Amor Towles: Table For Two, p/b, London, Hutchinson Heinemann,2024.  

American author Amor Towles breakthrough and very popular novel A Gentleman in Moscow, provides an excellent platform for his collection of short stories entitled Table For Two. Towles includes six New York based short stories and an extended story based on a Los Angeles mystery to captivate his readers once again.

Based on events in emerging Soviet Russia, The Line follows a fascinating relationship between a wife prepared to contemplate living in the United States in order to challenge the American way of life and a husband who is keen to embrace the American new world.

The Ballad of Timothy Touchett is a clever account of a literature graduate who gradually and almost unwittingly leads himself into an illegal business which can only end in trouble. 

Hasta Luego follows the experience of an airport traveller who befriends a fellow traveller only to find out incidentally that his new friend was actually in need of real assistance and that he was the only person in the airport that could really help. 

I will survive tells the story of a second marriage which comes under pressure due to a desire on the part of one of the partners to restart a former hobby which had been discarded.

The Bootlegger tells a fascinating account of a keen theatre goer who gets annoyed by a fellow theatre buff who he thinks is recording the presentations illegally. His attempts to prevent this from happening result in a series of very awkward events. 

The DiDomenico Fragment relates a complex story of art and artists and one person’s attempt to help a family in need. 

Eve in Hollywood is an extended story involving an engaging account of Hollywood events in Los Angeles. The story relates a significant attempt to steal from and blackmail a budding actor with serious results.

Table For Two is a relaxing and easy to read set of short stories which quickly engage the reader and do not demand too much trauma or deep thought. A wonderful book to read on a relaxing holiday!  5 stars

Peter Grose: : An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin 1942, p/b, 

Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2009.

 Peter Grose has written an excellent blow by blow account of the first two bombings of Darwin in World War 11.  The huge assault  of so many Japanese fighter planes on unsuspecting Darwin on 19 February 1942 catapulted the city into total chaos. 

On an unusually dry day in February over 30 Japanese war planes demolished large parts of Darwin resulting in approximately 300 death and total chaos.  A secondary assault was not far off and in total almost 30 air attacks found their way to Darwin between1942 and 1944.

Although it was known as a possible target in no way were the residents or the military in any serious way prepared for such an onslaught.  The result of the deaths and destruction was chaotic. Large numbers of people including those who were needed to protect the town headed for Adelaide by any means possible including walking, trains, ships, cars and any other transport. The designated. Internal tensions and poor administration had resulted in the complete absence of any civil defence. Air-raid wardens has resigned en masse and the army leadership were unable to prevent many of their members from escaping if they could. The Leading Administrator in Darwin Aubrey Abbott proved on several occasions to be seriously unequal to the task. The resulting exodus left the town a sitting duck for looters who took away with them anything that wasn’t destroyed by the air attacks. 

Peter Grose’s carefully researched account makes for horrifying reading and in reality the town was virtually left to its own devices with a few valiant heroes trying to pick up the pieces. The story is carefully and accurately written with careful attention to the various surviving documentation. 

This is a fascinating story which if you had not read the documented material you might find impossible to believe.  Effectively at the end, Darwin had to just about begin again! 5 stars 

Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics  (Volume 1) The Doctrine of the Word of God, 2nd Edition: Ed. G W Bromiley & T. F. Torrance: p/b, New York, T & T International, 1975, p/b 2004.  

German/Swiss theologian Karl Barth  (1886-1968) was an extraordinary theologian, author, major contributor to the German Barmen Declaration and fierce opponent of Nazism. Barth’s five volumes of the Church Dogmatics runs in the English translation to 6 million words and 9000 pages!  Master of Latin, German and French and fierce opponent of  both Modernistic Protestantism and Mediaeval Roman Catholicism, Barth has made a huge impact on many theologians and readers of many streams of the Christian faith.

Having said that all that in praise of Karl Barth I have to say that Barth’s 2nd edition of The Doctrine of the Word of God is certainly the most difficult book I have ever read and I have read one or two books in my time.  I  am quite uncertain if I have the courage to contemplate his volume 2, let alone volumes 3 -5 …I suspect I may have to ask for a volume in heaven!

What is the problem I hear you asking!   First 489 pages is a very solid paperback but then so are many very good large books.  Secondly whilst the major two thirds of his book are printed in standard paperback size, the other third of the material is written in quite small print and in most cases the Latin, Greek, German and French sections are not translated. Whilst it does not take much time to translate a sentence or two of Greek or Latin into English, to do so in large paragraphs defies enthusiasm. I could live with that but the strain was expanding! The third hardest part of reading Barth is that many of his paragraphs are simply plain difficult and in some cases impossible to read. I have to admit to getting lost on more than one occasion.

On the plus side there are some things written in this major work that I am very glad to have pondered. Here are a few: 

Theology is the criticism and correction of talk about God  according to the criterion of the Church’s own  principles. (p6)

One might have thought that the attempt to speak of believing man apart from God had shown itself to be impractical. (p.37)

Grace is the event of personal address, not a transmitted material condition. (p41)

Talk about God in church must be related to a prior Word of God Himself. (p.43)

God is not bound to the historical church.  (p.48)

Tillich’s distinctive teaching ultimately makes it irrelevant as a contribution to the work of theology. (p55)

Ambrose: Not with logical argument was God pleased to save people. The Kingdom of God is in the simplicity of faithfulness, not in contentious sermons.

