The foreword by J.I. Packer is worth the price of the book. From his advice to writers,

...there are three essentials: first, something to say, something you have seen and want to share; second, enough technique to enable it to find its own best shape on paper; third, a strong bottom on which you can sit for hours together handcrafting sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.

to his justification of the novel,

Thus, if you want to feel the force of Tolstoy's view of Christianity, you read, not What I Believe, but his novel, Resurrection.

to his discussion of Christian fiction,

Unhappily, these moral tales, though not novels, often claim this name, and so spread the idea that this is what "real" Christian novels are like. The result, both funny and sad, is that when folk feed on this diet read a genuine novel by a Christian novelist (Graham Greene, say, or Charles Williams, or George Target, or Flannery O'Conner, or Fyodor Dostoevski, or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) their appreciation, if any, is overshadowed by regret and puzzlement that the author did not so manipulate his characters as to produce a straightforward moral tale, clearly illustrating the gospel.

and, finally, his assessment of how Elisabeth Elliot's book illustrates the task of a novelist, are spot on. Four pages of profundity. I repeat: worth the price of the book.

 

No Graven Image is not a feel-good, light read. It makes demands on the reader. But it is a book I highly recommend. Margaret Sparhawk is a young single woman, a solo missionary in a small mountain village in Ecuador. The story gives an honest portrait of the joys, frustrations, doubts, questions, hopes, and confusion of a Christian trying to spread the gospel. She sees and critically evaluates both the efforts, attitudes and culture of fellow missionaries and of the Quichuas.

At the time of its publication (1966) it had to be controversial. My brother-in-law saw me reading the book and remarked, "Oh. The book where the missionary swears." Well, yes. The missionary swears. And is shocked that such a word is even part of her vocabulary. But one word should not define the tenor of the whole book.

Though the ending isn't happy, neither is it hopeless. There are questions: some answered, some left unanswered. The clear and flowing narrative is a joy to read.  Here are some samples:

[fashion] "Sensible" shoes carried all the stigma of the missionary spinster image which I loathed, but I could unhappily foresee my own progressive conformity to this image. Even that, however, could be endured for Christ's sake. 85

[children's vaccinations] If only missionary work were so simple, I reflected. If people could be corralled and injected, like so many cattle branded, without explanation or persuasion or personal sense of need. I had heard missionaries say "I gave him the Gospel!" as though it had been an injection, and now, as the comparison presented itself, I began to ponder just how important it might be that an individual be prepared for the Gospel. 151

[overwhelming need] I suppose anyone who tries to help people in any way soon becomes overwhelmed with the endlessness of the task. So he has two choices. He can give up at the start, or he can accept his limitations and go on doing what he can. 152

[Quichua culture] It was all very well to accept life and its conditions without complaining—I had been pleased to find that the crises need not be turned over to the professionals as I had been taught to think. Birth, marriage, accidents, old age, death—all these things were dealt with by the people themselves, in the sanctuary of the home as a part of the course of life, not to be interfered with by outsiders, and whatever might be said for the other side, the Indian way seemed laudably humane and in harmony with nature. 200

[simple life] Rosa sat back with one heel curled under her, one neat small foot stretched out beside the fire, and laid the baby across her lap. He burrowed furiously under her blouse, found what he wanted, and let his feet flop in contentment. His small snortings and smackings mingled with the scraping of the spoon and the rattle of the corn. Firelight, shelter, food to eat, love. You don't know what you've got, Rosa. 218

[after a bad outcome] God, if He was merely my accomplice, had betrayed me. If, on the other hand, He was God, He had freed me. 243

 

I thought about naming this post Guys Belting, but figured that might be misconstrued.

There is something about men singing that thrills me, that sends currents of electricity crackling through my limbs, a frisson of delight. From my earliest moments I was raised with the sound of guys singing. Though my dad's income was scant, there was an abundance of books and music in our home. In the chapel of my childhood, we split hymns, e.g. everyone on verses 1 and 2, men only verse 3, women verse 4, all on the last verse.  The men's verse was always my favorite. There was a potent oomph, a deep well, a pleasing sound when they sang.

