Category Archives: Books

Book Review: The Great Divorce

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the-great-divorceI first picked up The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis some years ago when I found it on sale in a bookstore. I wasn’t sure what kind of divorce the title was talking about, and the description on the front about a bus ride from hell to heaven seemed really weird, but it was Lewis and it was on sale, so I got it. But it sat around for all these years unopened. The TBR challenge of reading things that have been unread on our shelves spurred me to work this book in this year.

Lewis explains in the preface that the title and concept came in response to William Blake’s book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Lewis explains that there can be no such marriage.

“We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks in two, and each of those into two again, and at each road you must make a decision. Even on a biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but also from other good.”

“Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it.”

To illustrate some of those fork-in-the-road choices as well as the opposite directions of heaven and hell, Lewis developed this fantasy of a group of people on a bus ride from hell to visit heaven. When they arrive, they are surprised to find that they are transparent and that contact with solid objects is painful (“It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.”) They are called ghosts, whereas the inhabitants who come to meet them are called Solid People or Spirits. Most of the people decide not to stay for various reasons, despite the Spirits encouraging them to put away whatever is holding them back and enter into joy.

The cleric who does not believe in absolutes refuses to believe in them still: “For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? ‘Prove all things’…to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.” The Spirit speaking with him, a friend he knew in life, responds, “If that were true…how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.” The artist prefers his painting to reality. “Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.” The overbearing wife wants to continue “managing” her husband. The mother who has developed motherly love into idolatry would rather take her son from heaven back to hell with her than lessen her focus from him to love God. “Mother love…is the highest and holiest feeling in human nature,” she says, and is told, “No natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.” The man who lives for manipulating people with his self-pity is told, “Did you think joy was created to live always under that threat? Always defenseless against those who would rather be miserable than have their self-will crossed?”

But a few are willing to have their besetting sins taken and killed, and they grow more “solid.”

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened. ”

“Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see.”

Lewis, or the narrator, finds George MacDonald, someone he has greatly looked up to and learned from, who then becomes a guide and teacher for him, similar to Dante and Virgil in The Divine Comedy.

Lewis assures in the preface that he is not writing to propose anything about what heaven might be like: he is simply using this scenario as a vehicle to discuss truths.

There are a few similar themes as are found in The Last Battle, the last book in the Narnia series written about 10-11 years later: the idea of moving “further up and further in” and the effusive joy of heaven.

I don’t know if Lewis believed in a purgatory or if he was just using the idea of the dead getting “second chances” to illustrate that many of them would not take it. The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27 that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,” so I would have a problem with this book promoting the idea of purgatory, but I think the whole second chance scenario is just part of the plot device.

One character in the book says, “Hell is a state of mind – ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind – is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.”  Again, I don’t know if the idea of hell being just a state of mind was part of Lewis’s own philosophy or if it was just the nature of it in this as a fantasy, but the Bible does speak of hell with literal terminology.

Overall this was quite a fascinating and thought-provoking read.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: My Man Jeeves

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JeevesBertie Wooster is an amiable but not terribly bright English gentleman (as he says, “I’m a bit short on brain myself; the old bean would appear to have been constructed more for ornament than for use, don’t you know”). His “man,” Jeeves, is the quintessential unobtrusive English valet with not only “genius for preserving a trouser-crease,” but also a penchant for solving the various problems of Bertie and his friends.

My Man Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse is 1919 a collection of short stories involving the fictional pair, but there are a few stories in the middle about Reggie Pepper, who doesn’t seem to have any connection with either of them. The plot lines are similar in all the stories, though: someone has some kind of problem (often another English gentleman whose source of financial support is threatening to cut him off if he doesn’t jump through certain hoops that he doesn’t want to, but some of the stories involve romantic troubles as well), appeals for help, and then Jeeves or Reggie comes up with some kind of scheme that usually involves some kind of deception that usually backfires in some comic way.

The Jeeves and Wooster books are good for a light-hearted read, especially if you like English comedy, one reason I decided to pick this up when Carrie listed it as her Reading to Know Classics Book Club selection for April. Unfortunately, the first few stories sounded very familiar, and I found that some of them were rewritten from Carry On, Jeeves (linked to my review), the only other Jeeves book I’ve read. That was irritating, but there was enough new material and enough I’d forgotten from the previous book that it wasn’t a total wash.

