Adam Bede by George Eliot

A friend once told me that Uncle Tom's Cabin was the most Christian novel he'd ever read. Since I haven't read it, I'll have to reserve that label for George Eliot's Adam Bede. This is the third novel I've read by Eliot and I'm again amazed that a woman of such ungodly principles could write so winsomely about men of women with sterling characters.

Apart from her excellent writing, Eliot has tremendous insights into human nature and into human suffering. And she's funny! Her little asides about the foibles and weaknesses of the characters in her story had me chuckling throughout the book. Another treat to me were the glimpses into early Methodism (Itinerant Methodist preacher, Dinah Morris, is one of the main characters in the book.)

Adam Bede is the story of young English carpenter at the turn of the 19th century. He's in love with Hetty Sorrel, a beautiful woman far beneath him in brains and heart. You'll spend the first half of the novel dreading the culmination of his dream to marry her.  But by the time his lady love topples from her pedestal, your judgments will not be so clearly marked against her since Eliot has the gift of making her characters seem flawed and loveable at the same time. I cannot tell anymore of the story without spoilers.  I can only say that it is a powerful story of redemption, manhood (both true and false), and love (both shallow and deep).

One of my favorite themes in Adam Bede was echoed in Eliot's Middlemarch, the idea that common, honest people contribute more to the good of mankind through their quiet acts of love and duty than do famous heroes.

Be warned that the first half of the book is slow-going and some of the dialect makes it difficult, but then things pick up quite a bit; it's worth the effort and it's free for Kindle.

Are Schools Anti-Reading?

I have Barbara to thank for pointing out "School is no Place for Readers." It's a lengthy post on how schools push reading fairs and reading logs, but in reality discourge kids from digging deeply into books. Here's a sample quote:

School libraries are filled with computers and the shelves are filled with dreck based on video games, cartoons and movies. It is said that this is the only way to tempt children away from screen to page, but these book impostors are created to foster and capitalize on an appetite for a product. is it likely that "Barbie in a Mermaid Tale," printed out as sixteen pages of dull and disjointed summary, will increase the odds of the child reading Alice in Wonderland or Swallows and Amazons? Whatever the market may cast before consumers, school should not be its enthusiastic accomplice in corrupting the taste and abilities of the young. We must know these things for what they are. The Pokemon Character Guide is not a book, it is a toy. Children ought to have toys, but they should also have books.

The complete article offers lots to ponder.

The Western Canon by Harold Bloom

In this 560-page tome Bloom highlights twenty-six writers whose writings set the standard for all literature  that followed them. (Shakespeare, Dickens, Milton, Tolstoy, etc.)

I admit it.  I’ve been in awe of Harold Bloom as the “guardian” of classic literature ever since I first heard about him.  I have struggled through several of his books, but The Western Canon was the last one I’ll ever have to read because it knocked him off his pedestal.  I still appreciate, but no longer idolize, him. It's partly because I’ve become more sure of my own reading tastes and am no longer inclined to swallow someone else’s opinions about what I “should” be reading. It's also due to his disturbing view of the Bible. Although he has tremendous respect for it, he believes the Old Testament was written by a woman and that it has been revised beyond recognition from its original texts. Listen to this gobbledygook:

After Shakespeare, the greatest representative of the given is the first author of the Hebrew Bible, the figure named Yahwist or J by nineteenth-century biblical scholarship.  J, like Homer, a person or persons lost in the dark recess of time, appears to have lived in or near Jerusalem some three thousand years ago, well before Homer either lived or was invented.  Just who the primary J was, we are never likely to know.  I speculate, on purely internal and subjective literary grounds, that J may very well have been a woman at King Solomon’s court… [Probably] Bathsheba, mother of Solomon… The J writer was the original author of what we now call Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, But what she wrote was censored, revised, and frequently abrogated or distorted by a series of redactors across five centuries, culminates with Ezra, or one of o his followers, in the era of the return for Babylonian exile….J’s Yahweh is human – all too human; he eats and drinks, , frequently loses his temper, delights in his own mischief, is jealous and vindictive, proclaims his justness while constantly playing favorites, and develops a considerable case of neurotic anxiety … By the time he leads that crazed and suffering rabblement through the Sinai wilderness, he has become so insane and dangerous, to himself and to others, that the J writer deserves to be called the most blasphemous of all authors ever. (p.4, 5)