Two (among a thousand) things I love about my church: 1) there are no silent men when we sing. Male participation is universal. 2) The guys sing like they have testosterone in them. It is glorious. 

Random guy-singing memories:

• Hearing my seven year old sing as he washed the dishes

• My four brothers singing in a spontaneous quartet at the 1996 Harper reunion.

• Loving the way Garrison Keillor sings. His voice isn't excellent, but he puts himself into the singing.

• The sound of singing in the shower

• My brother (who sings in the opera) practicing with the volume UP in the garage when he visits us.

• Watching teen-aged boys playing frisbee on the lawn after church, singing as they play

• Hearing my son(s) sing to his baby

• Listening to my grandson sing Come Thou Fount

• Another grandson singing You Are My Sunshine

• My husband singing his seventh grade fight song at a dinner party a few years ago

• Puddling up whenever my brother (pictured above) sings Children of the Heavenly Father

Yesterday, a friend said that her husband likes to belt out How Can I Keep from Singing? My estimation of him jumped up five notches. I like guys that belt it out.

I long to live in a culture, like South Africa or Wales or Estonia, where singing is so deeply woven into daily life, that folks find it impossible not to sing. Can you imagine waiting in line (subway, Costco, at school) with strangers, and everyone joining in a song? Our headphones/ear buds keep us isolated. [Aside: this is why I loathe personal DVDs in the car.] Singing connects us in a powerful way. Aren't the best times at a party when everyone sings along to the music?

The first man in my life, my dad, was a man who sang. It is he who taught me, by example, how magnificent it is to hear a man sing. If I were evaluating a potential husband, he would be, among other things, a guy who holds babies, a guy who appreciates poetry, a guy who reads, and a guy who sings.

Thank you, Dad.

JWH, October 3, 1922 - February 14, 1987

I need your help. I'm collecting a list of (clean) movies that have a group of guys singing. I thought of The Hunt for Red October, O Brother, Where Art Thou and How Green Was My Valley. The singing in the trailer for The Hobbit gave me goosebumps. Can you recommend others?  Do you have memories of guys singing?

 

 

 

I started out loving Barbara Tuchman's book of essays. The first eight essays, on the craft of writing history, sent me over the moon. My ardor went down just a degree or two in the next section, which might be described as history in small chunks. Although the final section, in which she comments about (1960-1970) current affairs, yields nuggets, I found myself in disagreement with Tuchman and disengaged with her writing. It seems to me the further away the period about which she writes, e.g. Medieval times, the Great War, the more I like her.  That said, I would have no qualms recommending this book to an aspiring writer or an avid student of history.

Tuchman returns often to the theme of selection, the art of leaving things out.

The historian is continually being beguiled down fascinating byways and sidetracks. But the art of writing—the test of the artist—is to resist the beguilement and cleave to the subject. 18

Happily, Tuchman utilizes some great stories that were cut from her books to illustrate this point. Striking discoveries, fascinating though they be, must fit into the structure and scope of the book to be useful.  These behind-the-scene revelations reminded me of watching a DVD with the director's commentary. Consequently, this book is more valuable to one who has read many of Tuchman's books.

Tucked in this collection is a love song to libraries.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. 76

The breadth of Barbara Tuchman's experience—even expertise—leaves me breathless: China, Japan, Spain, Israel, Turkey, Europe, Medieval times, late 19th century, WWI, Vietnam. Those interested in Israel will appreciate two essays on the young/ancient nation written in 1967.

One of my favorite essays was her portrait of her grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., an advocate of assimilation, a Jew opposed to Zionism. (His Zion was America; he wanted to be a Jew in America.) After donating time and money to Woodrow Wilson's election, he was awarded, not a Cabinet position, but a minor ambassodorship to Turkey, a post set aside for Jews. With the advent of the Great War, Morgenthau, in his position in Constantinople, was able to give life-giving aid to Jews in Palestine, Armenian refugees, and later to Greeks.

