Category Archives: book reviews

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, poetry

2nd Stab at “The Allegory of Love”

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Will I ever finish reading this poem, one of the major parts of Lewis’s book? Doubtful, but not impossible.

A while back, I posted about reading The Allegory of Love by C.S. Lewis and having a difficult time with it. In that post, I said I was about 1/3 through the book but was setting it aside for a while due to not really getting anything out of it. I put it back on the shelf, for it to await my picking it up again.

I did that very thing a couple of weeks ago, and read more or less the second 1/3 of it. While I maintain it’s clearly an academic book not intended for an engineer like me, I have to say I had an easier time with this 1/3 than the first 1/3. Lewis had moved in his discussion from works embedded deep in the Middle Ages, with a generous sprinkling of much older works known only to the most anal of academics, to works of the later Middle Ages to almost of the Renaissance. And from authors heard of only by experts to authors we of the 21st Century might actually have heard of.

People know about Chaucer. I’ve actually read some of the Canterbury Tales—not in the original olde English, but in a modern “translation.” But Lewis did not deal with the Canterbury Tales in this book, but another of Chaucer’s long works, Troilus and Criseyde. This is a poem dealing with courtly love, right along with the subject of Lewis’s academic work.

As it turns out, I’ve read part of Troilus and Criseyde, back in the days when I was actively writing poetry. I don’t remember much about it, didn’t blog a review, and don’t remember if it’s still on one of my bookshelves. But at least I had heard of it, which to me was progress. Here’s a sample of some of Lewis’s analysis in the part I most recently read.

Successful panegyric is the rarest of all literary achievements, and Chaucer has compassed it. I believe in the ‘gode faire Whyte’, as I have never believed in Edward King, or Arthur Hallam, or Clough.

Not easy to understand, but easier than what one encounters in the earlier parts of The Allegory of Love.

Once again, having reached a stopping point but not wanting to abandond Lewis’s book, I put it on the shelf to await a more opportune time. I picked the next book for reading, which turns out not to be what I expected. But I won’t blog about it until after 504 pages set in 10 pt font.

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity, History

Book Review: The Rise of Babylon

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Or interest due to our time living in the region, but not a keeper.

As I mentioned in a prior post, my wife and I don’t read many of the same books. I rarely recommend a book I’ve read to her, and when I do, she rarely reads it. She recommends books to me more often, and when she does, I seldom read it. One she did recently and that I read was The Rise of Babylon: Signs of the End Times by Charles H. Dyer with Angela Elwell Hunt (1991, updated 2003). First, a little about how we happened to have this book.

My sister Norma sent this to our dad in March 1991. It was one her church in Indiana was studying. Lynda and I were relatively newly returned from Kuwait (in July 1990), Iraq had invaded Kuwait (Aug 2, 1990), and the USA had led the coalition that liberated Kuwait (Jan-Feb 1991). Hence, the book had family interest. We must have taken this from Dad’s house upon his death in 1997, but tucked inside it was a letter from Norma to Dad transmitting the book, along with a photo of Norma. I have no way of knowing if Dad ever read the book or not. Since Lynda read the paperback before me, it had the signs of having been used.

I read this over about a 10-15 day period ending a week or so ago. I found it to be an easy read, helped along by excellent layout and typesetting. Dyer wrote this between the waning days of the Iran-Iraq war (which was 1980-88) and the invasion of Kuwait on 2 Aug 1990, although with a few changes to reflect its publication in Jan 1991. Dyer had, on several occasions, been in Iraq in the second half of the 80s as a guest of the government to witness how Iraq, at the instigation of then-leader Sadaam Hussein, was working on rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon. I believe Dyer’s intention was to demonstrate how Hussein’s intentions for Babylon were a movement to the end times as predicted in the Bible.

While the book is informative and interesting, I don’t think Dyer achieved that aim. He tried to do too much in one small-ish book. He started with the pre-biblical history of Babylon from various extra-biblical sources. That was well done, though a bit short of detail for my historically minded mind. He also failed to give a simple list of the ancient sources, forcing his readers to make their own list from the handful of footnotes and other research. But what the book contains, assuming it is a faithful extraction from the ancient chronicles, is good.