I have to admit that the plots got tiresome after a while, but Wodehouse’s writing is delightful. I enjoyed the narrative quite a lot and had fun picking up on certain expressions and idioms (I don’t know if the British still use these, but apparently being “in the soup” in a bad thing while being “full of beans” is good). Here are some examples:

“I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare — or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad — who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.”

Of an awkward gathering: “And so the merry party began. It was one of those jolly, happy, bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak, and then decide not to say it after all.”

“That’s always the way in this world. The chappies you’d like to lend money to won’t let you, whereas the chappies you don’t want to lend it to will do everything except actually stand you on your head and lift the specie out of your pockets.”

“Absent treatment seemed the touch. I gave it to him in waves.”

“I wasn’t particularly surprised to meet Bobbie at the club next day looking about as merry and bright as a lonely gum-drop at an Eskimo tea-party.”

The full text of this book is available online here. I listened to the audiobook, read very nicely by Simon Prebble.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

This also completes one of my requirements for the  Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.

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Book Review: The Little White Horse

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LWHWhen I saw The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge listed as Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club selection for March. I wanted to give it a try because I had seen Goudge highly recommended. This is one of her children’s books, but she has written for adults as well.

This story begins with recently orphaned Maria Merryweather and her governess, Miss Heliotrope, traveling to Moonacre Manor to live with Maria’s uncle. The first few chapters are a series of discoveries as Maria gets to know her new guardian, house, room, village, church, etc., and along the way she learns that she and Mrs. H. are the first females to set foot in the house in 20 years, that there are a group of wicked Men of the Dark Woods doing wicked things like poaching animals and blocking the way to Merryweather Bay. When she finds that there was a quarrel caused by her own ancestors that set off these bad men , she feels it is her duty and destiny to set things right. In the course of her quest, she also has to learn patience and self-control over her own anger and tendency to hasty words, the lack of which traits contributed to the original disagreement in the first place.

The story has the flavor of a fairy tale, with animals who seem to know what to do and help Maria along the way (including a cat who writes messages in hieroglyphics in the ashes of the fireplace), the appearance of the little white horse, who is actually a unicorn, at key points in the story, and the discovery that her “imaginary friend” in London actually is a real boy who had been visiting her in his dreams (which I thought odd on many levels. Wouldn’t he have visited her in her dreams?)

It took a while for me to get into the story. All the discoveries of her new place and descriptions were fine, but had me thinking, “OK, when are we going to get into the plot?” When we finally did, my interest picked up a little. I like “quest” stories, particularly when the main character has to conquer something in him- or herself along the way, so I liked that aspect, as well as the aspect that the first step in setting things right was to give Paradise Hill, formerly run by monks, back to God (I don’t know what Goudge’s religious views were, but there are mentions of Biblical principles sprinkled here and there.)

But somehow the book just didn’t grab me, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I can’t say I strongly disliked it, but I just didn’t love it like I thought it would. As Bekah mentioned in her review, you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to enjoy the story, even knowing that it is a fantasy. I liked Goudge’s descriptions and characterizations for the most part, and I liked the general storyline ok. I liked her planting of little clues, like Maria’s regal bearing at the beginning, before she even knew she was descended from a Moon Princess, and Miss Heliotrope’s pointing out of the “house of her dreams,” before she has any clue that she will marry its owner in the end. I wasn’t really enthralled with Maria, but I liked her well enough. All of the elements were there to make for a charming story, but to me charm was the exact thing it was missing. It took me a long time to get through it just because I wasn’t motivated to pick it up. But that may just be me (and Carrie. 🙂 ) A quick scan of other reviews show that many people love it, and it did win a Carnegie Medal.

For a couple of more positive reviews, see Amy‘s and Janet‘s. I do want to give Goudge another try though, perhaps with one of her adult books.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Seamstress

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SeamstressI don’t recall where I saw The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara Tuvel Bernstein recommended: I think it was probably through some of the What’s On Your Nightstand participants. But when I saw it on sale as an audiobook, I decided to try it. It was very wonderfully read by Wanda McCaddon.

