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The Weekly Wrap: July 13-19

Life is Short; Read Slowly

I saw a meme yesterday that said “Life is short. Read fast.”

There is no arguing with the first three words. Particularly for those of us growing older. The weeks and months just seem to pass more quickly. And we realize that the passage of time is inexorably pulling us to our own passing. It’s always been true. It’s just more real than ever.

I think there is something in booklovers that tries to defy mortality by trying to read everything we can. Impossible as it seems, we want to read all the books.

Reading good books slowly seems counter-intuitive. Instead, I would propose that reading slowly, savoring words and ideas and stories is the way we transform fleeting moments into full ones. And consider, in the end, will the number of books we’ve read matter?

Augustine wrote of his own journey toward God that “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” Whether or not you accept Augustine’s idea, I can’t help but wonder if our frenzied ideas about reading arise from restless hearts. By the same token might one sign of the heart at rest be the capacity to be fully present to this book, this author in front of me, setting aside thoughts of unread books and TBR piles.

Your thoughts?

Five Articles Worth Reading

Ever wonder about the origins of the library? In “No Cheese Please,” Anthony Grafton reviews two books tracing their rise to the personal studies/libraries of Renaissance intellectuals.

One of the surprises of our present time is the attack upon empathy. In “How Empathy Became a Threat” Jennifer Szalai explores why some people consider empathy a bad thing. She features some recent books that make this case.

Poet Andrea Gibson died this past Monday of ovarian cancer. “Andrea Gibson Refused to ‘Battle’ Cancer” describes Gibson’s decision to refuse to “battle” the cancer and the joy they {preferred pronoun) experienced in their last years of life.

W.E.B. Du Bois is known to us as a writer but he was also a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. In the early 1900’s, as part of his research, he hand-drew a number of infographics of African-American life. In “W. E. B. Du Bois’ Hand-Drawn Infographics of African-American Life (1900)” these are strikingly reproduced, offering a demographic “snapshot” of the African-American community at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Lastly, calling all Calvin and Hobbes fans out there! Many of us felt Bill Watterson’s strips a brief shining moment in comic strip history. Barry Petchesky focuses in on “the private derangement of the average 6-year-old boy” in “Calvin And Hobbes’s Gruesome Snowmen Were A World All Their Own.”

Quote of the Week

Shirley Hughes was a children’s author and illustrator, born July 16, 1927. She said of herself:

“I never am bored. I don’t suffer from boredom. But if I have nothing to do, I wander about the garden and chat to my friends and family.”

I can’t recall who said it but a similar saying is that “there are no bored people, only boring ones.” Hughes said it more gently. This also reminds me of Pascal’s statement: “All of humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Last week I posted an article by David Brooks exploring the “decline” of literary fiction. It turns out literary fiction writer and bookstore owner Ann Patchett is having none of it. She posted this rejoinder to Brooks at the Facebook page for Parnassus Books. I’d love to see them in conversation!

I love when authors use a few words to say a lot. For example, I’m reading Hans Madeume’s Does Science Make God Irrelevant? I’ve read much longer books on the same topic that say little more than Madeume does in a trim booklet of 96 pages.

I just began reading Tamarack County, number thirteen in William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series, which meant I only had eight to go until I learned that the twenty-first book, Apostle’s Cove is due to come out September 2. Yes!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

Tuesday: Stuart M. Kaminsky, Black Knight in Red Square

Wednesday; Anthony T. Kronman, True Conservatism

Thursday: Keith Long, Doubting Faithfully

Friday: Graham Greene, Loser Take All

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for July 13-19!

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

Cover image of "Reading the Margins" by Michael J. Gilmour

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.