Dyer then gets into the Old Testament era, dealing with people groups and mentions in the historical and prophetic books. Once again, there is almost too much there for a book of this length. I felt that the treatment was shallower than I wanted.

The last part of the book was based on mentions in Revelation, and how judgment will yet fall on Babylon, how the ancient ruins Hussein was desperately wanting to rebuild to his own glory, touting himself to be the new Nebuchadnezzar, would be annihilated before the return of Jesus foretold in Revelation. Once again, I felt that this part of the book was shallow. Dyer presents his case (interpretation of the prophecies) well, but not in enough depth to allow me to really sink my teeth into it.

I read the 1991 version of the book, which must have been written mostly before the events of 1990. The 2003 updates might be interesting to read. But, I repeat that the book is trying to accomplish too much in too little space. Either a larger book or two volumes or more references to other sources would have been most helpful. I must say though that the book has spurred me on to want to do more research, so in this sense it succeeds.

Yet, from me it has earned only 3-stars. It is already in the donation box, and our over-stuffed bookshelves are just a little thinner.

 

book reviews, letters

Book Review: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

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This was the paperback version I read, 10 to 15 pages most days.

As I’ve said before on this blog, I enjoy reading letters. I bought a number of books of letter collections, used whenever I find them. Some of these are keepers, already read or waiting to be. Others are “nice to have to read once things” that will go in the donation box once read. The only thing keeping me from reading books in either category is time.

I recently decided to take time to read The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, which I bought a number of years ago at a used bookstore. I’m not an artist, don’t care a whole lot about art, but I do care about letters and knew Van Gogh was famous (or perhaps infamous), so figured his letters would be interesting to read. Thus, after finishing another book, I scanned the bookshelves in my new office and this one jumped out at me. Perfect, I thought. An interesting read then a slight reduction in my library.

Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait.

And that’s the way it turned out to be. First, I learned that all the letters in my paperback copy—340 pages set in 10 pt font, so a bit hard to read—were to his brother Theo, and it was an edited collection, not comprehensive. An editor selected the ones he thought best. There were a lot of them, representative of the full range of Van Gogh’s adult life. Normally, I prefer to read correspondence, the back and forth between two letter writers. But I’ll take letters, all outgoing, and find good reading in them.

That’s what these letters were. They mostly dealt with Van Gogh’s artist career. Theo was also involved in art, but as a dealer for an art brokerage house. Van Gogh mentioned a large number of contemporary artists and discussed their techniques and results. He did a lot of comparing himself to them. Sometimes he mentioned various masters of the past.

Much of his discussion had to do with what paintings or drawings he was working on at the moment. Since I don’t know a lot about his paintings, I’m sure some he discussed are famous. A student of Van Gogh as an artist would no doubt enjoy hearing what he thought of his own work at he produced it. He wrote about his techniques, problems he had procuring models, about finding lodging and space for a studio, about trying to get colors and perspective right. Fascinating stuff to this duffer on art.

Occasionally, Van Gogh spoke about family. He was thankful for Theo’s financial support, which was the only way he could do his art. Vincent sometimes mentioned other family members (parents, siblings, uncles, aunts), but less so than I would have expected in letters between brothers—unless the editor decided not to include mainly family letters.

About the demons that troubled Van Gogh his last couple of years, demons that led him to commit suicide at age 37, the letters say relatively little. The same about the famous incident with his ear. Included was a memoir of Vincent’s life written by Theo’s wife.

If you are into art, or a fan or student of Van Gogh, you likely would enjoy it. I did. But, even though I feel good rating it 3.5-stars, it’s not a keeper. To the donation box it goes, according to plan.

 

book reviews, History

Book Review: Imperial Highness

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Catherine and Peter never should have married. This is the story of how Catherine dealt with it.

My wife and I don’t read many of the same books. Even our Bible study and devotional books are different. That’s one of the reasons our home library is so large. I’m trying to pay more attention to what she’s reading (to be a dutiful husband) and at least consider reading books she recommends to me. One of those was Imperial Highness by Evelyn Anthony.