Audiobooks don’t always include prefaces and introductions, but I am glad this one did as the co-author, Louise Loots Thornton, explained how the book came to be. Sara had attended a lecture on the Holocaust where the professor said that, although there were camps during WWII, the Jewish people embellished their experiences and made them sound worse than they were so people would “feel sorry for them and buy things in their stores.” Sara was so angry she decided she must write of her experiences. Louise had an MA in Creative Writing and Sara’s son had married into her family, so Sara asked her to help write her book.

The book begins with Sara’s birth (as Seren, which she is called throughout) and early childhood in Romania, where she was one of the youngest children of a Jewish mill owner. Persecution started early, as schoolchildren called her and her siblings “stinking Jews” or “dirty Jews” (after coming home from her first day of school, she smelled her clothes to see if they were indeed stinky. When her mother asked what she was doing and heard her answer, she waved it off with an “Oh that. Don’t even listen to it. It’s nothing.”) The priests presiding over the classroom and school would continually make disparaging remarks about Jews as “Christ-killers” and would respond negatively to the rabbi’s pleas for them to be let out for Jewish holidays. Periodically roving mobs would vandalize Jewish homes and businesses.

When Sara was in the fourth grade, she entered a contest where she was chosen to represent their school as a student in a more prestigious boarding school in another town. She was its first Jewish student. Things were not terribly different in this school, and when one teacher warned students to keep their distance from Jews during Passover because they used Gentile blood in their rituals, Sara threw an inkwell at him, marched to her room, packed up her things, and left.

She did not go home, however. She decided to try to apprentice as a dressmaking salon and found one salon owner who seemed to size up the situation and take her in. Sara did not tell her parents for a long while, as in the village she came from, young ladies did not work outside the home. When her father finally found out, he was furious: he had not wanted her to go to school there in the first place. But he finally came around.

When Sara completed her apprenticeship, she worked at the salon for many years and enjoyed outings with a group of friends. Many of them began sharing rumors they had heard about strange things happening to Jews in other areas, and then, suddenly, some of their number began disappearing one by one. As persecution escalated, Sara made it back home with the help of her supervisor’s son. There Jewish businesses were being closed down, and Sara and her father were arrested and accused of being spies. They were sent to a labor crew and then to prison. Sara was released, but her father was not. She then had to scramble to find work to support her mother and sisters. Eventually she moved to a different town with better prospects. Because she did not look like a Jew, with her blond hair and blue eyes, she got more work than she would have otherwise. Eventually two sisters  joined her. When she was out with one sister, they were picked up and forced to work with a labor crew for months. When it was discovered her sister was pregnant, she was shot. Sara was released and went back to her other sister, but eventually all the Jews were rounded up and sent to prison camps. Sara, her sister, and two friends were taken to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women north of Berlin. I had not known that this camp was only for women and that not many survived: I did know that Corrie Ten Boom and her sister were there, but unfortunately there was not much chance of their meeting as the Jewish prisoners were kept in a separate barracks.

Sara tells of the beatings, starvation, and inhumanity of the camps. She and her sister and friends became a foursome who managed to stay together, although Sara was careful never to stand next to her sister in line-ups for counting (some of which lasted four hours long) so it would be less likely that anyone noticed their resemblance and used their relationship to torture either of them. Sara was the oldest and helped the others know what to do (like choosing a top bunk for the four of them, since the bottom bunks were by windows which caused some of those in them to freeze to death), sought for (and stole, sometimes) food for them.

As the war wound down and Germany was losing, they tried to evacuate the prisoners for seemingly endless days of being packed together in cars with little food and less water. I believe she said they started out with 10,000 women, but by the time they finally stopped they were down to a few hundred because so many died on the way. At every stop the soldiers removed all the corpses.

After the war Sara ended up in a hospital for several months, where she weighed 44 lbs. on arrival, and later found work in Germany. Even at that time, if Jews boarded a bus, the Gentiles would vacate the bus: if Sara stood in line at different stores for provisions, the butcher or grocer would just happen to run out as she finally got to the counter.

