Reading the Margins, Michael J. Gilmour. Fortress Press (ISBN: 9781506469355) 2024.
Summary: How reading literature may enhance empathy for those on the margins, illuminating the advocacy of scripture for them.
Researchers have found that the reading of literature can enhance the empathy of readers. In this work, Michael J. Gilmour extends that argument in a couple ways. Specifically, he argues that the reading of literature can deepen our awareness for those on the margins. And he proposes that as a spiritual discipline, such reading, aware of the biblical allusions in texts, can capture the spiritual imagination. Thus, it may bring to life the scriptural teaching about God’s concern for those on the margins.
In an engaging text, Gilmour ranges from Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan to Anne Bronte, Charles Dickins, and Richard Adams. He explores the ways literature invites us into imagined worlds in ways increasing our identification with the marginalized. Along the way, he helps us hear the biblical overtones in literature.
He reads Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie alongside Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the sheep and the goats. We discover in Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall how the wisdom of scripture serves to empowers Helen Huntingdon in a bad marriage. She incarnates Lady Wisdom even as her husband pursues Folly. Then, Gilmour contrasts Robinson Crusoe’s racist and dominionist readings of the Bible with Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea, written from the perspective of the colonized Antoinette (Bertha).
Racism is also explored in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan (on Canada’s Japanese internments) and Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. Gilmour observes a number of the religious references in Obasan, and Rushdie’s retelling of the fall of Lucifer in the “fall” of an Indian migrant. He traces the influence of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicle of Narnia (which Dylan likely read) on Bob Dylan’s music, particularly during his ‘born again” phase. Specifically, he identifies a theme of Christian discipleship, a kind of pilgrim’s journey, in the songs of this period.
Speaking of pilgrims, Gilmour, using the lens of Pilgrim’s Progress, explores the flight of Nell and her grandfather from the evil Daniel Quilp in the Old Curiosity Shop. Nell had read a copy of Bunyan’s work and likened a resting spot to the decision they’d made to embark on their journey, putting aside former cares for a better world. London is a kind of Babel they leave in “the dead of the night.” Gilmour explores biblical allusions and parallels with Bunyan in their escape from the exploitative Quilp. Finally, in another tale of flight, Gilmour considers that of the rabbits in Watership Down as they flee a kind of eco-catastrophe, and the incidents of their generosity amid vulnerability.
Gilmour concludes with a discussion of how we engage literature. He notes the aversion of many Christians for works that seem “impure.” On the other hand he describes how we “bowdlerize” them by creating Christianized versions of them. Instead, he invites a thoughtful engagement that opens up the imagination and often offers fresh perspectives on scripture. We may “learn far more about the evils of systemic injustice and the ameliorating potential of simple acts of compassion from Charles Dickens than sermons.”
Of course, why not bring both worlds together, which is what I see Gilmour trying to do. I remember a conversation with an outstanding preacher who spoke of how the reading of novels, on his wife’s advice, had greatly enriched his preaching. I note that Gilmour is a professor of New Testament and English Literature. In this book, he models well the fruit of bringing together these two worlds of reading scripture and reading literature.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.