Here is a sampling of Barbara Tuchman:

...the reader is the essential other half of the writer. 81

...concerning all cafeterias in American government basements the only polite comment is silence. 79

With the appearance of the tape-recorder, a monster with the appetite of a tapeworm, we now have a new problem of what I call artificial survival. 72

There are gems of quotations, as when Dean Acheson, asked why a meeting of senior advisers lasted so long, replied, "We are all old and we are all eloquent." 220

If you know me, you know that I love books. If you've ever met me, you don't need Aristotelian logic to deduce I love food.

I've been modifying my diets, both books and food.  And thinking how the two correlate.  With food and with books, we ingest, digest, and eliminate waste. In some magical way, the stuff we take in becomes part of who we are. Those good bits feed our cells and nourish us. Become part of our DNA. It's a mystery that last night it was salad, and today it is Carol. And Hey, Boo!, some of the most magnificent words in To Kill a Mockingbird, is also part of who I am.

Hands down, my current favorite food is grapefruit. When I figured out the the best way to eat a grapefruit is to peel it like an orange and eat it section by section, breakfast has become a sensual delight. I like taking my time, peeling back the membrane, removing the seeds, examining the intricate design of one section, soaking in the deep pinkish red, smelling the sweet-sharp citrus, pulling apart a segment, plopping it in my mouth, letting it sit on my tongue, and savoring the flavor before I chew and swallow. There's the teensiest amount of effort that I willingly expend for the joy of eating the grapefruit. I'm reading less like a fast food meal scarfed in the car and more like a grapefruit, section by beautiful section. Most nourishing reading takes some work, but it rewards the reader with delightful morsels to taste, enjoy, digest.

Since I've been ruminating on this topic, one question I ask myself when I pick up a books is, "If this book were a food, which would it be?" This week I finished Barbara Tuchman's book of essays, Practicing History.  A lot of fiber in that book, a lot to chew. Definitely meat, perhaps a pot roast.  Now I'm smack in the middle of Anthony Trollope's novel He Knew He Was Right.  Something with vinegar, that's easy to swallow. A kosher dill pickle!  The book about hormones was easy: multivitamin. This morning I sobbed for a half hour while I listened to the final chapter of Eric Metaxus' Bonhoeffer.  This book is worthy of a yearly re-read. The sweetness of Bonhoeffer's sacrificial love played with the bitter taste of the Third Reich. It would be impossible to assign one food to this book. It was Babette's Feast.

I'm reading more slowly, chewing more carefully, gulping less air. La vita è bella. 

 

Only they who have closely watched the natural uneasiness of human hens can understand how great was Lady Milborough's anxiety on this occasion. Marriage to her was a thing always delightful to contemplate. Though she had never been sordidly a matchmaker, the course of the world around her had taught her to regard men as fish to be caught, and girls as the anglers who ought to catch them. Or, rather, could her mind have been accurately analysed, it would have been found that girl was regarded as half-angler and half-bait. Any girl that angled visibly with her own hook, with a manifestly expressed desire to catch a fish, was odious to her. And she was very gentle-hearted in regard to the fishes, thinking that every fish in the river should have the hook and bait presented to him in the mildest, pleasantest form. But still, when the trout was well in the basket, her joy was great; and then came across her unlaborious mind some half-formed idea that a great ordinance of nature was being accomplished in the teeth of difficulties. For — as she well knew — there is a difficulty in the catching of fish.

~ Anthony Trollope in He Knew He Was Right. 

 

Trollope can be depended on to make one chuckle and snort. And nod in appreciation. He describes a bachelor: There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire.  He writes tasty phrases that make you repeat them aloud: ...so flattered her and so fluttered her...  However, this book appears to chronicle the failure of a marriage. Not the happiest of topics.