Sara married, and eventually she and her husband received permission to emigrate to Canada, and later on to the US. Her daughter fills in details from the rest of her life in the epilogue.

I found this account riveting. Man’s inhumanity to man just astounds me, but Sara faced all of the events in her life with pluck, courage, and wit. She had an independent spirit early on which stood her in good stead through her trials.

Though she was a Jew in ethnicity, unfortunately she was not in her faith. Her daughter shares in the epilogue that her mother continued with many of the Jewish rituals because they were comfortable and familiar, but she didn’t understand why her friend through the horrors of labor camp became devoutly religious. She couldn’t believe in a God who let such things happen, and she felt that if there was a hell, it couldn’t be worse than what she had already experienced. She would be sadly mistaken on that point, and I can only hope she found that out before it was too late. That’s the down side of an independent spirit: one doesn’t recognize or acknowledge that God sends His rain on the just and the unjust, that He was the one who led her to food in unexpected places or to a coat with money sewn in the hem or gave her the will and drive to survive and to help her friends as well. Unfortunately, her experiences with so-called Christians early on caused her to see “the cross was used as a backdrop for persecution of the Jews.” I hope somewhere along the way someone was able to share its true meaning with her.

I’ve skimmed through a number of reviews, and some of them mention that she describes some of the horrors as well as the deaths of friends and family seemingly unemotionally. I didn’t get that impression, perhaps due to the narrator’s sympathetic inflections, but I would guess that was perhaps the only way she could write about such gruesome, wrenching details was to distance herself from them a bit in the telling. It is also possible she would not have wanted to seem as if she was embellishing the facts or pulling on readers’ heartstrings with her own emotions: she wanted to details to speak for themselves.

This will probably be one of my top ten books of the year.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

What’s On Your Nightstand: April 2014

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What's On Your NightstandThe folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.

Oh wow – I was totally caught off guard for the Nightstand post this month. That’s more likely in months like this when there are five Thursdays, but I think I have an especially good excuse for being distracted since the premature birth of my little grandson. 🙂 Anyway – here is the super-quick version:

Since last time I have completed:

Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell, reviewed here.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens via audiobook, reviewed here.

Made to Crave Action Plan Participant’s Guide by Lysa TerKeurst and Ski Chilton, reviewed here.

My Man Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse for Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club April selection, review coming soon.

The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara Tuvel Bernstein via audiobook, reviewed coming soon here.

I’m currently reading:

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club for March. Yes, March. 😳 I just haven’t been inclined to pick this one up very much, but I am almost done.

Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God by Michael Kelley

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, a reread that I enjoyed it the first time but am getting much more from now.

Courageous by Randy Alcorn (audiobook).

Next up:

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

The Book of Three by Alexander Lloyd, first book in the Prydain Chronicles.

I think I am going to skip the May and June selections from Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club, just because I have so many other books to get to, but I may get an early start on July’s choice of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I have a feeling that one will take a good while. 🙂

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Made to Crave Action Plan Participant’s Guide

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A few weeks ago I went through Made to Crave (linked to my review) by Lisa TerKeurst during an online study with the Proverbs 31 Ministries. After completing that book, they MadetoCraveActionPlanPGdecided to go through the Made to Crave Action Plan video series and workbook, so I signed up for that as well. The videos were only online for a week at a time (the rest of their posts on the series are here). This is a different series from one made to go along with the original book: this one was co-authored by a Dr. Ski Chilton.

Each video had an introduction by Lysa, a clip of her speaking about a couple of spiritual principles, a brief time of discussion with Dr. Chilton, closing remarks by Lysa, and then a testimony from someone who had benefited from the Made to Crave book.

The first Made to Crave book was primarily about “want to,” motivation to control impulses and get healthy, primarily spiritual motivation: this book purported to discuss more of the “how to.” They did not discuss a specific diet plan, but rather principles like drinking water, eating more fiber, exercising, taking Omega 3 and polyphenols, increasing fish, fruit, and vegetable consumption.

