Alan Jacobs

The Weekly Wrap: February 16-22

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A Non-Partisan Space

If you are on social media, you will notice what a partisan space it has become. I’ve chosen not to go that way with my blog. Let me share with you a bit of why that is. First of all, the name of this blog is “Bob on Books.” My focus is on the good, the true, and the beautiful about books, reading, and life. My primary focus is reviewing books–a lot on theological subjects and a wide smattering of other genres and subjects. And while some have tried to turn books into a matter for partisan politics, I refuse to go there.

It is not that I don’t have political opinions. If you read me closely, you can probably figure that out. You will see there are subjects I care about, values I hold, and this is probably reflected at least to some extent in the books I review. Some are part of our partisan squabbling. But I tend to think that much of what I write about concern things that transcend party–or national boundaries.

And that’s another thing. While I live in the United States, I am amazed by the global character of my audience. The world of books is an international world. My pandemic experience was immeasurably richer because of Canadian Louise Penny. I’ve loved the mysteries of the “Queens of Crime” (Sayers, Christie, Allingham, and Marsh), three of whom are from the UK and one from New Zealand. Theology written by Latino, African, and Asian scholars have broadened my understanding of my faith beyond its Euro-American base. Focusing on American political squabbles just seems like bad manners.

Finally, there are so many already clamoring for this lane. I don’t think I have much to add. And the contentiousness of this lane would distract me from reading and writing about what I’ve read. Rather, I like Emily Dickinson’s aphorism: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” I hope the books I review, the things I write about, the ways I curate my own social media spaces do that. I write not so much to confront or argue as to explore the goods of life for which we were made and the better world for which we long. Thanks for joining me in that journey.

Five Articles Worth Reading

On a related note, Alan Jacobs would like us to hit “pause” on what he calls “relevance mongering.” In “All the Distant Mirrors” he suggests our instinct to find contemporary relevance in past works is bad manners. We fail to listen to what people are saying about their own time.

If you’ve ever talked to an indie bookseller, you know both how much they love that work and how they live on a financial precipice. “Can a Nonprofit Model Work for Bookstores?” explores ways to help booksellers with their mission while alleviating some of the financial pressures.

“Are you conscious? A conversation between Dawkins and ChatGPT” reproduces a conversation between Richard Dawkins and Chat GPT about whether it is conscious and has real feelings. The dialogue may make you think so even while Chat GPT denies this is the case.

Then there is something new for Jane Austen fans! ‘The Forgotten Writers Who Influenced Jane Austen” is a review of a new book, Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney. Romney, a rare book collector, tracked down and read all she could of the writers Jane Austen read.

Finally, James Parker, in a review of a new book on Robert Frost, writes about “When Robert Frost Was Bad.” It’s a fascinating article on Frost’s development as a poet and his character as a human being.

Quote of the Week

British-American poet W. H. Auden was born February 21, 1907. This statement by him has me pondering:

“Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.“

I think this recognizes that we can all understand the draw of evil, but when one is given over to evil, that person only expects evil of others and can’t comprehend goodness. What do you think?

Miscellaneous Musings

Plagiarism is the blackest of sins for writers and scholars. Yet it happens. I’ve just begun reading R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface. In what I’ve read so far, the narrator takes the unpublished work of a college friend and represents it as her own, justifying it by her editing and revisions of the work. I suspect she is going to come to great grief over this (don’t tell me, you who’ve read it) but I’m intrigued by the process of rationalization behind her plagiarism.

Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology by Michael A. Wilkinson is a theological monograph most will never pick up. I’ve been reveling in it for the careful and clear way he develops his argument. This may seem a stretch to some, but I find the same delight in this I did years ago reading John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Both take complex ideas and unpack them step by step, but not in a dry, dusty fashion, but rather in a spirit infused with love for the God of whom they write.

