Connor

As I've said before, I really do try to like Flannery O'Connor.  I just don't.  The Violent Bear It Away doesn't do anything to help me like her more.  In this short novel, Young Tarwater lives out in the middle of the wood with his crazy old great uncle.  He's never been to school and rarely sees another human, much less town.  When his great uncle dies, Tarwater is faced with life on his own.  He decides to head into town to live with his uncle, a school teacher, and his cousin, who has an intellectual disability.

The problem is, great uncle was a nut, a self-proclaimed prophet who instilled his nuttiness in young Tarwater.  The boy decided it was his mission to baptize his disabled cousin, but the uncle would have nothing of it.  He tried his best to educate young Tarwater and help him see the futility of their uncle's crazy ways, but the boy, well, he stays crazy, with tragic results.

There is no question that O'Connor is a great writer.  Not a page of the story goes by without a remarkable phrase or sentence that bears rereading.  But O'Connor drives me crazy with her depiction of Christianity.  The only Christians are completely bonko, and the reasonable people in the story reject Christianity.  I know there are several layers of symbolism in O'Connor's religious themes, but my simple mind doesn't read her as someone who is a faithful Christian with an important message about her faith (although she supposedly was a faithful Catholic) but as someone who has serious issues with Christianity.  (Here I go again, revealing my shallowness. . . .)

I don't like to read O'Connor.  But she strangely draws me in and compels me to read her work.  Maybe one of these days I'll actually enjoy it.

Power Play, by Ben Bova

Six-time Hugo Award winner Ben Bova has written a ton of sci-fi, but I somehow have never read any of his work.  My guess is that his 2011 novel Power Play is a bit of a departure from his usual work.  There is a sci-fi touch, as the story revolves around a politician's promotion of a new method of power generation as a campaign platform, but mostly it's a political thriller.  Well, I use "thriller" loosely; there's a bit of suspense, and isolated action scenes, but it's really too mild for the "thriller" moniker.

Speaking of thrilling, while the novel was nicely crafted, and the story moved along at a respectable pace, I wasn't that thrilled with it.  The characters were flat and not very likable.  The plot felt like it was trying to be more than it was, hinting at conflicts and revelations that never really came.  The climax seemed contrived.  All that said, I read to the end, but felt the book fading away like a mist when I finished.

So I have to ask Bova's many fans: Should I take some time to read Bova's space adventures, for which he is best known?  Or will I be disappointed?  I just don't want to write off a great sci-fi writer too quickly. . . .

Perhaps I'll add some of these to my "books to read" list:

Damned, by Chuck Palahniuk

I think Chuck Palahniuk's career peaked before it started.  Fight Club was fresh, brilliant, and surprising.  He keeps trying different voices, and going for the surprising twist.  In Damned, the voice is a precocious and pudgy 13-year-old girl, and the twists aren't all that surprising or compelling.  Madison dies and goes to hell, but with her addiction to hope she refuses to give in to despair and sets out to make hell a better place.  She even recruits people to join her via her telemarketing job.  (That's right, those annoying "market research" calls you get at dinnertime come from condemned souls calling from a phone bank in hell.)

But Madison gets annoying.  Her narration is sort of cute at times, but mostly she's an annoying teenager.  Palahniuk's descriptions of hell started out a little clever, with his hills made up of fingernail and toenail clippings and waterfalls of poop, but that got old, too.  The theology/demonology/soteriology is meant to be silly, of course, but it was almost too silly to be funny.  Madison learns that people are condemned based on, for instance, how many times they say the f-word or how often they have peed in a hotel swimming pool.

As you might expect from Palahniuk, Damned is good for a few laughs, some entertaining social commentary, and some off-beat creativity.  I kept hanging on, waiting to see what Palahniuk might do with the story, but frankly I was glad when this one was over and wished I'd headed for the exit sooner.

Walking on Water When You Feel Like You're Drowning, by Tommy Nelson and Steve Leavitt

It's a touchy subject, one many Christians would rather avoid: anxiety and depression.  In many (most?) segments of Christian culture, anxiety and depression are perceived as signs of weakness, sin, spiritual inferiority, etc.  In Walking on Water When You Feel Like You're Drowning: Finding Hope in Life's Darkest Moments, Christians who are suffering from anxiety and depression can find comfort, encouragement, and help from two men who have walked that road.  Tommy Nelson, the well-known and well-loved pastor of Denton Bible Church, tells his story of being overwhelmed by the stress of his work and the months it took to get back on track.  Christian counselor Steve Leavitt shares honestly about his depression triggered by the loss of his wife to cancer and his ongoing struggles.

