Review: Midnight’s Children

March 31, 2016March 29, 2016 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie. New York: Random House, 1981 (25th Anniversary Edition, 2006).

Summary: Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight when India won its independence. He believes his life is “twinned” with the fate of the country, even as he is telepathically linked with the other “midnight children”, all of whom have unusual powers.

Salman Rushdie is a native of India of Muslim descent most often known for his book The Satanic Verses, the publication of which resulted in a fatwa calling for his assassination. Since 2000, he has lived in New York City. This novel, his second, brought him to the attention of the literary world and was awarded the Booker Prize and was selected one of the hundred best novels of all time by the Modern Library.

The central figure, Saleem Sinai, is narrating his life to Padma, “the pickle woman” who is taking care of him. Central to his life story is that he was born at the stroke of midnight at the moment India gained its Independence. He sees himself as a twin with India, and that his experiences and actions are intertwined with that of the country. His life and family dysfunctions and travails parallel those of India. In his personal history, he gets caught up in the Indo-Pakistan wars and Bangladeshi independence.

He and the other babies born in the first hour of Independence all have unusual powers. Saleem’s is the ability to telepathically link them together in the “Midnight Children’s Conference” where they deliberate how they might use their powers in their young country. The hopeful promise of these children is not attained, and one, Shiva, who was switched with Saleem at birth is a destroyer, symbolized by his powerful knees, while Saleem’s sensitivities are symbolized by his nose that can sniff out not only smells but dispositions and longings.

Rushdie writes in the genre of magical realism, similar to Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Noses, knees, serpents, and impotent men recur through the book. When Saleem’s wife goes into labor, at the beginning of the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi, she labors thirteen days, until the emergency lifts. In all of this, the life story of Saleem is mystically linked with the nation.

The challenge in reading this work is both remembering this connection and understanding the history of India during the time spanned by the novel (1947 to 1979). One wishes, particular in the newer edition, that it would have been annotated for those not deeply acquainted with this history. Rushdie himself observes that western readers tend to read this novel as fantasy while readers from India see the book as almost a history.

We trace the central figure from the hopefulness and growing awareness of boyhood to a growing sense of pathos, sadness and, indeed impotence, perhaps reflecting the frustration of India’s hopes, particularly during the Indira Gandhi rule. A life story, that of its own seems sad, and at points dysfunctional, in fact becomes commentary for the early years of India’s statehood. Sadly, this narrative could be the story of many post-colonial states. But Saleem has a son, and perhaps a new generation…. Perhaps.

The Month in Reviews: May 2015

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

May continued the trend of listening to non-Westerners discussing theology. I read a travel narrative on prayer and a business narrative rooted in a study of Joseph the son of Jacob. In the history category, I worked may way through a sprawling history of Scotland and a parallel biography of Grant and Lee and their Civil War commands. I enjoyed Bill Bryson’s musings on the English language, a work that dealt with 145 “myths” about Christianity, and a plea for “slow church”. For some reason, I didn’t finish any fiction in May, but look forward to a review of the Pulitzer Prize winning All The Light We Cannot See which is one of the best works of fiction I’ve read in some time.

That said, here is what I reviewed in May with links to the full reviews:

1. Exposing Myths About Christianity by Jeffrey Burton Russell. Under eight headings, this book offers 145 short essays responding to lies, legends, and half-truths about Christian faith in contemporary discussions, giving concise, thoughtful and catholic responses (in the sense of representing the wide swath of Christianity) helpful both to the person exploring the faith and to apologists and others who proclaim it.

2. A Year of Living Prayerfully by Jared Brock. Jared Brock and his incredibly patient wife Michelle go on a year long pilgrimage that takes them to the Vatican to meet the Pope and to Westboro Baptist Church and many other places alternately delightful and weird in a quest to deepen their prayer life.

3. Mother Tongue: The English Language, by Bill Bryson. This amusing and informative book surveys the history of the English language and all its vagaries and perplexities of word origins, spellings, and pronunciations and why it has become so successful as a world language.

4. Slow Church by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison. This book argues that the church has been “McDonald-ized” and that just as the Slow Food movement has returned to embracing food that is good, clean, and fair, so the church needs to embrace an ethic of quality, an ecology of reconciliation, and an economy of abundance.

5. The Accidental Executive, by Albert M. Erisman. A former Boeing executive reflects deeply on the biblical character of Joseph in Genesis 37-50, and amplifies on these reflections from his own experience in business leadership and interviews with other executives in a highly readable account suitable for discussion groups in business and church settings.

6. Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee–The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged, by William C. Davis. This is a dual biography of Grant and Lee that studies their contrasting origins and yet similar qualities of command through back and forth narratives covering similar periods leading to their climactic confrontation, the peace they established, and its aftermath.

7. Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations: Global Awakenings in Theology and Praxis edited by Kay Higuera Smith, Jayachitra Lalitha, and L. Daniel Hawk. This book arises from a roundtable that sought to apply postcolonial concepts to re-visioning evangelical theology and praxis, coming to terms both with how colonialism shaped evangelical theology and mission and what it means to listen to the voices of the formerly colonized.

8. Scotland: A New History by Michael Lynch. This one volume work provides a comprehensive overview of the history of Scotland from the Roman invasions, through the kingdoms of the Picts, the Wars of Independence, the rise of the House of Stewart, the Treaty of Union in 1707, the commercial and intellectual zenith of Scotland in the late 18th/early 19th century and its continued efforts to define its relation with the U.K down to the time of writing in 1992.