This historical novel, first published in 1983, is closer to a biography than a novel; yet it meets the technical definition of a novel. It’s about Princess Catherine, of a somewhat lesser German principality, who at age 16 married the future tzar of Russia. It was an unhappy marriage, as the tsarevitch was hard to get along with and the two teenagers were ill-suited for each other.

Anthony paints a very unhappy picture of Catherine’s life. Both partners found love in the arms of others and rarely saw each other except at official court functions. Spoiler alert: Catherine does a better job of winning public opinion to her and winds up as empress, deposing her husband after his mother’s death.

This is a good, relatively short read. It’s difficult for me to pigeonhole it as to genre. Consider it biography masquerading as historical fiction. It’s worth reading if you like that kind of book.

I give it 4-stars. I’ll never read it again, but I might do some other research on Catherine. It’s not a keeper, however, and I rise from my office chair right now to put it in the donation box.

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Genesis in Space and Time

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A good read, solid biblical scholarship. I’m glad I read it.

I’ll call this the Disappearing Book. I remembered having bought Francis A. Schaffer’s Genesis in Space and Time many years ago, sticking it on the shelf, and waiting for it to pop to the top of my reading list. It popped up a couple of years ago, and…I couldn’t find it.

I was sure we hadn’t gotten rid of it in a book purge, but it was nowhere on my Bible study shelf. Ah well, I thought. I picked another book that I had on the Biblical book of Genesis, read about half of it and gave up and donated the book. It appears I never reviewed it on the blog.

Ah, but then, when I was packing books to move to Texas, I found it! Right where I thought it should be. I put it at the top of the current reading pile. That was in early December. We got to Texas in February, and early this month I was ready to read it and…couldn’t find it! What was going on with this book? I knew where all the books were from our partial move in December, so I went through my bookshelves book by book. I finally found it, and realized the fact that the text on the spine not quite matching the book title was what threw me off this whole time.

I finished the book on Saturday. While it not being quite what I thought it would be, I have to say it was enjoyable and well worth reading. Schaffer didn’t get into a lot of details on items long debated by scholars, such as: old earth vs. young earth, were Adam and Eve real people, did the flood really happen, or the tower of Babel. He stated positions on these, summarized what we can know from secular scholarship, and didn’t get into the two sides of the debates.

If you’re looking for a book that will summarize the evidence for an old earth and compare that to why many Bible scholars believe in a young earth, this is not your book. Look elsewhere. But if you want a well-reasoned discussion of what Genesis stated in chapters 1-11, giving the implications of those chapters for humanity, by all means seek out this short book (160 paperback pages) and read it. Here’s an example of the type of discussion you’ll find in it.

As I said in regard to the use of the Hebrew word day in Genesis 1, it is not that we have to accept the concept of the long periods of time modern science postulates, but rather that there are really no clearly defined terms upon which at this time to base a final debate.

Thus, the answers to the questions I ask in each book review: I give this a solid 4-stars, with no temptation to go higher. It’s unlikely I will ever read it again. It is not a keeper, but will be donated after I pull a few more quotes from it.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, poetry

Book Review: “The Allegory of Love”

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Not sure I will finish this.

One of my goals is to read all of C.S. Lewis’s works: books, magazine articles, and misc. stuff. I’d like to do this more or less in order written, the same as I’m doing to the works of Thomas Carlyle. Except prior to deciding to read them in order, I read The Screwtape Letters back in 1975 when I hardly knew who he was. Then I read several of his later works.

Then I decided to start at the beginning of his adult writing career. Except I decide to skip his first two early poetry books, Spirits in Bondage (1919) and Dymer (1926). That got me to Pilgrim’s Regress (1933), which I read a few years ago. Next in line is his 1936 academic treatise The Allegory of Love. Written while he was building his academic career as an Oxford don and tutor, it is considered a masterpiece.

I approached it with trepidation, however, since I am far from a scholar. Would Lewis be speaking to me at all? Would I understand him. Let me answer that by inserting a quote from the second chapter.

It is true, as I said before, that the Psychomachia is not a good poem: if it were indeed the result of some purely unpoetic purpose it could hardly be worse. But there are many ways in which poetry can go wrong and an impurity in the intention is only one of them. The Psychomachia fails, partly because Prudentius is naturally a lyrical and reflective poet—that is some fine, cloudy grandeur in the Hamartigenia—to whom the epic manner comes with difficulty, and partly for a deeper reason.

