The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

The other day Stephen and I were trying to make conversation in the car, and I found myself apologizing, “I can’t think of anything to talk about.  I literally haven’t had a thought about anything except milk and baby diapers all day.”  I decided to give some dormant parts of my brain a workout by picking up a nice classic. I remember hating The Scarlet Letter when I read it in high school, and I wondered if I’d still feel that way now that I have twelve additional years of reading and maturity under my belt.

Hester Prynne lives in an early Puritan colony.  Her husband is believed to have been lost at sea, so when she becomes pregnant, she is jailed and punished for adultery by being forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothes.  She refuses to name her Baby Daddy, although it becomes quickly obvious that he is the beloved young preacher, Arthur Dimmesdale.  As years go by, Hester devotes herself to being a mother to her daughter, Pearl, and to performing acts of charity for the people of the town.  In contrast, Dimmesdale is weakened and tortured by his hidden guilt.  His suffering is compounded by his relationship with his “physician,” Roger Chillingworth, who keeps Dimmesdale’s guilty wound festering under the guise of medical attention.  Why?  Well, Chillingworth is actually Hester’s husband, and this is his way of getting revenge.

On this second go-around, I enjoyed the story much more, and I found it much easier to follow than I remembered.  However, fifteen-year-old me was right about one thing, which was irritation at Hawthorne’s blatant vendetta against Puritans.  I’m not saying that their “cities on a hill” were perfect by any means, but I think that they should get some respect for their place as part of our cultural and religious heritage.

Examples:

“Here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth’s time, or that of James [examples: theater, music, dancing, juggling, magic shows, Merry Andrews].  All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid disicpline of the law, but by the general sentiment which gives law its vitality.”

“The picture of human life in the market place, though its general tint was teh sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue [Indians and Spanish pirates who come to observe the Puritan "holiday"].”

“[These emigrants] wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up.  We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety.”

…in addition to a general portrayal of all Puritans as being hypocrites and intolerant legalists.  A little harsh, if you ask me.

Lighthouse (Eugenia Price)

Occasionally when I read a bunch of stinkers in a row, I need to go back to a tried-and-true favorite to remind myself how much I love reading.  I’ve done that recently with the St. Simons trilogy by Eugenia Price.  Lighthouse is the first of the trilogy, and my favorite of the three.

This book tells the true story of James Gould, a young man searching to make a name for himself in the years following the American Revolution.  He begins working in the lumber business in Maine, but quickly moves to the south, where he settles in Georgia and Spanish Florida.  This true story reads like a sensational novel as Gould encounters conflict with his own family, with other businessmen, and with Indians in the Florida “frontier.”  I also love the account of James’s courtship of his wife, Janie, and of their family life that follows.

Driving James for most of his life is his dream to build a lighthouse, which is what brings him to his final home on the island of St. Simons, Georgia.

One thing I hate about these books is the way they look.  Every paperback version I’ve seen is light pink or purple, and has a soft-focus swooning man and woman on the cover as if this novel is just another Fabio story.  Even the plot summaries on the back sound kind of cheap and steamy.  Don’t believe it!  The story is not your run-of-the-mill cheap romance.

Another word of warning- The first chapters find a young James right after he participates in the failed Shay’s Rebellion.  It’s a little boring at first; give the book 50 pages to get started before you give up on it!  You won’t be disappointed.

Four out of five stars.

Days of Awe (Achy Obejas)

Stephen was kind enough to let me out of the house by myself for a quick trip to the library book sale.  Since I still have unread books from last year’s sale, I did not plan to buy much if anything, but this book caught my eye.

According to the book flap, this novel explores the unique cultural identity of Cuban Jews– descendants of Jews who fled Spain during the Inquisition.  The narrator is a woman who was born in Cuba during the days of Castro’s revolution but who was raised in the United States.  As an adult, she returns to Cuba as a translator, and she reunites with some of her parents’ old friends and relatives who provide her with insights into her parents and help her fill gaps in her own story.

The problem I had with the novel is that it’s told in loosely connected snapshots, telling stories from the past and present with very little explanation of how they are working together to tell one unfolding story.  By the middle of the book, I was entertained, but still unable to put my finger on the main point of the story.

The whole fuzzy-plot aspect of the novel was frustrating, but the sexual TMI was what finally made me decide to put the book down.  I had chosen to ignore a couple of homo-erotic references that had been interspersed with the narrator’s descriptions of her personal life with her boyfriend and another man she met in Cuba.  But when things tanked with the boyfriend and Ale began to describe her next relationship with a girlfriend in the same intimate detail, I decided I wasn’t interested enough in the greater story to put up with it.  Call me a closed-minded conservative, but I didn’t think it was worth it.