Really? When you read drivel like that about a book Bloom considers to be one of the absolute greatest in the Western Canon, how can you continue to hope that his other thoughts will be enlightening?

But Bloom isn’t considered the Protector of Great Literature for nothing.  He believes (and rightly so) that great literature will continue to exist, not because it’s “good for you”, but because true readers actually enjoy the stuff.  Sadly, however, (and he’s right again here) colleges and universities will have less and less lit majors.  What are now called “Departments of English” will be renamed departments of “Cultural Studies” where Batman comics, Mormon theme parks, television, movies, and rock will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens. (p. 484)

Dismal but true. This book is worth skimming through to find out why the Great Books are worthy of the name.

R.I.P. NIV

In recent years controversy has been brewing over the New International Version of the Bible. The 1984 version has been one of the most-loved and most-used of all Bible versions, but a few years ago the editorial staff made some decisions that produced a newer version that many find unacceptable. The original version is no longer in print, nor is it available online as it used to be (at biblegateway.com). Cripplegate has a good article about it called "Farewell, NIV" if you want to read more.

My NIV (1984) is still in pretty good shape so I won't be switching to another version just yet. What about you? Have you switched? Do you have a recommendation for a good, solid translation?

Complete Surrender by Julian Wilson

I was looking for a good missionary biography and found this one on Eric Liddell available for Kindle. Anyone who has seen the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire knows the story of the runner who shot to world fame after his amazing performance in the 1924 Olympics. But while the movie majors on his athletic ability and minors on his faith, Julian Wilson’s book, Complete Surrender, does the opposite. He passes lightly over Liddell’s Olympic accomplishments and focuses on his evangelistic work and on his eight years as a missionary in China.

Despite his dazzling success on the running track and meteoric rise to national prominence Eric Liddell remained modest and unaffected. Those who knew him well knew he was more concerned with what God thought about him than what the people around him thought. His one overwhelming concern was to do what was pleasing to God.

Most of the testimonies in the book refer to his kindness and unselfishness, particularly after the Japanese put him in an internment camp (during WWII) where he cared for those who were weak and sick. The overcrowded camp with its horrible food and appalling living conditions caused the majority of its inmates to grumble and quarrel.  Eric, on the other hand, sought to be a peacemaker by sowing seeds of encouragement. He taught math and science, planned sports activities and puppet shows and taught the children how to play chess and checkers.

Julian Wilson shared this anecdote:

Camp policy was to have no games on Sunday, but a group of bored teenagers defied the ruling one Sunday and organized a boys versus girls hockey match. Without a referee, tempers became frayed and the match ended in a brawl. The following Sunday, Liddell was out on the field umpiring. “Eric decided it was far more important that the youngsters played and worked together in harmony than it was to keep his Sabbatarian principles inviolate” according to his close friend Joe Cotterill. So the man who gave up the chance of winning a gold medal in the 100 meters at the Olympic games, because he refused to run on Sundays, was prepared to sacrifice his principles for the sake of fostering a spirit of peace and unity among the young people.

The book contains many more amazing stories. But Wilson is careful to emphasize that Liddell was just an ordinary man who walked in complete obedience to Christ. Eric's favorite theme when he talked to young people was “a God-controlled life” and his last words were, “Annie, it’s complete surrender.” Although he had given up his athletic career to go to China, he won the only race that really matters. At the end of his life he could say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (II Tim 4:7,8)

Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

Don't ask me why I was expecting this to be a tedious read. It was anything but.