To me the biggest value in this book is the section of action plans in each chapter: readers were encouraged to look through various activities, choose one or two, and then work through them by the following week. Some focused on the spiritual principles, some on the physical. there are also a number of valuable charts and worksheets.

I didn’t know, until this book, that not all fish is good for you or what Omega 3s and polyphenols were all about.

Some of the quotes or principles I found especially helpful are:

“Temptation is Satan’s invitation to get our needs met his way rather than God’s way” (p. 63).

“Hidden behind a temptation is often a legitimate human need. The challenge comes in how we choose to meet that need…How do you imagine God might want to meet the legitimate need behind the temptation?” (p. 67).

Commenting on James 1:2-4 (Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing): “We have to consider it because we won’t always feel it. When we consider something, we take time to think about it carefully. We concentrate on the issue and weigh the possibilities before taking any course of action” (p. 129).

““Between any trial and the blessing that comes from that trial, there is a pathway we must walk — that pathway is perseverance. Perseverance means having an urgency, firmness, resolve, and consistency.”

There were a few places, however, where I disagreed. One is where Dr. Chilton speaks about how the food industry and lifestyles have changed over the years and how that makes it harder to make wise nutritional choices: he then says, “It’s not your fault. You are not bad, horrible, and lazy.” Actually, making wrong food choices is our fault, and we have to take the responsibility to make better choices even though it might be harder.

In another, Lysa told her pastor she was afraid of of “letting God down” by failing in her journey toward better health. her pastor replied, “You can’t let God down. You weren’t holding Him up in the first place.” She thought that was great, but I thought it was flippant and unhelpful. I wrote more about this here, but in the same place I think I would have appreciated reassurances that God knows we’re going to fail, but He wants us to seek His grace for forgiveness and getting up again, etc.

In another, Lysa read a letter from someone talking about having trouble exercising regularly because she was lazy. Lysa spoke a great deal about lazy being a label the devil puts on us to discourage us and tells the writer that we’re not lazy, we’re courageous. I thought this missed the mark as well: the writer was probably speaking from past experience, and, again, if I were in her place and said that, I probably would have been looking for help to overcome that inertia to get moving and then to stay with it. Maybe thinking of laziness as a label helps other people. To me it doesn’t help to discuss it as a label when I know it is a reality (for myself.)

To me these were more a matter of being a bit off base rather than major doctrinal flaws. Overall I thought the book and videos were very helpful. I probably would not have bought the series, but since the videos were available for a while for this study, I’m glad I had the opportunity to go through them.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Crowded to Christ

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Crowded to ChristThe first I remembering hearing of Crowded to Christ was in an online sermon from a former pastor that I think I listened to while home sick one Sunday. He must have mentioned it before, but this time he recommended finding a copy and reading it. It was first published in 1950 and is apparently out of print now, but I found an inexpensive used copy online.

Its author, L. E. Maxwell, was a co-founder, principal, and eventually president of Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada, which I don’t know much about except that Elisabeth Elliot attended there for a time and Don Richardson (author of Peace Child and other books) graduated from there.

Maxwell’s main theme is that God uses a variety of measures – the law of God as well as pain, pressure, and other means – to draw or to “crowd” people to Christ in the sense of realizing He is the only answer.

For instance, “In his determination to be humble, to love His enemies,… to be more than conqueror – in other words, to be like Christ –  the Christian may come sooner or later to a sense of crushing failure and defeat.” He realizes he can’t possibly do this on his own. Some go on half-heartedly, thinking full victory will just never be possible, while others, “not having made Paul’s deep discovery, ‘I know in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing,’ they redouble their efforts…They think that if they are only more watchful, more prayerful, more diligent, they will yet be able to attain. They strive and struggle; they fight and fast; they yearn and pray.” He quotes Hudson Taylor as saying, “I felt I was a child of God: His Spirit in my heart would cry: ‘Abba, Father’; but to rise to my privileges as a child I was utterly powerless.” Maxwell continues, “Not until they had come to an end of all self-righteousness and satisfaction in themselves, not until all their peace and joy and strength of will and resolution and purpose had been ‘slain by the law,’ could faith stretch forth her hands for victory. Only when they sensed the tragedy, the futility, the folly and failure of every human attempt to overcome the law of sin and death, were they shut up to Him who not only ‘justifies the ungodly’ but also ‘quickens the dead'” (pp 17-18).