I have no idea who Prudentius is, never heard of him until reading this section, never heard of the two poems mentioned, so obviously can’t understand what Lewis is talking about.

At this point, 70 pages into this 360-page book, I don’t expect to finish this. I’d like to get 1/3 of the way in before I decide to quit. That will take me four or five days to get to that point at the rate I’m reading it.

My preliminary conclusion: unless you can get this book for 50¢ as I did at a garage sale/thrift store, or unless you are a dedicated C.S. Lewis scholar, don’t waste your money and time on this.

I’ll come back with final conclusions when I either finish or abandon it.

book reviews

Book Review: The Romantic Revolution

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The only benefits I got from this book were a good list of references and greater confidence of my ability to slog through a poorly printed book that did little to inform.

After finishing a couple of books a while ago, I looked for something to read next. I saw, on my worktable in The Dungeon, a book by Vernon Louis Parrington, The Romantic Revolution in America. This is volume 2 in a three-volume work, Main Currents in American Thought.

Where did this come from? I wondered, and how long had it been sitting in plain sight? I had no idea how I got the book, why it wasn’t on a shelf, who Parrington was. My book, published in 1954, was a mass-market paperback in poor condition of a book originally published in 1927. I knew it wouldn’t hold together as I read through its 460-odd pages. The print was exceedingly small, I think a 9 or 10 point font, with quotes a size smaller. I knew a little about the Romantic period in England and some of the main authors, but nothing about its American counterpart.

Perfect, I thought. As an author who avoided learning literature in English classes that I hated, I figured I needed to know this. Despite the poor condition of this volume, the small typeface, and the length of the book, I dove in. I decided to shoot for reading ten pages a day. But I was finishing another book at the same time and trying to get through a backlog of magazines, so I wasn’t sure I could get through it as quickly at my goal.

I also found the subject matter and writing style as, how shall I say it, not conducive to rapid reading progress. As to his writing, Parrington seems more interested in impressing his readers with his writing ability rather than informing them about his subject. I had to slow down and take time to understand what Parrington was trying to get across. Here’s an example, from late in the book, of some of his obtuse writing.

As a Beacon Street Victorian Holmes was as full of virtuous prejudices as an egg is full of meat; but as a rationalist, with a modest scientific equipment that came from his professional training, he kept the windows of his mind open to the winds of scientific inquiry that were blowing briskly to the concern of orthodox souls. Many a barnacled craft was foundering in those gales, and Holmes watched their going – down with visible satisfaction.

That was the type of language you had to slog through from beginning to end.

Then, his subject matter was almost a joke. He covered a lot of writers, but it seemed like most of them were politicians. Few were strictly creative writers as we tend to see them today. From Thomas Jefferson to Henry Clay to Daniel Wesbster, Parrington spends most of his time discussing the writers’ childhood influences and politics and religion, and how they were shaped by them, either positively or negatively. The main thing I got from this book is a good list of new references to possibly use in future volumes of my Documenting America series, should I decide to expand it.

He spent a lot of time explaining how the writers had to overcome the rigid legacy of Puritan Calvinism and embrace the individualism encouraged by Unitarianism. I could sense, as Parrington found major faults in every writer he mentioned, that he was leading up to a positive image of Emerson and the transcendental movement in the Boston area. I was somewhat wrong, however. Emerson he found fault with. But Thoreau, alone among the fifty or so writers analyzed, is the only one who Parrington found positive, who did no wrong.

Should you go out and buy this book? No. But late in the reading, I discovered it’s out of copyright and I got it for free as a Google Play book download. The reading went much easier then. It might be worthwhile for you if you can get it for free. But, if you find it at a garage sale for 50¢, save your money to buy something else you don’t need. 1-star. And, as the book is now in three pieces with a separated cover, it’s going in the recycling bin.

At least I freed up a little space on my worktable.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Night Hunt in Kisumu

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A good, solid read: enlightening, encouraging, entertaining.

