Collected Miscellany

Entertainment Weekly does not like Frank Peretti’s latest book. “Monster is flabby and not very thrilling, filled with undercooked attacks on evolution.” Naturally, Christian Fiction Review takes up the opposing view, saying it isn’t Peretti’s best, but it is enjoyable. “The only problem with it is that some things are revealed too quickly. Following the initial terrifying first encounter with the monster, Beck is captured. While that creates the conflict for the rest of the book, it also allows the reader to see what Beck sees, which takes away much of the mystery and horror that surrounded the first encounter. The conflict shifts to trying to find her and trace the monster’s origin.”

On the other hand, Publishers Weekly praises the prose, but finds the message overbearing. “The author’s prose is clear and crisp, with only a few lapses into Lovecraftian hyperbole,” but the theme of the story begins to weigh it down about midway “and leads it to an unsatisfying and somewhat confusing end.”

But on the other hand, Amazon reviewer Wade Tisthammer (which is a great name for a fantasy/sci-fi reviewer though I originally read it as trist-hammer which sounds more like an ambitious guidance counselor) says the book was “fun.” He suggests PW’s complaint about an overbearing message is “puzzling.” “The book does contain a single criticism regarding evolution: the paucity of observed beneficial mutations. But this grew organically out of the story and led directly to the cause of the main conflict.” He gives it 3 stars mostly because it has too many, under-developed characters.

I can’t say anything on it myself, because I have not read it. Why Westbow Press didn’t send me a review copy for all the praise I’ve given them, I can’t imagine. Budget, I’d guess. But I can talk about Peretti’s last thriller, Visitation. I had high hopes for it and enjoyed reading it a few years ago. The subject has potential to the brim; but I think it is slower moving than it should be because it tries to develop a couple good characters. If that development had gone deeper, if more spirit had been revealed, than I would be satisfied, but it only peers into the deep water while staying on the shallow side. Many strong descriptions and personal thoughts are left unwritten. Still, I have no style complaints like some other Christian authors I’ve read. I think with the right editor or friend, Peretti could write a novel to make This Present Darkness look like a first draft.

As David notes below there is a quiz/meme making its rounds. Since I have been tagged by both David below and Phil at his home blog, I figure I should answer the questions. So here we go:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – what adventure.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Ah, no.

The last book you bought was . . . ?

The Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F. Buckley

The last book you read was . . . ?

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

What are you currently reading?

The Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F. Buckley
(I am also struggling through Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It’s absurd and bitingly funny at times but also seems to be going nowhere)

Five books you would take to a desert island…

Since I have all the time in the world (theoretically), it might be fun to read large works I have avoided taking the time to read:
1) The Bible (I have read it but could use to read more)
2) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
4) The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
5) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Who are you passing this stick on to and why?

I am not sure who has taken the quiz and who hasn’t. Let’s try Chekhov’s Mistress and Tingle Alley for kicks.

The Happy Booker started a quiz thing and Booksquare tossed the hot potato this way…it’s dark and that means it’s late.

My book of all books to keep from the flames? The Ghosts of Africa. German occupied Tanzania circa 1917. I read it again and again.

The fictional crush was Nancy Drew; she had a car, man.

The last book I bought was Faust, Part One. Goethe forgot to finish the thing, but did Part Two after visting Italy for almost twenty years. Tip of the hat to Schiller for pestering the man. I would buy the Van Ronk memoir if only I had the correct change.

The last book read…this is a tie between Ken Bruen and Elizabeth Crane, but All This Heavenly Glory sits atop a stack of notes while The Magdalen Martyrs is in the bookcase.

I’m currently reading Ken Bruen’s The Killing of the Tinkers.

Five books for the desert island: The War with Hannibal by Livy. Fear and Loathing just for the reality check. East of Eden for that sense of time and distance. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and finally, No Country for Young Men by Julia O’Faolain.

I passing the stick to: Kevin Holtsberry because he’s a reader’s reader. Phil Wade to learn more about Phil. Jenny Davidson for her blogging excellence and erudition.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the talk Michael Chabon gave at a Nextbook event, called “Golems I Have Known. or, Why My Elder Son’s Middle Name is Napoleon.” There seems to be confusion about whether Paul Maliszewski, writing for Bookforum, misunderstood Chabon’s message, accurately described its outrageous message, or deliberately misconstrued it in order to stir up outrage (I guess). Regardless, you can hear the message yourself on Nextbook’s site. Nextbook’s Matthew Brogan says the message was not serious. “Chabon’s talk exhibits all the hallmarks of a tall tale, with the author signaling to the audience at every turn that the narrator is not to be completely trusted.”

You might as well click on over to Birnbaum v. Jonathan Safran Foer and read it. Everyone will be doing it and you don’t want to feel left out, right?

On a more serious note, the interview really is quite interesting and worth reading. Here are a couple of quotes I thought were interesting.

Obviously JSF likes books in the same way I do:

JSF: A book is an intimate object whether you are conscious of it when you are writing it or not. A book is something that is seen with the eyes on a shelf, pulled off the shelf with the hand, taken home. What percentage of people do you think read a book in bed? 80? 90? People read books in bathtubs. People read books in their easy chairs with their glass of wine or their coffee, their cat.

RB: If the books could talk.

JSF: Thank God they can’t. I really love that idea. Books aren’t just vehicles for print. If you believe that, then you read books off the internet. Or e-books, or whatever they are. I really like books as objects, as a little intimate sculptures that you have a real interaction with, and a bookstore that encourages that is great. And I think publishers encourage it by just paying attention to the details of how something is put together.

Continue reading →

Interesting review over at Books and Culture on Bible translation. In reviewing two recent books, Nathan Bierma finds that translating the Hebrew and Greek of the original scriptures into English (and other languages) is a act fraught with difficulty. Bierma’s introductory paragraphs pulled me in:

I wouldn’t read this review if I were you. They say that there are two things you never want to see produced—laws and sausages. But there’s at least one more: Bible translations. As Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham says in his blurb for Leland Ryken’s The Word of God in English, Ryken’s book is “gripping” but “also most disturbing, for Ryken argues that most modern Bible translations sell their readers short.”

This is hard to hear for believers who have memorized and treasured certain versions of their favorite verses. The translation we’re used to seems as sacred to us as Scripture itself. If something’s not quite right with the sausage, there’s a part of us that would rather not know.

The problem isn’t with Scripture, it’s with language itself. In a recent essay in Harper’s, Kitty Burns Florey remarks that trying to get English to conform to the rules of Latin grammar is “something like forcing a struggling cat into the carrier for a trip to the vet.” Trying to get Hebrew (which is lusciously poetic) and Greek (which relies heavily on context for the meaning of words) to fit nicely into the parameters of English is similarly problematic.

As they say, read the whole thing.