Dogmatics must not dominate proclamation (p85)

Real proclamation means the Word of God preached. P90

Between God and true service of God there can be no rivalry. (p94)

Church proclamation must continually become God’s Word. (p117)

The Church is in the place of revelation, of mercy and of peace. ( p156)

To evade the security of God’s Word is to evade Christ. (p168)

Grace would not be grace if God could not give and also refuse this reality and with it this possibility. (p224)

Luther: In faith all things must be put out of sight save the Word of God. (p234)

Althaus: I do not know whether I believe, but I know in whom I believe. (p237)

The incomprehensibility of the fact that the Word of God is spoken to man. (p.249) 

Faith may lose theological relevance but it can lose it only to fight it again. (p255)

The Bible finds voice in the Church. (p261)

Man’s work in Church proclamation can and should become God’s work. (p289)

We must keep to Holy Scripture as the witness of revelation. (p295)

God reveals himself as the Lord! Revelation is never the same but always new. (p306)

The Biblical concept of revelation is itself the root of the doctrine of the Trinity. (p334)

God is found in Jesus because in fact Jesus himself cannot be found as any other than God. (p405)

Jesus Christ is the eternal son of the eternal father. (p427)

We cannot delimit the Father, Son and Holy  Spirit from each other. (p476)

P T Forsyth: The Cruciality of the Cross: h/b, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1910.   

Theologian P T Forsyth (1848-1921) was arguably the outstanding British theologian of the early C20th. Forsyth studied at the University of Aberdeen and in Gottingen, Germany under Albert Ritschl. After leading four parishes in England Forsyth became the Principal of Hackney Theological College which eventually became the University of London.  Forsyth published 32 books based around Christian Theology. 

The Cruciality of the Cross deals with the Atonement in four chapters: The Atonement Central to the New Testament Gospel; The Atonement Central to Christian Experience; The Atonement Central to the Leading Features of Modern Thought (in 1909); and a shorter chapter on The Moral Meaning of the Blood of Christ. 

Whilst one or two words have dropped out of the English language in 73 years Forsyth is still very readable and worth a second look. Forsyth’s work on the Atonement as central to the New Testament makes for lively reading even if his remarks on “gloomy Paulinism” come as a bit of a surprise. 

Forsyth reminds us that the Apostle Paul remarkably  received his Christian instruction from early Christians after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus to imprison Christians. Forsyth writes as a starter: The whole history of the Church shows that there can be no standing unity of faith, spirit, or fellowship between those who to whom Christ’s death is but a great martyrdom  and those to whom it is the one atonement of the world and God, the one final treatment of sin, the one compendious work of grace, and the one hinge of human destiny!

Whilst Forsyth agrees that the great question of the hour for the Church’s belief is Christological, nevertheless it is the question of the Cross all the same. Jesus is Christ and Lord by His cross. Reading Forsyth for the first time gave me pause to ponder how often I have heard preaching about the Cross of Christ in Church on Sundays and without being particularly critical I think “not very often” except perhaps at Easter.  This book is not hard to find and would make a very helpful starter coming up to Lent.  I warmly commend this easy to read book.

P T Forsyth: The Church and the Sacraments, London, Independent Press Ltd, 1953 (1927)  

Peter Forsyth’s detailed study of the Christian Church and its sacraments is a challenging read. Published in 1927 and seldom read nowadays his work on one level demonstrates how thin C21st century theological writing has become since books like Forsyth’s were being published in the 1920s.  In Part 1, writing about the church and its sacraments, Forsyth leaves no stone unturned. In just over 150 pages, Forsyth deals in detail with the free churches but gives plenty of attention to Catholicism and Anglicanism. In separate chapters he covers the church and unity, the church and history, the idea of the Kingdom of God, the dream of federation of the churches, and the sacramental ministry of the churches.  Then in part 2 he devotes a further 150+ pages to baptism, holy communion and mysticism, with a final brief but helpful attention to theosophy as opposed to theology and theodicy.

Forsyth’s writing is dense and demanding and he covers a lot of ground at times moving very quickly over significant ideas that need more explanation and exploration. From time to time Forsyth reminds both clergy and laity of the importance of well-trained church leaders equipped with accurate and deep learning about both the Biblical text and Church History. His treatment of infant baptism is fair to both sides and again very helpful without offering a final opinion.  Interestingly he notes that churches  practising infant baptism have made a great mistake in dropping confirmation, or in not treating the entry on membership in a like solemn way. (p.216).  My personal experience with Anglican confirmation was deeply meaningful to me and I think confirmation in the Anglican Communion in Australia is still frequently practised.

I am glad to have read this book and I am sure I will return to some of its central ideas. 4 stars.

Graham Greene: The Third Man and The Fallen Idol, Intro: Ian Thomson, p/b, Vintage, London, 2005 (1954,1955).  

The Third Man was written originally as a draft for a screen play but its taught, fast moving events make for an engaging and sharp novel. Based in post-war Vienna, American Rollo Martins agrees to meet an old friend in Vienna but on arrival finds that his friend has apparently died in uncertain circumstances.  Further investigation reveals a very different and fast moving story, impossible to put down.

The Fallen Idol is a very short story involving a young boy inadequately cared for in a large home where, once again, a murder is involved.

Graham Green’s stylish writing has an energy which engages immediately with the reader and quickly leads one into complexity after complexity.  There is always another turn and not a word is wasted.   5 stars.

Richard Prideaux