He describes how God sometimes puts us in extenuating circumstances that result in a crisis of faith that drive us to Him as our only way through, like Jacob on his way home finding out Esau was coming to meet him, or Israel’s being caught between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, or Israel when called to enter into Canaan but looked at the obstacles instead of God and failed.

I have far too many quotes marked to share, but here are a few that stood out to me:

“Have you ever had God lay hold of you in the wee hours and reduce you until you had ‘Nothing left to do but fling/Care aside and simply cling?'” (p. 29).

“God must secure our confidence, and…He tries us in order to make us trust where we cannot trace. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. ‘Thy way is in the sea.’ While, therefore, He has no pleasure in our agony and perplexity, He knows that it is in the trackless and traceless sea of trouble that we come to trust” (p. 38).

“To be self-centered is to be self-destroyed…The preservation of self is the surest path to self-destruction” (p. 128).

“When the Lord Jesus dealt with souls, His method was adapted to the need of the individual. However, it is remarkable that almost invariably He brought souls face to face with some one thing which in their own strength they could not do, and there demanded an act of obedience…In order to create a sense of sin and a need of divine strength Jesus gave command just where men were inclined to wander or argue or excuse themselves” (p. 150).

“If only the Saviour had asked me to do something else! But that something else would not have reached your heart. You could have done that other thing without faith and without grace; yes, without even being right with God. So, in asking you to do the one impossible thing, Christ crosses your will through your withered limb” (p. 178).

“Grace is no mere favour conferred upon the ungodly, but it is to be experienced as a ruling force and sufficiency, reigning in our hearts as the new, living ‘law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ and enabling us to prove the no-more dominion of sin. Grace abounding is to lead at once to grace reigning” (p. 219).

In ways simple and inscrutable and fiery God must drain away the dregs of self-confidence. He must let the flesh fail…when all those remaining are convinced that God alone is their rescue and remedy…” (p. 256).

The New Testament is enfolded in the Old, and the Old Testament is unfolded in the New” (p. 272).

“Love and righteousness are not contrary principles” (p. 299).

He spends a good deal of space in the book talking about the law of God. Though Christ has fulfilled the law and we never could, and in this day of grace are not required to, still, God has uses for the law, which the Bible describes as “good” and “spiritual.” “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” His appendices on “The Old and New Testaments Compared” and “The Purpose of the Law” are some of the best parts of the book, especially on this point.

Overall I enjoyed, benefited from, and saw myself in the pages of this book. I wasn’t quite so interested in arguments about dispensationalism and ultra-dispensationalism or Calvinism vs. Armenianism: those seemed to make the book drag a bit, but I understand their necessity, especially with Maxwell coming from an academic background where students have debated these things back and forth for ages.

I think the only places where I disagreed with him were some such as when he described a man who did not want to go into a grove and pray as the folks in that place and time did when they wanted to meet with God after a service. He acknowledged that there is nothing in the Bible about doing such a thing and that one can get right with God without that action, but this man had no peace until he finally did so. I guess perhaps I could see that if it was just a matter of pride or something, but I’d still have trouble saying he should have done that when it is not a Biblical issue.

This book often brought to mind a quote from Hudson Taylor, though the quote itself is not in the book: “It doesn’t really matter how great the pressure is. What matters is where the pressure lies, whether it comes between me and God or whether it presses me nearer His heart.” As Maxwell says in the second quote listed above, God takes “no pleasure in our agony and perplexity.” He is not dreaming up ways to torture us, but He knows best what we most need in our inmost hearts to grow in our faith and relationship with Him.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Bleak House

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Bleak HouseIt’s hard to summarize in a line or two what Bleak House by Charles Dickens is about, as there are several story lines going on at the same time. In fact, it is a little hard to get into at first because, like A Tale of Two Cities, different strands of the whole are mentioned individually at first and not woven together until several chapters in (as opposed to David Copperfield, which starts at the beginning with David’s birth and progresses from there.) SparkNotes helped a lot with the early chapters, although I’d advise against reading the character list or overview until after you are well into the story due to spoilers (ditto with the Wikipedia article on the book). I followed the individual chapter discussions and analysis on Sparknotes.

