MyQuest | my thoughts on life's journey

1 Samuel (Berit Olam Series)

1 Samuel by David Jobling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first picked up this volume six years ago when I was preaching on I Samuel and needed more commentaries on it. At the time I read portions of it and was deeply impressed. It ended up restructuring many of the sermons I had planned for that series.

The lections on early Israel return this summer, and I'm taking another, and more comprehensive, stab at preaching from these stories. This time I wanted to read all the way through this commentary ahead of the series.

And what a rewarding read it was. Jobling engages in "against the grain" interpretations that bring out the issues of class, race, and gender in the stories. The book contains insightful comments on the stories, reflections on the shape of the book and the canon, and exploration of the meta-questions of hermeneutics and how we engage in biblical scholarship. It is brilliant.

Among the interesting insights is his interpretation of the David and Jonathan relationship. He accepts that this is a homoerotic relationship, but points out that the Bible only ever indicates that Jonathan loved David, never the reverse. David, Jobling believes, used the relationship with Jonathan to get ahead, in the same way that David used his relationships with women. Jobling writes that Jonathan fills a similar role in the plot to David's women, and places his interpretation of Jonathan within that rubric.

Jobling also finds the Medium (or commonly "Witch") of Endor to play a key role in interpreting the book. She provides an alternative to the establishment history attempting to be narrated in the book. She is a woman, she lives along the disputed Philistine boundary, and she practices forbidden rituals. But she is able to successfully connect with the idealized past (in the person of Samuel's ghost) and bringing healing to Saul. I have not planned a sermon on her, but I think I'll have to restructure my series to do that.

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Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (American Lives)

Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps by Ted Kooser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A church member loaned me this book by the former Poet Laureate. It is not a book of poems. It is gentle remarks on life in Nebraska hills.

Gentle is a good word to describe it. And generous. Kooser observes each season and the people, nature, land, and culture around him. He remarks on events in his life, including a startling section on his cancer diagnosis.

This is one of those books you have lying around and pick up and read a few pages every day or two, rather than reading large chunks in one sitting.

I recommend it for its care, its lack of anxiety, and its simplicity.

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Next up, Vargas Llosa

Today I will begin reading Mario Vargas Llosa's Conversation in the Cathedral.  I've never read in Vargas Llosa.  He's been on my list definitely since winning the Nobel two years ago.  I picked up this copy at Half Price Books in April.  I googled as I sat in the store to figure out which of his novels I should purchase.  There seemed to be agreement that this is his early major work.  It is a big novel and will consume some time from me.  I also think that this is my first Peruvian writer to read.  I know I've read Colombian (much, as Garcia Marquez is my favourite), Argentine (Borges is up there), and Chilean (Allende's House of Spirits is a great novel, and I've read some Neruda).  It is always good to encounter a new literature (as I recently did with my first Turkish novel).

A Mercy

A Mercy by Toni Morrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It has been many years since I read a Toni Morrison novel, and I'm glad I took the opportunity to read this one.

The story is an assemblage of interesting, well-formed characters, living in and around the same, slave-owning farm and is set in the early days of slavery when white people still served as indentured servants and Native Americans were still living on the East Coast.

The novel exhibits the best features of Morrison's writing. We hear the voices of each character. There are ghosts and a focus on women's spirituality.

One case also trace her influences. The first chapter sounded much like Ralph Ellison to me. Faulkner spoke in all his characters voices, but whereas I find Faulkner almost incomprehensible, Morrison is generally engaging (I did not like her novel Jazz). And the supernatural elements show an influence of the magical realists, such as Garcia Marquez. Despite the influences showing, Morrison's work is always distinctly, creatively, innovatively her own, as her Nobel demonstrates. This work simply encapsulates all that, and would be a great novel for someone who has never read her before.

As with Beloved, the main theme of this novel is the damaging effect that slavery has upon everyone involved. It ruins almost all affection, familial feeling, and erotic love.

An underlying theme is this book is the role of religion and the view of God. I found that most interesting. The farm is near a settlement of Anabaptists, and everyone on the farm, initially, rejects their piety (there are also early encounters with Catholics both good and bad). There is a rightfully negative view of how piety can ruin the soul and harm affection.

This is a fascinating, quick read, that I recommend.

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A Night to Remember

A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In April during the centennial observances, I read an article in the New Yorker about the various treatments of the Titanic story. It commented that all the movies and miniseries added drama to the story. The author felt this was unnecessary, because the story itself had sufficient drama. His example for this was Walter Lord's A Night to Remember.

Published in 1955, Lord's telling is based on his thorough research, including interviews with still-living survivors. Here are the real stories of that night as told by the people themselves. And you don't need fictionalized romances, fictionalized daring escapes, or fictionalized jewels. All that is in the real story.

You also get the story of the other boats -- the Carpathia, which came quickly and heroically to the rescue, and the Californian, which sat ten miles off all night watching the Titanic fire rockets and wondering what was going on.

Lord also understands the larger cultural issues of the Titanic story -- how it changed culture and why it still captivates us. This was a breaking point for the world of established wealth and privilege. Never again would people accept class differences quite the same. And the admired rich shifted from the established wealthy to entertainers and sports figures.