I’ve occasionally purchased used vinyl recordings from online sellers. I’ve found that they provide good and accurate information about the recording I’m considering. After I wrote an online review on my initial experience with Thriftbooks, several people reported problems they’ve had. One even thought I was Thriftbooks! I generally have been happy with purchases but occasionally have had problems with wrong items, different editions than I expected, condition of books, and one item that never shipped. They’ve been good when I’ve contacted them. But I would like to see them up their game where you know specifically what book, what edition, and what condition you are buying–and then you get what you thought you were ordering.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Various authors, Anchor of My Soul

Tuesday: Margery Allingham, Cargo of Eagles

Wednesday: Miranda Zapor Cruz, Faithful Politics

Thursday, Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light

Friday: David Greenberg, John Lewis: A Life

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for February 16-22, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: The Year of Our Lord 1943

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The Year of Our Lord 1943, Alan Jacobs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Summary: Drawing upon the work of five Christian intellectuals who were contemporaries, explores the common case they made for a Christian humanistic influence in education in the post-war world.

By 1943, it was becoming apparent that the Allies would eventually win the war. For the five Christian intellectuals in this book, the crisis had shifted from resistance to authoritarian regimes, living in the shadow of death, and how one persevered in intellectual work in war-time, to what ideas would shape the post-war world. The five intellectuals featured in this book, along with a cameo by Jacques Ellul in the Afterword, were known to one another but tended to operate in separate circles. They were: Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil.

The basic thread of this book was the common advocacy Alan Jacobs sees among these authors for a kind of Christian humanism that would shape education over and against the rising pragmatism and technocracy that prevailed in wartime. Jacob’s method is to follow these thinkers more or less chronologically, leading off with a particular thinker, and then turning to what others were saying, sometimes in response, but often independently.

Negatively, Maritain, Lewis and Weil particularly warned against technocracy. Maritain characterized it as demonic, and Lewis created the memorable N.I.C.E. in That Hideous Strength. Without the moral framework of Christian humanism, you had the “flat-chested” men of The Abolition of Man. Weil called for a society that began with the notion of obligations rather than rights. Eliot and Auden, the older and younger, contributed to a Christian poetics, a vision of vocation, and a vision of Christian culture.

These were formidable thinkers yet one wonders why in the end technocracy and pragmatism prevailed. Jacobs describes a wider circle that several of these participated in called Oldham’s Moot. A more extensive study of this group would be fascinating. Most of those involved were Christian and were concerned with rebuilding the Christian underpinnings of European culture. They met regularly, debated various schemes, but eventually lost energy, especially after the death of German sociologist Karl Mannheim, a Hungarian Jew who was both odd man out and set the intellectual tone.

They illustrate a challenge that faced the five principals of this book as well–translating these ideas into the warp and woof of society–its political, educational, industrial, and civic institutions. Perhaps that is always beyond the capacity of such thinkers, except that they need to capture the attention and imagination of those working in these other realms who have some influence and the creativity to translate these ideas into policy and practice. One wonders if it was a lack of people outside their circles who shared their vision and worked entrepreneurially to foster it that consigned the vision of these thinkers to their books and publications.

Many think we are at another time of crisis, one that calls us first to prayer, and then to the communal work of thinking and refining and implementing anew. Jacobs shows us what these five were able to accomplish and educates a new generation to their work. Who will be the thinkers who engage in the retrieval and refinement of their work for our time? Who will be the actors who combine thought and action in creative ways? And will it be enough to check our slide into decadence and disorder in the year of our Lord 2022? These are the questions posed to me in this work.

Review: The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

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The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary: An argument that we should read what we delight in rather than what others think is “good” for us.

Alan Jacobs is not among the prophets of reading doom. He believes we should actually read what we want to rather than following prescribed lists of “great” books that we ought to read. He argues that the most important reason for reading is that it is pleasurable rather than it being “good” for us:

“So this is what I say to my petitioners: for heaven’ sake, don’t turn reading into the intellectual equivalent of eating organic greens, (or shifting the metaphor slightly) some fearfully disciplined appointment with an elliptical trainer of the mind in which you count words or pages the way some people fix their attention on the ‘calories burned’ readout…” (p. 17).

