As I’ve said many times on this blog, a time of downsizing from our living circumstances is coming. As part of that, we need to get rid of about half of our 3,000 to 4,000 books. That number is after we have sold or donated many already. I figure well over 1,000 books are already gone. So in choosing books to read, I scan our shelves and try to choose something that looks interesting but is something I most likely won’t want to keep.

A number of our books are what could be called Christian classics. So a couple of months ago, when it was time to start a new book, my eyes fell on The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Written over 1,600 years ago, this meets the definition of Christian classic. I thought, it’s probably something every Christian should read. I started it in early 2023, read it on four days, put it aside, and picked it up again in late November last year.

Why did I lay it down after four days? Because I found it hard to read and understand. The book I read it in was translated by John K. Ryan. The original, of course, is in Latin. I suppose the readability will depend on the translation. Or is it possible that all translations can’t do more with the English construction than the original language gives you? I suppose I would need to read a different translation to find out.

Why didn’t I like it? Perhaps it’s due to passages like this one.

In truth, I should have wished, had I then been Moses—for we all come from the same clay, and what is man, unless because you are mindful of him?—I should have wished, if I had been what he was, and had been enjoined by you to write the book of Genesis, that such power of eloquence had been given to me, and such ways to fashion words that not even they that cannot yet understand how God creates things would reject my words as beyond my powers; while they who can already understand, no matter what true interpretation they have arrived at in their thought, would not find it passed over in your servant’s few words; and if some other man by the light of truth had perceived a further meaning, it should not fail to be understood from those same words.

And that’s just one sentence! The whole book is like that.

I found myself reading and not comprehending at all. The Confessions consists of thirteen books, each book broken down into multiple short chapters. I started each book with renewed determination to understand what I was reading. Alas, by the second chapter I would once again be reading the words but not comprehending.

When I was about halfway through I thought about giving up. But I pressed on. Sometimes the paragraphs put me to sleep; sometimes they were just incomprehensible. The main reading took me from Nov 29 to Jan 18. Rarely could I read as many ten pages at a sitting.

Well, this is quite a downer of a review. As you can tell, this book is not a keeper. But no worries: I have two more copies of it. Maybe, in a few years, I’ll pull out one of the others and see if another translation will be easier. But this mass-market paperback is going in the donation pile.

On to something else.

The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan is a Christian classic novel/allegory that has been around since 1678 in part and 1684 in complete version. For some reason, while I knew about this for years, I never read it.

But a couple of months ago, while browsing my bookshelves for something to read, I found this. I suggested it to Lynda early this month and she agreed we should read this.

Let me tell you, this is a hard read! The subject matter is great; the language is archaic and quite difficult to read, especially aloud. It didn’t help that the book we had was a mass-market paperback from 1968 that fell apart less than halfway through. While we were out and about for a doctor’s appointment, Lynda suggested we buy a new copy rather than power through with the loose pages. So we bought a new one.

The problem was that the book divisions weren’t the same in the 1968 and the newer (2008 or later) book. Bunyan’s book has lots of marginal notes and scripture references. In the 1968 book, the marginal notes are printed as headings between paragraphs. In the new book they are in the margins. Once I was able to orient to the new system, the reading was definitely easier in the new.

For those who don’t know the story, the first part follows a man named Christian, who lives in the City of Destruction. He decides to go on “pilgrimage”—the allegorical word for he became a Christian. He “leaves” his wife and four sons for his journey. Along the way he encounters many problems. He walks with a huge burden on his back. He walks alone, though frequently encounters both those who would deter him from his goal and those who would help him to reach his goal, the Celestial City.

In the second part, Christian’s wife, Christiana, decides she has made a mistake by not going with her husband on pilgrimage. She leaves the City of Destruction with her sons and Mercy, a young woman from the town. Their journey is much different than Christian’s was. They are given a “conductor”—a man named Great-Heart who will help them on their way. Their party of seven (Christiana, Mercy, the four boys, and Great-Heart) heads on the journey. Their guide advises them where to go and protects them from many of the dangers. Their party swell with additional pilgrims.

Eventually they reach the river across-which is the Celestial City. One by one they receive a message via “post”, and are given the time when they must enter the river and cross to meet their king, the allegorical description of death.

As I said, the reading is difficult. Neither of our books had modernized text or punctuation. I did some modernization as I read, but it was difficult.

I’m not going to rate this classic. And, while I suspect I will never read it again, I won’t discard the new book. I’ll find a place for it on the shelf. But the older book is going into the recycling bin.

I’m not sure where we got it, but The Darwin Conspiracy by James Scott Bell has been in our house for a long time. I’ve been in writers conferences where Bell has been the keynote speaker or taught workshops, so I definitely wanted to read it.

It’s a novel, Bell’s first published novel, written in the 1990s when he was trying to transition from lawyer to writer. The plot is rather strange. It goes back and forth between the present day and times in the 19th century. Keeping them straight was difficult at first, easier at the end of the novel.

The premise is a document, called the Busby Manuscript. Sir Max Busby was the assumed name of a man who, as a boy, hated his father and killed him. He took on the name Max Busby and went to sea to avoid the law. The ship he sailed on was The Beagle, the same vessel on the same voyage that carried Charles Dawin on his famous round-the-world trip during which Darwin did the bulk of his formative research.

Busby sensed that the evolutionary theories that Dawin was just starting to develop would be disastrous to Christianity. Being an evil man, Busby wanted science to thrive and Christianity to suffer, and so egged Darwin on. As the story develops, Busby posed as an educated man (which he was not) and was with Darwin at every critical stage in Darwin’s work. Then he was with Darwin’s friends and every person who eventually touted the cause of evolution, right up to the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925. Busby interacts with all the famous scientists and others who had a hand in either pushing evolution forward or fighting against it.

In order to accomplish this, Bell had to have Busby live to the age of 125+ years old. Not believable in the slightest, even in a novel where it is assumed you will suspend unbelief.

The book was complicated by 1) constant switching from present to 2) Busby writing his narrative in 1927 to 3) his days with Darwin and Darwin’s successors, a period of 90 years. Keeping these times frames straight was difficult, especially because often two were mixed in one chapter.

The novel was also complicated because Bell puts himself in it. He was the one who was given the Busby narrative by an old professor, only to lose it when the professor is killed, the police confiscate the narrative, and someone steals it from them. This whole scenario was, quite frankly, ridiculous. Having Geraldo Rivira make a cameo appearance was way over the top.

I rate this book just 3-stars. It would be two for the plot, but the writing is quite good and that pulls it up. But it is not a keeper. I don’t anticipate ever reading it again, nor recommending it to anyone else.