The Book That Took Over My Life

For the past two months, our church book club's mission has been to read Ken Follet's best-seller (and Oprah book) Pillars of the Earth. We took two months to read it, because it is 973 pages, after all (seems long but doesn't compete with Les Miserables, which I started last summer on the way to Paris, and which is 1463 pages in the Signet edition).

I did start, dutifully, sometime in June. But it was a big book, and there was VBS, and there were a couple of funerals, and I didn't want to take the book on vacation with me. And, to be perfectly honest with you, I felt sort of resentful of this big book, and it didn't really grab me at the beginning the way people told me it would. I just wanted to keep reading Maisie Dobbs.

But after three Maisie Dobbs mysteries, I saw the handwriting on the wall, and returned to the Middle Ages, to Tom Builder, and Prior Philip and Aliena (as well as the evil characters: William Hamleigh, Bishop Waleran, and various and sundry other unsavory characters). I was still rebelling in my heart, but I did want to discuss the book with the book group, and I was also seized with another emotion: "I will NOT let this book defeat me!" I said to my husband.

You see, as of Sunday, I was only three hundred pages into this book.

But tonight, I finished it.

It is book #26.

I will say this about it: it's not great literature. It's not Les Miserables, which I still want to read, although I might have to take a sabbatical to do it. The characters don't have too many more dimensions than one. Prude that I am, I did think some of the sex and violence was gratuitous.

But it's a good story. And how can you not love a story that has building a cathedral at the heart of it?

2008 Book Challenge Update -- And a Recommendation

I'm pressing onward on the Book Challenge, even though I am behind. I have a few more books to report on today:

11. The Dwelling of the Light, Praying with Icons, by Rowan Williams. I really liked this little book, because a) it's little, b) it's full of pictures, c) it's a simple introduction for those who have so little background in Orthodox spirituality. Archbishop Williams uses four famous icons to teach: of the transfiguration, the resurrection, the hospitality of Abraham and Pantocrator. He's very attentive to the detail in the icons, like an art critic, and also to the theology behind the icons. A quote from the Pantocrator section:

Where do his eyes lead us, then? To our own deepest reality, to the living self-communication of God which is at the heart of our existence and which by sin and laziness and forgetfulness we deny; to the wellspring of divine life in the centre of what we are, the Word that calls us into being. Remember the wonderful ending of Charles Wesley's hymn, 'Jesu, love of my soul': 'Spring though up within my heart, Rise to all eternity". That is what the eyes of Christ the Panto-crator direct us to.

12. Tallgrass, by Sandra Dallas. I had never heard of Sandra Dallas, but one of our book group members chose it for this month, and I found it a great discussion book. The setting is 1940's Colorado; an internment camp for Japanese has been set up near the small town Rennie and her family live in; and most of the residents of the town are fearful of the Japanese. There's also a mystery at the heart of the novel that I won't divulge.

13. The Competent Pastor, by Ronald Sisk. I began reading this a while ago, and while I found it useful, I didn't keep going. I thought the first chapter on self-knowledge was quite insightful, as well "Competent Time Management." This would be a great book to read with an intern.

14. ....If Your Name was Changed at Ellis Island, Ellen Levine (Scholastic). I bought this children's book last week at a used bookstore and read straight through it. It is done in a question and answer format (for example, 'how did people travel to the ships that brought them to America?' 'Were you examined before you left?') I can't believe there was so much information I didn't know about Ellis Island.

Book Recommendation: God Seekers: Twenty Centuries of Christian Spiritualities, by Richard H. Schmidt. Kathleen at St. Martin's Table made me buy this when I came in for lunch on Thursday (well, made me is maybe a little too strong). I've been skimming through the many short chapters all weekend. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but just to give you an example, there are chapters on Benedict and Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther and George Herbert, Donald Gee (Pentecostal) and Dorothy Day, Madelaine L'Engle and Thomas Merton.... among others.

'Way Behind on the Reading Challenge

I have a couple of books I was hoping to include, but I remain "almost done" with them. Here are some others, though. Many of them are church book club books:

#5. Water for Elephants. This was a wonderful, suspenseful book about a depression era circus. It's an adventure story and a love story, and a story of loyalty and loss. I have to admit, though, that I didn't catch the reference to the Biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel that is supposed to be there. I'd appreciate comments from others about this.

#6. Atonement. Some members of our book group thought it was slow, and that "nothing happened." (They admitted, though, that it sped up considerably in the second half.) I myself was, at least by the end, fascinated with the way the author played with the idea of story and reality, and the way The Trials of Arabella (the author's adolescent story) returns with a new layer of meaning at the end.

#7. Take This Bread. I found Sara Miles' story and passion fascinating. I didn't agree with everything in terms of her interpretation of the symbols of the church (does having the baptismal font at the entry to the church make it a barrier? I didn't think so), but really liked how she connected food, hunger, vocation and faith.

#8. Purple Hibiscus. This was our May book for my church book group. One woman walked into the room that evening and announced, "I hated this book." The theme of both domestic violence and political violence in a prominent family in Nigeria was disturbing. But it was also affecting. We ended up having a discussion of depth, both about domestic violence, and about the role of faith in both condoning and condemning it.

#9. Praying in Color. I've posted about this previously. I highly recommend this book for cultivating a creative and passionate prayer life.

Addition: #10. Redbird. You never really finish reading a book of poetry, but this is Mary Oliver's latest, which I have had at my bedside all spring. My favorites so far in this volume are: Of the Empire, Maker of All Things, Even Healings, and We Should be Well Prepared. So far... the operative word.

I'm looking for a quote from an interview with Ian McEwan that I read when we were reading the book Atonement. I remember being fascinated by his contention that one of the uses of fiction is to help us to learn to empathize with others, and that empathy is one of the chief skills we need to learn in order to live a moral life.

I never thought about it that way before. To me, it seems that the audience for fiction is diminishing, and if McEwan is right, that is a troubling trend. On the other hand, I suppose that there are other ways to learn empathy as well.

I'm also thinking: I might have to read a few really short books.