The point of view switches back and forth from a third person present tense narrator to a first person past tense narrative of Esther, one of the main characters. From what little I’ve read Dickens was praised by some and criticized by others for this. The two viewpoints do give us the advantage of two perspectives and I enjoyed hearing both.

One strand of the story is the case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce which has been languishing in the Court of Chancery for years. Dickens based the Chancery on the real-life one, and the opening foggy scenes are symbolic of it. One note said the Jarndyce case was based on a real one that went on for 53 years. We’re not really told what the case is about except that the inheritance of some of the characters are tied up in it. John Jarndyce himself has given up on it and wants no more to do with it.

Another strand of the story involves bored, cold, haughty Lady Dedlock, whose demeanor, we discover, hides a secret sorrow and then a secret fear.

Another involves Esther Summerson, an orphaned girl who was raised by her aunt until the aunt dies, then sent to school, then asked by John Jarndyce to become a companion to his niece, Ada, who had become his ward as well as a nephew, Richard. Esther shares the narrative at points, and one of the interesting things about the writing is how her voice seems faltering at first (she claims she is not clever) and then gains confidence as she goes on.

Ada and Richard fall in love, which pleases Mr. Jarndyce, but he urges Richard to choose a profession before the relationship goes any further. Richard is affable and likable but doesn’t have any clear interests. He tries apprenticing at a few different professions before ending up in the military. However, after visiting the Chancery one day, he gets caught up in the Jarndyce case, and it becomes the focus of his life, despite his guardian’s warnings against pinning his hopes on the outcome of a case that could go on for years.

Another strand involves the poor of the town, particularly a mother, Jenny, whose baby dies, and a boy named Jo who is apparently homeless and constantly being told to “move on.” Others involve a somewhat flighty lady named Miss Flite who has been waiting for years for her own settlement and the noble soldier George Rouncewell.

One of Dickens’ skills is creating memorable characters, and there are some four dozen in this book. There is Mrs. Jellyby, caught up in the cause of Borrioboola-Gha in Africa while severely neglecting her own family. Inspector Bucket was based upon a real Scotland Yard detective and is reputed to be one of the first detectives in English literature. Mr Skimpole, whom I did not like, was also based on a real person (who evidently did not take kindly to the portrayal.) He calls himself “a child,” especially in business or money matters, but something about him seemed not quite right to me, which proved to be the case. He did not have the same endearing qualities as the feeble-minded Mr. Dick of David Copperfield.

There are different kinds of love portrayed – romantic, familial, friendship. If I can say this without giving away a major plot point, the Dedlocks certainly don’t seem the epitome of a warm and loving couple, but his response late in the novel showed he loved her deeply. I particularly loved the Bagnets and his calling her “the old girl” and asking her to tell his opinions. One of my favorite scenes was her birthday when the family was making her dinner while she tried to subtly signal to her daughters to add more of this, less of that, and nothing was done the way she would have done it herself, but she endured with grace out of love for them and their efforts.  There are a couple of mysteries, including a murder. There is a case of spontaneous combustion, which Dickens was severely criticized for including, but he countered that at the time he wrote it was thought to be a real phenomenon. There are different people affected by the Chancery, mostly negatively. There are observations of social injustice. There is sadness and joy and humor. There are a lot of secrets causing varying degrees of sorrow to those involved. There are a variety of reconciliations, a couple of them sorely delayed due to pride and shame, and the most heartbreaking is the one that did not occur but could have.

Esther’s story did end up where I hoped it would. One of the oddest things in the story (minor spoiler alert) was when her guardian proposed. That seemed a little creepy to me, but he releases her from the engagement later on. Another favorite scene is after he proposes, when Esther is in her room brushing her hair, determining to make him very happy, but crying, for reasons which she doesn’t quite know – or at least doesn’t tell the reader, but the reader guesses. It’s not a favorite scene because she is crying but because of Dickens’ way of showing what was going on in her heart without spelling it out.