He proposes that we read “at whim,” that is, we read books when we are ready for them. That doesn’t mean we don’t read the great books. It means we don’t read them too soon. He also suggests that when we find works we like and wonder what else to read, that rather than reading books inspired by those books, we read upstream–that is, we read the books that preceded and inspired them. If we liked Tolkien, we should read Beowulf, a recommendation I agree with, especially if it is Seamus Heaney’s rendering! Now a more challenging one is his suggestion that, if we like Jane Austen, we read Hume, as many of her ideas come from him–but only under the sign of Whim.

Jacobs argues that one of the pleasures of reading is responding to the author and he describes the ways readers annotate their works and the value of this (he uses a mechanical pencil for precise underlines and sharpness of notes). Against those who worry that this will slow them down, he challenges the cult of page and book counts, contending that it is what, and not how much we read, that matters. He argues that many books become more boring the faster we read them, and that we ought to allow ourselves time to re-read, because we often miss much in our first readings.

Against those who complain of diminishing attention in an internet age, Jacobs contends that the thing that helped him most was getting a Kindle–it kept him reading, it promoted linearity, and allowed him to concentrate for a long time. Unlike reading on a computer or tablet, there are no notifications and no distractions or temptation to multi-task.

This takes Jacobs into a discussion of attentiveness and he introduces us to Hugh of St. Victor and the counsel of the Didascalion. He advises reading what we can, moving step by step, first cogitating and then meditating on the text, ruminating on it as a ruminant does its food. He contends that we need both the skills of skimming and deep and long attention, depending on the material and our reasons for engaging it.

Against those who want to turn libraries into chat-filled cafes, he argues that silence is often difficult to find, especially for the impoverished, who cannot afford the space. Libraries, or at least reading rooms, can be a place to preserve that. Against the contention that reading is solitary, he observes all the interactive possibilities from our engagement with the author to classrooms to book groups.

He concludes where he began, with the idea of serendip. Very little of our reading journey may be planned, though it may be cultivated, whether through Amazon recommendations, or the discoveries on the shelves of a bookstore or library. While pleasurable reading involves attention and the elimination of distraction, it should not be shaped by the shame or guilt of what one should read.

Like the author, I’ve been tempted at points by reading plans, and still wrestle, as a reviewer, with reading too fast, sometimes robbing myself of the enjoyment of a book. I no longer worry about reading plans, and usually have one book going that I just read for enjoyment. This was one such book, and I would recommend it for any who remember loving books, but for one reason or another struggle to read or get caught up in the tyranny of “should.”

Review: Breaking Bread with the Dead

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Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs. New York: Penguin Press, 2020.

Summary: A case for reading old books as a means of increasing our “personal density” to expand our temporal bandwidth.

Alan Jacobs teaches students to read old books and contends, contrary to many critics, that this reading is essential in a day when we are bombarded by an avalanche of information, and all matter of questions about the future. Drawing upon Thomas Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow, he argues that old books increase our “personal density” through expanding our temporal bandwidth.

What does this mean? Jacobs is not arguing for learning from the lessons of the past or that old books help us recognize universal truths. Rather, he suggests that the great works of the past startle us with their difference. They help us see the choices of our own age in light of those of the past. They are the “other,” the “generative oddkin.” Jacobs believes that understanding how people of other ages met the challenges of life equip us to better face challenges of the future than if we draw only upon the resources of the present.

The greatest challenge to Jacobs’ proposal is the invidious aspects of many of these works–racist, chauvinist, colonialist, and more. Jacobs does not deny any of that. What he observes is that those in the past often enunciated ideas, the implications they failed to fully grasp in their own lives. He points to the American founders who laid the groundwork for our own ideals of equality, yet held slaves and failed until 100 years ago to enfranchise women. Reading them forces us to ask how future generations will evaluate us. Drawing upon Ursula LeGuin’s novel Lavinia, an adaptation of the Aeneid, giving voice to the woman Aeneas loved, Jacobs argues both that we read with double vision, recognizing both the work and the flawed character of work, and that our reading from our time can bring new insight that perhaps even an author like Virgil had not grasped.