So I’d give this meandering story one star for an interesting premise, but it didn’t grip me enough to finish it.  This is maybe my sixth stinker in a row, so I’m re-reading a couple of my favorites for now to remind myself that I really do love reading!

Grace, Eventually (Anne Lamott)

When I approach Anne Lamott’s works as personal narratives, not as devotionals or spiritual inspiration, I enjoy her nonfiction quite a bit.  I thought that Traveling Mercies was very engaging and thought-provoking, even though Lamott’s interpretation of Christian life and practice was more inclusive than I’m comfortable with.

I started the second book of the trilogy, Plan B, and put it down because it was too overtly and bitterly political.  But when I flipped through this third volume in the bargain book section of Barnes & Noble, I noticed that Lamott herself acknowledged her bitterness and anger that was evident in that book, and promised that Grace, Eventually was the product of her newfound peace and, yes, grace.  So I went ahead and bought it, hoping for more funny stories of parenting and learning to accept life and all of its quirks and flaws.

I made it through about three-fourths of this one.  I tried, I really did…because I like to think that I’m a big enough person to be able to read someone’s opinions even when they don’t agree with my own.  But eventually I was worn down by the fact that every story returned to some snarky and condescending jab at George W. Bush, Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, and/or Donald Rumsfeld.  I consider myself as disillusioned with our government as the next guy, but I felt like the constant exaggeration and demonizing was immature and self-indulgent.  On top of that, there was a whole chapter where Lamott defends and praises abortion as a legitimate choice for women (expressing disgust with not only the Bush administration but with everyone who opposed abortion and/or refered to the unborn as “babies”).

I really was disapointed by this one, because there were several chapters that I did enjoy.  But finally the political rhetoric and preaching wore me down.

I’ll give it one star for the good parts, but not more since I didn’t even read the whole thing.

A Widow for a Year (John Irving)

I picked this up because I liked A Prayer for Owen Meany, and because the cover was attractive and appealing.  But I didn’t get past the first 50 pages.  The characters were all pathetic and despairing, and all that happened was sex, sex, sex…lots of the regular kind as well as the, shall we say, solitary kind.  I stuck with it for a while, hoping to gain some sort of traction with the characters or plot, but it didn’t happen.  Eventually, I considered that my luxurious reading days are numbered, and decided that this particular volume is not worth my valuable time.

Zero stars, and a brand new category for this one.

Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson)

Latest in my long streak of non-fiction reading is this inspiring story of a man who builds schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Greg Mortenson originally got to know this part of the world as an alpinist (a.k.a. extreme mountain climber, a hobby that I do not understand in the slightest).  While on a trek, he befriended a couple of people from a small remote village in the Himalayas.  He was moved by their desire for education but complete lack of resources.  He returned to the U.S. to raise $12,000 to build a school for the small village of Korphe.  He thought this would be a one-time act of kindness done in honor of his late sister, but as he worked on the project and word began to spread of the Korphe school, more opportunities presented themselves.  To make a long story short, for the past ten  years or so Mortenson has devoted his life to raising money for schools and other humanitarian projects for the most remote, underprivileged people groups of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is an interesting read in light of current events, as it provides a very intimate glimpse of the diversity and culture of these volatile countries.  It’s sad to see the cost that ordinary citizens have paid because of the corruption of their governments, the oppression of the Taliban, and yes, because of our own military campaigns.

A careful reader may (or may not!) take issue with the whole premise of Mortenson’s vision, that is, that education will solve the problems of oppression and violence in these cultures.  But even though I don’t see it as a cure-all, I still admire the work that is being done to provide people with schools, clean water, and basic infrastructure like roads and bridges.  The story drags a little bit at times, but it’s overall a worthy read.

Little House on the Freeway (Tim Kimmel)

I know that this is an old book, because I remember picking it up from my parents’ bookshelf when I was little, thinking that I had found a modern-day sequel to my beloved Little House series.  Well, I was very disappointed with what I found then, which was a book about raising a family in a busy world.

Well, the world is even busier now than it was when I was running around in bloomers and a bonnet, and now that I am actually interesting in raising a family in a busy world, I picked it up again at a friend’s recommendation.  I read it all the way through, and I think it was okay.  I liked the first couple of chapters where Kimmel set up the problem of busy-ness, describing some of the distractions that prevent families from enjoying a restful and thoughtful lifestyle.  I also liked the appendix, titled “101 Ways to Give Rest to Your Family.”  It was very practical and specific, which I liked.

The middle of the book was less exciting for me.  The subtitle is “Help for the Hurried Home,” and I was hoping to find encouragement and suggestions for family rituals, low-tech activities to make memories, or maybe tips on saying no to the billions of activities that are available to kids and parents.  Instead, Kimmel focused on solutions that were more spiritual and internal, like “practice forgiveness,” “live within your means,” and “clarify your calling.”  The content was all good and true, but not what I thought I was going to find.  I also thought it was a little repetitive; I could have read the table of contents and section headings and been fine.