I have heard the 2005 BBC production is really good and would like to see it some time. Here is a trailer for it:

But as it is over 8 hours long, I might have to wait for a heap of ironing or some sick days or summer break when there is nothing else on.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Peter Batchelor but dipped into the hard copy at points and read its introduction and afterword as well.

Some say this is Dickens’ best; some disagree. I think it is masterfully written and I enjoyed it a lot (especially the last third or so of it), but I liked A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield much better. Dickens’ books usually improve upon rereading, though, so next time I visit Bleak House I might enjoy it even more.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

This also completes one of my requirements for the  Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.

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What’s On Your Nightstand: March 2014

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What's On Your NightstandThe folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.

Feb. seemed long for a short month: March has seemed short for a long month. Of course, there’s about a week of it left, but for WOYN purposes, it’s time to discuss what’s on our reading agendas.

Since last time I have completed:

Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire With God, Not Food by Lisa TerKeurst, reviewed here.

Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows by Ravi Zacharias, reviewed here.

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder for my Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge and for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club, reviewed here.

The House Is Quiet, Now What? Rediscovering Life and Adventure As a Empty Nester by Janice Hanna and Kathleen Y’Barbo, reviewed here.

I’m currently reading:

Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell

Bleak House by Charles Dickens via audiobook

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club for March. I need to step on it with this one!

Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God by Michael Kelley

Made to Crave Action Plan Participant’s Guide by Lysa TerKeurst and Ski Chilton (which is a different thing from the Made to Crave Participant’s Guide, as I discovered after ordering the wrong book…) It is a follow-up to Made to Crave, and the Proverbs 31 Ministries site has been posting the videos in the Action Plan series and going through this book.

Next up:

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

My Man Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse for Carrie’s April selection.

The Book of Three by Alexander Lloyd (pub. 2006), first book in the Prydain Chronicles

Other bookish posts this month included one on censorship of YA literature and rereading.

As always, happy reading!

 

Booking Through Thursday: Rereading

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btt button Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme which poses a question or a thought for participants to discuss centering on the subject of books or reading.

Today’s question has to do with rereading:

I’ve asked before if you re-read your books (feel free to recap), but right now I want to know if that habit has changed? Did you, for example, reread more as a child and your access to new books was limited by how often you could convince your mother to take you to the library? Has the economy affected your access so that you’re forced to reread more often now? Have you grown to look at old books as old friends so that you’re happy to spend time with them rather than rushing the next new thing?

I don’t remember whether I reread much as a child, though I imagine I did with a few favorite books. I don’t think the economy has had much effect on rereading: if I couldn’t afford new books, there are hundreds through the library. But I do reread some books, for several reasons:

1. It is like a visit with an old friend, much like listening to the same music, rewatching a movie, telling the same stories at family gatherings. It’s cozy, comfortable, and familiar.

2. It’s hard to get everything from most books the first time through. To me the best books are those I can revisit many times and still gain something from.

3. It’s hard to remember everything we got from the first read, especially (for me) with nonfiction.

4. It reinforces what I learned from the book before.

5. I identify with different characters or parts of the book differently at different stages. Little Women is a classic example: I identified with different ones of the girls as a child and young teenager; as a young wife I identified with Meg; as an older mom I saw Marmee through new eyes (and the girls, too, for that matter, looking on them from a mother’s point of view rather than as friends.)

6. It can be just plain fun to revisit a story.

The problem is that there are so many enticing new books to choose from that it is hard to make the decision to reread an old one. Sometimes with nonfiction I choose to reread because I need those lessons or that information again. But with fiction, audiobooks are a great way to revisit books. Although I do listen to new books that way, I can tend to miss something from them if I can’t hit the replay button (like when I am driving or cooking). But that’s not so much an issue with a familiar book. Plus by listening I don’t feel like the old book, especially if it is an old, longer classic, is monopolizing so much of my reading time. And hearing it read can bring out facets I may have missed in my own reading.

Here is a list I made a few years ago of books I have reread and would like to reread. I’m happy to say I have reread many from the latter list since then, most via audiobook.