Jacobs develops these themes through nine essays in which we consider works like The Iliad, The Doll’s House, and Jane Eyre, and authors from Virgil to Italo Calvino. He contends that the presence and tranquility of mind enabling us to meet the challenges of the day comes from a perspective that goes beyond “the latest thing.” If we read only sources from the present, as diverse as they may be, we may still be caught in “echo chambers.” Sometimes, the voices of the past will give voice and words that make sense of our own reality. At other times they will startle and challenge us. Rather than lulling us to sleep with placid verities, they challenge and shake us up, nurturing the kind of resistance fostering “unfragile” and resilient thought.

Jacobs does all this in elegant prose evoking the voices he would have us give more careful attention–an engaging read and a warm invitation.

Voices

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Titian_-_Wisdom_-_WGA22907

Wisdom by Titian [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Voices.

So many voices.

All wanting my attention…

–the professional solicitor raising money for an entity I might have vaguely heard of.

–the advertiser suggesting their product can offer me security, contentment, sexual satisfaction, health.

–the pundit trying to gain more views and following by provocation, pulling on the strings of emotion so that I will keep clicking.

–the media personality trying to keep my attention by arousing my sense of outrage over everything from product defects to people who pose a threat.

–the politicians who play upon both my frustrations and aspirations to garner my vote, even though in the end, they may do little to address either, only deepening my disillusionment.

So many voices.

I wonder if they drown out the voice I most need to hear. This is a voice that doesn’t join the clamor nor tries to drown it out, but to capture the attention of those who realize that life isn’t found in the clamor. It is a voice that asks questions, probing us to explore the meaning of a life well-lived and what it means to live such a life in our broadband, two hundred channel, smartphone media world. It’s a voice that bids me to a life beyond being safe, prosperous, or hip; to ask the questions of what it means to seek not only our own flourishing but those of the neighbor, whether the one on my street, or the one with whom I share my planet’s food, water, and atmosphere. It’s a voice bidding me to a life of goodness, truth, and beauty, to work with skill and excellence and yet modesty, realizing it’s all but a small part of a larger plan. It’s the voice that pierces that clamor to help me understand the time in which I live.

I call it the voice of wisdom.

Where can we go to find wisdom in the midst of the clamor? I wonder if this is actually the wrong question. I wonder if perhaps the prior question is do I hunger and thirst for something more than the clamoring voices are offering? Do I value wisdom more than a flush bank account and all the baubles of affluence by which we are lured? Do I tremble when I realize the capacity I have for both great good and great folly, and that somehow I am accountable, whether to God, myself, or simply the rest of humanity, what the writer of Proverbs might have called, “the fear of the Lord?”

Alan Jacobs has written recently of the demise of the Christian intellectual, the long history of whom stretches from Augustine and Aquinas to C.S. Lewis and Reinhold Niebuhr. Now I will be the first to admit that not all intellectuals are wise, as I warned my son in his youth that you can be very smart and not very wise. But I wonder in the distraction of the clamor if we have lost sight of the value of the wise voices who may help us interpret the times and how we might live well in them. I equally wonder if such voices have retreated from the public square because they have been shouted down as anachronisms from a benighted past.

Perhaps the beginning is to listen for the voices of wisdom among us…

–it could be an elder in a senior facility, who has seen a good deal of life, and while failing of body retains the wisdom of years.

–perhaps it is found in the lives of those who have suffered, who know the loss of what others count precious, and the qualities of character and the intangibles of goodness that remain.

–there are the religious teachers among us–not the big flashy media personalities–but those who combine prayer and reflection on sacred scripture with caring for people in all the exigencies of life.

–and there are the voices inscribed, whether the writers of sacred scripture, or those who have thought deeply on the human condition.

Proverbs 8:1-3 speaks of “Lady Wisdom” in these words:

Does not wisdom call?
    Does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights beside the way,
    at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
    at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud (ESV)

The matter is not the lack of wisdom for Lady Wisdom may be found wherever we look. The question is will we hear her voice in the clamor of so many.

Voices.

[Acknowledgement: my thanks for the inspiration for this post go to Pastor Rich and a conversation with a real life Sophia.]