Master of Ballantrae is the story of two brothers, one good and one bad. James, the wicked one, is heir to the family fortune, is daddy's favorite, and can charm the rattle off a snake. The good brother, Henry, is quiet and self-effacing and not much liked by anybody. The narrator of the story is Mr. MacKellar, the steward of the Durrisdeer estate and one of Henry's only true friends.

The novel is set in England in 1745.  James, "the Master", runs off to join Bonnie Prince Charlie who is striving to restore the Stuarts to the throne.  When James does not return after several years, he is presumed dead and Henry marries Allison, his brother's fiancée, and becomes the new heir. 

But the Master is not dead, nor does he die at several other opportune moments.  He seems to have nine lives and with each one he comes back to haunt and torment his brother. Honestly, to read of his constant villainy juxtaposed with his power to beguile and deceive gave me the shivers. And it made the book very hard to put down. As G.K. Chesterton said in his book on Victorian authors, "In The Master of Ballantrae Stevenson proved with a pen of steel that the Devil is a gentleman, but is nonetheless the Devil."

I kept wondering why I've never heard anyone talk about this book. Maybe its because there is no happy ending.  Hatred destroys everything. Then why would I recommend it? For one thing, it shows how even a good man can be corrupted when he harbors bitterness. Second, the book is beautifully written. I am already a huge Stevenson fan because of his lyrical and enchanting poetry (Child's Garden of Verses), but this is the first time I've dipped into one of his adventure novels.

Apparently there were two awful movies based on this book. (1953 with Errol Flynn as James, and 1984 with Michael York) Better to stick to the book.

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Fans of Wendell Berry know his favorite themes are the importance of community and the disadvantages of runaway progress. His novel Jayber Crow is no exception. In his gentle, inimitable style Berry takes us through the ups and downs of Port William’s bachelor barber.

Born in 1914 and orphaned at a young age, Jayber Crow is now 72 years old and is looking back on his life.  He begins with early memories of the orphanage where he recalls asking hard questions about faith and getting few satisfying answers.  Even though he abandons Christianity for a time, he can’t get away from feeling that he is “blessed” and even “called”.  Biblical language is sprinkled throughout the book. On returning to Port William he writes, “In one breath I was lost and a stranger, and in the next I was found.”(p. 87)

One reason he scorned religion was because it preached against pleasure.

This religion that scorned the beauty and goodness of this world was a puzzle to me. To begin with, I didn’t think anybody believed it.  Those world-condemning sermons were preached to people who, on Sunday mornings, would be wearing their prettiest clothes... The people who heard those sermons loved good crops, good gardens, good livestock and work animals and dogs; they loved flowers and the shade of trees, and laughter and music; some of them could make you a fair speech on the pleasures of a good drink of water or a patch of wild raspberries... And when church was over they would go home to heavenly dinners of fried chicken, and creamed new potatoes and creamed new peas and hot biscuits and butter and cherry pie and sweet milk and buttermilk. And the preacher, having foresworn on behalf of everybody the joys of the flesh, would eat with unconsecrated relish. (p. 161)

Mattie Chatham is a key character in the book. Although they never marry, Jayber’s love for her causes a dramatic turning point in his life. Through his selfless love for her he learns to love others more deeply and to accept the mysteries of faith that he had previously rejected.

In a moment of musing he writes, It is not a terrible thing to love the world, knowing that the world is always passing and irrecoverable, to be known only in loss. To love anything good, at any cost, is a bargain. (p. 329)

It was a bold move for Christian.audio.com to offer this book selection since there is unchristian behavior throughout; readers of traditional Christian novels may be offended by some profanity, drinking and womanizing.  To top it off, the one  “Christian” in the book is the mean-spirited, unhappy Cecelia Overhold. Average reader beware! But if you want to read a well-written, poignant tale of one man’s search for love and for God, you’ll be touched by Jayber Crow.