9. Preaching the New Testament edited by Ian Paul & David Wenham. The contributors to this volume consider how the character of the genres and sub-genres of the New Testament shape how these texts are preached with faithfulness not only to the meaning of the text but also to the type of text they are preaching. Essays include not only discussions of genres but also issues in hermeneutics and homiletics as they bear on the teaching of the New Testament.

Best of the Month: I would have to go with Slow Church. The authors of this book propose a different way of thinking about the church from so much of the mega-church and church growth models that have dominated evangelical discussions of what the church ought to be.

Quote of the Month: I chose this one from Exposing Myths about Christianity:

“Original sin is actually a democratic idea. Without believing in original sin, one person might pride himself or herself on being better than another and one group or race or nation might claim to be better than others. The idea that absolutely everyone is a sinner makes it much harder to be arrogant and judge others” (p. 263).

In addition to the review of All The Light We Cannot See, look for reviews of a book on preaching centered around Christ, even when working from Old Testament passages, Rachel Carson’s classic Silent Spring, and a book on caring for the creation that seeks to develop the biblical ethics behind our care for creation. Time allowing, I also hope to review David McCullough’s new book, The Wright Brothers.

Perhaps from all these choices you will find a good summer read. Happy reading!

All “The Month in Reviews” post may be accessed from “The Month in Reviews” link on the menu bar of my blog. And if you don’t want to wait a month to see my reviews, consider following the blog for reviews as well as thoughts on reading, the world of books, and life.

Review: Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations

May 26, 2015June 20, 2016 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations: Global Awakenings in Theology and Praxis edited by Kay Higuera Smith, Jayachitra Lalitha, and L. Daniel Hawk. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: This book arises from a roundtable that sought to apply postcolonial concepts to re-visioning evangelical theology and praxis, coming to terms both with how colonialism shaped evangelical theology and mission and what it means to listen to the voices of the formerly colonized.

In 2010 Gordon College hosted a roundtable chaired by Joseph Duggan, a pioneer in applying postcolonial concepts to theological conversations. This, in turn, led to the second roundtable and the papers that form this volume. Postcolonial theory has developed a set of constructs to describe the power relationships that prevailed during imperial/colonial eras, and the reframing of those relationships necessary in the postcolonial era.

What is ground-breaking about this book is to put the concepts of “evangelical” and “postcolonial” in the same title and to conceive of them in conversation. What this involves is a willingness to face evangelical complicity in subjugating colonized peoples, including in some cases attempts to assimilate, marginalize, or even destroy (as is the case with our Native American population) those peoples. We often want to argue that we were not “those” people, and yet to begin to engage the formerly colonized in the Majority World means both to face this past and to appreciate the full dignity and cultural riches of these peoples who help us glimpse new facets of the diamond of evangelical convictions outlined in this book as christocentrism, communitarianism, conversionism, charism, textualism, and activism.

The editors give, perhaps, the best summary of the content of the book:

“The conversation begins, in part one, with an interrogation of evangelical missions and the grand narratives that articulate/d and legitimate/d the missionary enterprise. Part two then exposes the racial and national ideologies that configured the grand narratives. As steps toward rectifying these and other colonial/missional metanarratives, the authors in part three revision evangelical theology in a postcolonial key, and those in part four revision evangelical practices and praxis. The conversation in part five circles back to an account and self-critique of the Postcolonial Roundtable, which generated this conversation, and ends with words of hope” (p. 27).

A number of the chapters in this work themselves represent a conversation, being co-written, in many cases by someone from a Western background and someone from the Majority World. For example L. Daniel Hawk describes this history of white colonial practice and mission with Native Americans and then Richard Twiss, a pioneer in developing Native American indigenous theology describes his own theological journey of resisting colonial influences and re-visioning evangelical belief in the cultural expressions and practices of his people. Victor Ezigbo and Reggie Williams explore the importance of developing an African Christology that focuses on Christ the revealer, rather than a western, “white” Jesus. Similarly, Joya Colon-Berezin and Peter Goodwin Heltzel contend that a christology that utilizes the concept of hybridity (Jesus/Christ) rescues Jesus from western, White imperial images, and emphasizes both his humanness as part of a subordinated people, as well as his divinity.

Perhaps as illuminating as any of the essays was the final section and the self-critique of the roundtable and the challenges even these individuals steeped in postcolonial thinking had in fleshing out postcolonial evangelical praxis in their own community. Learning to hear the non-Western, non-male voices was the challenge one might expect. Developing a spirituality of prayer was more something given lip service to than practiced. Understanding how white privilege made it easier for white participants to share personal experiences than Majority World participants, whose experiences were often painful reminders of demeaning subordination, was a critical awareness that developed during their dialogues.

If there was one critique I could make, it has to do with the terminology of postcolonial conversation. Terms like metanarrative, subaltern, hybridity, praxis, and even the term postcolonial can use defining. Familiarity with postcolonial discourse was assumed. The careful reader who pays attention to context can learn how these terms are being used but either an introductory essay on postcolonial analysis that introduced the terminology of the field, or at least a glossary might have been helpful. While I understand any field of discourse having its unique terminology, if the aim is the kind of radical inclusiveness aspired to in these conversations, some form of induction into the language of the discourse is important as a form of hospitality (in the self-critique, it appears that even some members of the roundtable had problems with postcolonial language and concepts).

That criticism aside, this work is to be commended for beginning an important conversation that comes to terms with the unseemly elements of the colonial past (and sometimes present) and affirms the cultural identities and theological and practical contributions of majority world believers. The model of the Postcolonial Roundtable, and even the transparency of its self-critique are something from which any who are involved in similar conversations can learn.