I’m reading a literature book. Well, now close to 2/3rds of the way through it, I’m not sure if it’s about literature or politics or sociology or philosophy. It’s proving to be a tedious read, made more so by the typographical style built around 10 point font and smaller on the lengthy quotes.  I’m not going to be finished with it and ready for writing a review (or perhaps two) for a couple of weeks at least.

But I found myself wanting to read something simultaneously that wasn’t so tedious. I settled on Night Hunt in Kisumu: and Other Unforgettable Stories from Africa by Dr. Richard Zanner. He’s originally from Germany, but spent twenty years in Africa in an administrative position over our denomination’s missions work there. It wasn’t strictly administrative, however, as wherever he went he was called upon to preach and do other assorted ministerial things such as baptisms, church dedications, etc.

Here’s another book about Zanner I’ll be looking for.

The book consists of 136 pages of stories about the situations Zanner went through. Frequently he piloted a small prop plane that the church owned. Frequently he was in a barely operating hired car. He tracked across unmarked territory from Djibouti to Somalia, through the bush in Mozambique, confronted the legacy of the slave trade in Senegal, and more.

I set a goal of reading ten pages a day, mostly in the late evening or a few times when I couldn’t sleep at night, and was able to read that much or more. Zanner’s writing style is easy reading. I won’t say light, because his stories include tense moments as he went through territory where revolutions and wars were either in progress or had just ended as he sought to strengthen and encourage existing churches and  seek out places to start new ones.

This was definitely a 5-star read for me. But it’s not a keeper, as I don’t think I’ll read it again given the number of books in my reading piles. We will place it on a shelf in our adult Sunday school classroom at church and let others know it’s there.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Approaching God

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Good book, but not a keeper.

A few weeks ago I finished a book, Approaching God by Steve Brown, but am just now finding a hole in my blog post schedule to post a review. This one of those books we picked up used somewhere along the way, which finally popped to the surface of some pile in the house, so I grabbed it and read it.

Brown is well past his career, now a professor emeritus. He had a number of positions before that, including pastor. He comes from the position of Reformed theology, Presbyterian church.

The book is quite good, if a little bit dry and predictable. Of course, what new things can you write about prayer? So of course the book would be somewhat predictable. Our copy was a hardback, 213 pages, set in an easy-to-read font. I think it took mw only 10 to 12 days to get through it.

In terms of whether the book was good, the main measure of that would be did it help me in my prayer life? Did it make me more likely to pray, or less? Did it stimulate my desire to pray, give me ideas on how to do it better? My honest answer is “a little bit.” I can’t say that I had any major breakthroughs, but I do feel more motivated to pray. On that basis, taking time to read the book was worthwhile.

I give it 4-stars. But it is not a keeper. Once Lynda reads it, upon  coming to the top of one of her reading piles, out it will go.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: “Paul Orjala”

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My reading has trailed off a bit lately, in part due to health issues and in part due to reading choices not panning out. I laid two books aside at the 1/3rd point when the subject and writing turned out to not hold my interest. I suppose general busyness helped to rob reading time, with some of the busyness due to medical appointments.

Looking for a short read, I grabbed a book my wife had recently read and recommended: Paul Orjala: The Man, The Mission. It’s one of series of annual missions books our church published (or used to), this one from 2009-10. I think I read it back then but did not in the least remember it, so it was a fresh read. The book was of special interest to me because I briefly knew Paul when I attended the same church as he and his family in 1974-75. At that time, Paul was back from the mission field in Haiti and teaching at our seminary in Kansas City. I didn’t get to know him very well. He was already an experienced missionary and professor; I was new to the congregation and denomination. We didn’t hang out in the same circles.

But I got to know him a little. He was a nice man, well thought of by all, and pleasant spoken. The book told about his boyhood in San Diego, call to missions, assignment in Haiti, years teaching, and a later in life assignment in France. In all things, Paul was a faithful and effective servant of Christ. Much of our missions education curriculum. Paul is almost a legend in our church for the effectiveness of everything he touched. That includes considerable musical talent, which I saw him demonstrate in church services.

I’m glad Lynda found this book in the house and brought it to my attention. It was a good, short read about an amazing man and his service for God. I won’t read it again, nor do I think we should keep it, but I’m very glad I read it.