Nelson and Leavitt are the perfect team to explore this topic, having biblical, pastoral, and counseling knowledge and experience, coupled with their own experiences.  Walking on Water succeeds for two reasons.  First, it reminds Christians to lean on scripture and God in times of trouble.  Have you ever thought about how frequently scripture mentions anxiety, being anxious, downcast, distressed, etc.?  A lot!  But hopefully you have thought more about the hope that scripture offers.  Time spent reading scripture can be a first step to healing, as it will remind someone who is anxious or depressed that he is in good company, and that "peace, rest, joy, contentment, and hope are found in the Bible."

Second, Walking on Water can be a catalyst for Christians who are wavering or dead-set against seeking help for their anxiety and depression.  Nelson and Leavitt remind us, through their experiences, that while "anxiety/depression is a hybrid condition--it is spiritual, mental, emotional in its causes but physical and medical in its symptoms and manifestation."  Seeking treatment from counselors and/or physicians is not a sign of weakness of lack of faith, but can be a necessary step toward healing.  In addition, both men have taken advantage of pharmaceutical treatments in the healing process.  Again, Christians may have a bias against using prescription drugs, but they can provide crucial help.

Thank you, Tommy and Steve, for your honest and knowledgeable resource.  May this book be a source of hope and strength for many, and an encouragement for many others to seek further help.

And thank you, Tyndale House Publishers for my complimentary review copy.

Kingdoms Apart, ed. Ryan McIlhenny

Do the following words mean anything to you?
Neo-Calvinism -- New Calvinism -- Two Kingdoms -- Abraham Kuyper -- sphere sovereignty -- natural law -- dual citizenship -- church and state

If you are one who studies Reformed theology and ethics, these terms, and this book, will pique your interest.  If not, well, you'll want to move on.  Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective, edited by Ryan McIlhenny, is not a book for the casual reader or for the lay Christian seeking inspiration.  It is best viewed as collection of academic theological essays, which, for the most part, will not be of interest to many outside Reformed circles.

This is not to say the essays are not important, well-written, or accessible to the non-specialist.  They are.  But, as is fitting for a scholarly collection, they have the feel of a very small group of scholars swapping ideas.  Speaking of scholars swapping ideas, I enjoyed seeing an old friend, Stephen Grabill, favorably quoted.  He's done some good work in natural law as a source for Reformed theological ethics. 

I have done some academic work in this field, but still gave in the temptation to skim over large sections of the book.  As a reference, or as a resource for the researcher, as a collection for the specialist in the New Calvinism, Kingdoms Apart fits the bill.  For a more casual reader, not so much.




Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary review copy.

Embracing Obscurity, by Anonymous

A while back, while I was on a long run, I conceived a book called I'm Nobody (and So are You).  As I recall, I had several chapters outlined and a pretty good theme going, but, like most things I come up with during a run, it never became anything.  That's OK, because the anonymous author of Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything developed the idea behind my book in a much more redeeming way.  Whereas my book was sort of a beat-down, the goal of the author of EO is to remind the reader that his ultimate worth is in God, and any glory and riches we might gain in this life pale in comparison to what we might gain in the next.

Anonymous is simply identified as a "an experienced author who shall remain anonymous given the topic of the book at hand" but I don't think his thesis would have been weakened by his revealing his identity.  In any case, his writing is engaging and affirming.  I agree with him (or her, for that matter) that many of us long to be known, for our efforts to be recognized, and to accomplish things that would bring us the respect of others (or at least of our disappointed parents).  But the question to ask ourselves is "Are our lives marked by service, sacrifice, love for others, abandonment of self, dependency on  God or genuine passion to see the lost saved?  Or are we more preoccupied with the things of the world?"  

Embracing Obscurity offers encouragement to those of us who are nobodies to look at the larger purposes of God in our day-to-day obscure lives, a challenge for those who aren't exactly obscure (although, as my book would have said, they're all nobodies, too) to have an eternal perspective with a dose of humility, and a good word for all of us that we are highly valued in the eyes of God.  Thanks for the good word, whoever you are!

And thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy.

The Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel Simon

One of the great roles of fiction is the opportunity to see the world through someone else's eyes.  In the story of Beautiful Girl, Rachel Simon gives a voice to some who are literally voiceless and tells the stories of people whose stories are never told.

This novel, which spans several decades, opens with Lynnie, or Beautiful Girl, and her friend #42 arriving one rainy night at the home of Martha, an elderly widow whose reclusive life is mostly taken up by corresponding with her far-flung former students.  The rain-soaked couple have a newborn baby with them, wrapped in blankets. Number 42 is deaf and mute; Lynnie does not speak either, and seems to have an intellectual disability.  Martha realizes that Lynnie has just given birth to the baby, but is able to learn nothing more about them.  As quickly as they appeared they disappear, Lynnie taken away by officials from the institution from which they had briefly escaped, and #42 disappearing into the night.  But the baby had been hidden. Her existence was completely unknown to the school. So Martha raised her, keeping her identity a secret.

The rest of the story follows three strands: of Martha and the baby as they move about, evading those who would link her back to the school; Lynnie, as she returns to the school and her life after the school; and as #42, Homan, tries to get by in a world where he cannot hear or speak.  It's pretty melodramatic and contrived at times, but Simon draws the reader into the characters' worlds, making you care about them and the course of their lives.  Martha's heroic choices, Homan's steadfast determination, and Lynnie's unfailing hope will inspire you.

Simon tells the story against the background of the experiences of people with disabilities in the second half of the twentieth century.  The "school" where Lynnie lives much of her life, the State School for the Incurable and Feebleminded (the name sounds silly to us now, but is typical of institutions founded in the 19th and early 20th centuries), is fictional, but is based on schools Simon has researched and seen first-hand.  (Her sister has an intellectual disability.)  Lynnie witnesses and suffers from unspeakable abuses by school staff, an expose by local and national media, subsequent reforms, and the eventual closing of the school.  When the school closes, she deals with living in a group home, finding work and getting around in daily life, and becoming a self-advocate, attending conferences and testifying before lawmakers.

In Homan's story, Simon gives us a view to the life of an uneducated deaf man, who spent much of his life totally unable to communicate with most people.  He had learned a dialect of sign as a boy, but it was years before he began to learn ASL and speak with other deaf people.  Homan's character was inspired by the true story of a deaf boy who was arrested and dumped in an institution simply because officials didn't know what else to do with him.  His story is told in God Knows His Name: The True Story of John Doe No. 24, which I haven't read, but will add it to my list!

Simon doesn't preach or shake her fist at the treatment of people disabilities.  The Story of Beautiful Girl is, first of all, a story, but there is no question that Simon has a bit of an agenda here.  She educates about the history of disability services, she gives the reader insight into the world of people with disabilities, and she helps the reader understand the perspective of people with disabilities.

I was particularly interested in Simon's treatment of religion.  Lynnie has dim memories of her family's Jewish heritage; at one point we learn that her family was shunned from the synagogue because of Lynnie's disability.  After #42's impromptu funeral, Martha "could not help but wonder how there could be a God if people treated this man as they had, and Lynnie was forced to live in a place like the School--and this child could be doomed to a life of desolation."  One of my favorite characters was Kate, who worked at the school and became a friend and advocate for Lynnie.  She "found her work an act of penance," a way to live out Jesus' admonition to "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."  She also remembered Jesus words in Matthew, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."  In her own family, "she taught her children that every person. . . deserved kindness."

Lynnie had some reflections of her own at her friend Doreen's funeral.  When the minister "moved on to talk about her finding eternal happiness now that she was home with the Lord, Lynnie stopped listening.  Doreen had never said a word about God, and Lynnie was far from certain she believed in God herself.  People who did talk about God, like Kate, said they felt His presence deep in their heart.  In Lynnie's heart, she felt nothing.  If there was a God, why did Doreen have to die to go home?  If there was a God, why did Doreen's father give her money but never visit?  If there was a God, why could Lynnie barely see Buddy and Julia in her mind? . . .  If there was a God, [Doreen's] parents would have come--eventually.  But never had come first."

Besides telling a great story, Simon gives us a lot to think about in our own relationships with people with disabilities.  Whatever someone's ability or disability, everyone has hopes and dreams and longs for friendship.  Everyone has a story to tell.  When we encounter someone with a disability, let's wonder, with Kate, "How many others are out there?  How many other lives are hidden, and hearts are seeking?"