Also, people were never more so sure of themselves. The Titanic came at the end of a 100 years of ever improving technology and understanding, with no major European wars. After this tragedy came war and the rest of the 20th century:

"The unending sequence of disillusionment that has followed can't be blamed on the Titanic, but she was the first jar. Before the Titanic, all was quiet. Afterward all was tumult. That is why, to anybody who lived at the time, the Titanic more than any other single event marks the end of the old days, and the beginning of a new, uneasy era."

But that sort of commentary is kept to a minimum. The book is primarily story and brief character sketches. And it is engaging. I started it last night after work and couldn't go to sleep until I'd finished it.

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Guerrillas

Guerrillas by V.S. Naipaul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The last Naipaul I read, A House for Mr. Biswas, disappointed me, but this one has great force. It is a complex rumination on post-colonial life -- identity, race, power, sex, and politics.

Set in an unnamed Caribbean island based on Naipaul's own Trinidad, the island is independent and self-governing, but still dominated by the British colonial elite. The main characters are white liberals who find their politics and sentimentality overcome by events, particularly in their complex relationships with a local politician and a local black power revolutionary. Throughout the novel the dread is slowly unwinding until the terrifying ending.

Since I have read Patrick French's biography of Naipaul, I can't read Naipaul anymore without the lens of that biography. Naipaul had arranged for French to write an authorized biography, and French's final work is highly critical of Naipaul the person, painting him as misogynist, ambitious, arrogant, and a user in a way that destroys the women in his life. Naipaul allowed the biography to go forward, but has dismissed its portrayal of him.

I couldn't distance myself from reading Naipaul' portrayal of Jane, one of the main characters in Guerrillas, as itself misogynistic. So, that adds it own layer of complexity -- not only are gender and sex important themes in the novel, they are in the approach to the story by the author and reader.

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To Let

To Let: The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have fallen in love with Galsworthy's writing. This third novel of the Forsyte Saga confirmed it. Few can describe a setting as well as he does. Few have such a subtle wit. And, most importantly, few writers convey human emotion as powerfully, subtly, and authentically as does Galsworthy.

When I had reached the 2/3rds points, I had the paradoxical emotions of wanting to hurry on to see how the story ends . . . and the desire to slow down and savor the remaining moments, not wanting to leave off these characters.

However, I thought the novel weakened in the final chapters (or maybe I was just too tired and distracted last night when I was finishing?). I had intended to give it five stars and declare it my favourite of the saga. The final chapters seemed melodramatic and sentimental.

One of Galsworthy's daring choices, is to make Soames Forsyte the central character of the saga, despite a wide array of vivid characters to choose from. Soames disgusts us, for many reasons, but particularly his sense of entitlement. Yet, we feel his hurt, comprehend his reasoning, and gain some sympathy for him.

It was also an interesting choice how Irene is presented. She is ideal beauty and object of desire and passion throughout the saga. Yet, unlike most of the other characters, she is never fully formed for us. Rather, we mostly experience her through the desires and observations of others, mostly, but not exclusively, men. It was a decision that allows Irene to become an object or ideal for the reader, rather than a complete person. But this is done precisely to demonstrate how she was treated as such in middle class British culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

There are six more novels in the Forsyte Chronicles. They will be on my list.

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Posterior Analytics

Posterior Analytics/Topica by Aristotle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One bit of evidence that I'm a geek: I get excited that I can read Aristotle.

Back in grad school I really liked the Posterior Analytics and wanted to re-read it as part of my reading back through elements of the philosophical canon. This time I wasn't as engaged by it, presumably because it does not align as closely with my current interests as it did in grad school in the nineties. The closing pages, which discuss the limitations of scientific knowledge, are the best.

While reading, I was reminded powerfully of how different philosophical reasoning and debate is from the way most debate now occurs in our wider culture. In philosophy you must present an argument for your idea and then others look for and point out the weak points in the argument, compelling you to strengthen or abandon it.

I think one reason I get so easily annoyed with some people and their views is that there is a correct way to argue and there are things that are true and right. We may have a constitutional right to believe whatever, but we do not have a logical, rational "right" to.

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Wendell Berry, American Hero

A nice write-up in the NYTimes.

The White Castle

White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When Pamuk won the Nobel Prize I put him on my list of authors to read at some point. I found this copy of his first novel for a good price at Half-Price Books. It is a short, quick read. I don't think I've read any Turkish authors before, so I can mark that off my "list" as well.

The story is of a young Venetian man captured by Turks during a naval battle, he then spends years as a slave to an official in the Turkish court. It is a deeply psychological novel, exploring topics of identity and personality.

I generally don't care for psychological novels. I much prefer great stories and great characters, and my favourite parts of this book were the elements of story and character, particularly learning a little more about Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire.

The white castle in the title is something of an enigma, but seems to represent a European ideal, which seemed strange (to me) in a Turkish novel. I'm not exactly sure what that was all about. I had a couple of Turkish acquaintances in Oklahoma City, so if I were around them, I'd ask.

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