But the premise of the book–simplifying, slowing down, and focusing on what’s important–is worth thinking about, and I appreciate Kimmel’s starting the discussion.  I’m also giving his other books, which are more specifically about parenting, a try, so we’ll see how those go.

In the (Mood) for Love (Stephen Clarke)

This book, which I found in a bargain bin at B&N, represents another one of my favorite genres- the memoirs of a foreigner living in a romantic and exotic location, usually Paris or another European capital city.  Well, as I finally realized about 100 pages into it, this book was not a memoir but fiction, but it basically fit the bill.  Paul West is an Englishman working to open an English-style tea shop in Paris and chasing after the love of his life, who is, ironically, a Parisian woman living in London.

Overall, the story is entertaining and Paul is a funny (although not always sympathetic) narrator.  But this is not a wholesome travel tale– this is a “salty” tale, to say the least.  There’s lots of sleeping around, even as Paul continually affirms his undying love for Alexa, and there’s lots of language.  This should come as no surprise, because the title itself contains a French expletive that happens to sound like the word “mood” but that has the same meaning as “a word that sounds like ship.”

Two stars–entertaining but unremarkable.

Francis Schaeffer (Barry Hankins) and Crazy for God (Frank Schaeffer)

I read these two books at the same time on purpose, so I’m going to cover them both in the same blog post.

The first book is a scholarly biography on Francis Schaeffer’s role in shaping Evangelical America.  I really didn’t know very much at all about FS, other than that he was important and well-known, so this was pretty much all new information.  Hankins covers Schaeffer’s life in three basic stages: his early life as a pastor in America, the years he lived in Europe at L’Abri, and his later years back in the States as an author, speaker, and leader of the early Christian Right movement.  The basic impression I got from this book is that Schaeffer is not really esteemed any more for the actual content of his scholarship, but that he deserves credit for being a pioneering figure that legitimized the idea Christian scholarship on “secular” topics such as art and philosophy.  Again, I have no background on this topic, but it seemed like this biography was a pretty fair-handed look back at FS…not painting a rosy, idealized picture, but giving him a lot of respect for who and what he was in his time.

Less respectful and fair-handed, but still very interesting to read was Crazy for God, the memoirs of FS’s son, Frank.  The youngest of the Schaeffers’ four children, Frank paints a very different view of his parents and their ministry than most people would imagine.  His perspective is incredibly cynical and often bitter…it’s hard not to read this book as a vendetta against everyone in the Schaeffer family as well as just about every “celebrity” leader of the American church/Evangelical culture from the past forty years.  Frank seems to delight in telling stories about his pretentious mother, his abusive father, the licentious hippie culture of L’Abri, and his own neglected childhood.

The tone of the book is so spiteful that it’s hard to really take it at face value, although I’m sure that there is some truth in Frank’s memories.  It certainly shines a different sort of light on this very prominent figure.

Life at the Bottom (Theodore Dalrymple)

From Publishers Weekly
Filled with poignant stories of women and men trapped in destructive behaviors and environments, this volume puts forth a vision of the modern world and of intellectualized modernism as hell but offers few concrete or theoretical solutions. Dalrymple, a noted conservative columnist in London’s the Spectator, collects pieces he wrote for the conservative City Journal, using his own work as a physician in British slums and prisons as fodder for an analysis of the underclass: “not poor… by the standards of human history” but trapped in “a special wretchedness” from which it cannot emerge. Most of his patients put their violence in the passive: the murderer who says “the knife went in” as though he had no control; the man who beat his girlfriend and then exclaimed, ” `I totally regret everything that happen’ [sic] as if… [it] were a typhoon in the East Indies.” The fault, Dalrymple asserts, is not bad environments, but a pervasive liberal view and agenda that creates “passive, helpless victims,” encourages the idea that the acceptance of “unconscious motivations for one’s acts” obviates personal responsibility, and the “widespread acceptance of social determinism.” Dalrymple makes many astute observations on British social attitudes about wealth, the tattooing of white youths and urban redevelopment, and his writing is graceful and often witty. But his main points get hammered home too quickly and too often. His critique of liberalism and the welfare state, while sometimes provocative, is spelled out in the introduction and repeated again and again. While Dalrymple is preaching to the converted, his vivid writing and often heartbreaking stories rise above his deeply felt but repetitive social analysis.”

This was surprisingly readable for a non-fiction sociological commentary.  Dalrymple’s premise, supported by countless real-life anecdotes, is sobering and yet rings true with what (little) I have seen of the “underclass” developing in our own country.  Very interesting…although I felt a little overwhelmed by the end.  The root of the problem, and the consequences of the problem are easy to identify, but no real solution is offered.