Henry James: The Ambassadors: h/b, London, Heron Books, 1968. [1902].
American Henry James (1843 -1916) was the brother of highly regarded psychologist William James and his many novels focus on the machinations of the human mind and how individuals make decisions and lead their lives.
The Ambassadors is a story told completely through the lens of retired 60 something American literary editor named Strether. Having lost his wife and only son earlier in life, Strether has developed a strong relationship with the Company’s Managing Director Mrs Newsome and has agreed to travel to France to locate her son to persuade him to return to the USA to take up the management of the company. Mrs Newsome had developed a view that her son Chad had been misbehaving in France and needed her firm hand. At the same time Strether has persuaded old friend and retired stick in the mud and quite famous lawyer Mr Waymarsh of Connecticut to accompany him.
Early in the narrative in England Strether meets up with attractive single lady Maria Gastrey who is based in Paris and becomes a wise and trusted friend on his journey and task to meet Chad and bring him back to the US. Once Strether gets to Paris and finds Chad he quickly realises that Mrs Newsome’s fears about Chad have been misplaced. Chad has in fact developed a very successful career and some firm and helpful friendships including especially aristocratic Madame de Viannet and her beautiful daughter Jeanne. Madame de Viannet has played a major role in reordering Chad’s life and behaviour and turning him into a first class operator as well as a very elegant and agreeable young man.
Strether’s support of Chad does not impress Mrs Newsome or Mr Waymarsh who “wakes up” in Paris and joins the anti-Chad lobby. Mrs Newsome sends reinforcements in the form of married family members the Pococks who remain unpersuaded that Chad is a reformed character. Thus the scene is set for a complex series of events which lie at the heart of the novel, all seen through the thought process of Strether. Many surprises are in store for the reader!
Our Book club members uniformly disliked this book (except me) and only three of them completed the novel!
Review of Simon Schama: Rembrandt’s Eyes: p/b, London, Penguin, 2000.
Simon Schama is an amazing polymath and historian of art and European culture. Born in Britain of Jewish parents Schama’s particular expertise is in the history of the Jews but his detailed knowledge of Dutch French, British and American history also has few peers. He is extraordinarily erudite and his detailed wisdom and research has at least one commentator calling him a walking thesaurus.
Rembrandt’s Eyes is a lavishly produced and exceptionally detailed account of the lives of two artists, Rubens and Rembrandt. It is a massive read of well over 700 pages with beautifully reproduced reproductions of all the major works of these two exceptional artists. Alongside their stories is the traumatic and tragic outworking of the C17th thirty years warfare between Catholic Spain and Protestant Netherlands with other European nations including Britain playing intermittent roles on both sides depending on where national gains can be made.
The constant destructive horror of Protestant/Catholic warfare in C17th Europe makes for profoundly disturbing reading alongside the desperate search of European Jews for a safe haven which is rarely long lasting. It is difficult to read of Catholic/Protestant division on the one hand and of equally bitter and hard fought divisions between Protestant denominations of various traditions and leaders and especially the punishments handed out to losers on both sides.
The lives of Rubens and Rembrandt also make for thought provoking reading with their exceptional and brilliant successes and the difficult and demanding requirements of their masters. Rubens finally ended his life with considerable power and wealth while Rembrandt ended his life in poverty whilst history will record him as perhaps the finest artist of them all. The name “Rembrandt’s Eyes” refers to Rembrandt’s exceptional and extraordinary care that he takes with the eyes of the figures he paints.
I have been profoundly moved by Schama’s analysis of this tragic time in Christian internecine theological development and equally I have been stunned by the complexity and demanding nature of the artistic enterprise. The exceptional gifts that artists bring to our senses and our world has the capacity to change the way we look at things and there is no doubt in my mind that the study of Art can richly deepen our understanding of Christian faith. 5 stars!
Ann Patchett: Tom Lake: p/b, New York, Bloomsbury, 2023.
Eighth novel by well regarded American novelist Ann Patchett. The novel traces the two speed life of Lara, her husband and three daughters. Lara’s first love was drama at school and this lead her to the stage and eventually to a key role in a major Hollywood movie. In her drama and movie career Lara meets and falls in love with budding actor Peter Juke. After a tennis accident and her own sense that she was somewhat of a one trick pony, Lara leaves the film world for a series of less demanding careers until she meets and eventually marries former director and cherry picker Sam Nelson. Between them they raise three girls and during lulls in the cherry picking the girls persuade their mother to tell them the story of her stardom and her marriage.
I have to own that I was reluctant to read this novel, having found her previous novel The Dutch House somewhat static and uneventful. I was pleasantly surprised by the pace and energy of this novel and the surprising twists and turns of Lara’s life. I became keen to find out the ongoing story and the novel had many surprises without requiring too much energy or challenge to read. 4 stars.
D.H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley’s Lover: The unexpurgated 1928 Orioli Edition; Preface, Lawrence Durrell; Intro. Ronald Friesland. This edition includes Lawrence’s extended essay, A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. p/b, New York, Bantam Books,1982, (1928).
I was too young and inexperienced when I read Lawrence’s The Rainbow in my first year of Melbourne Uni Arts, aged 17. I understood little of the novel and was very critical of it. Later in life, married with two children, I read Sons and Lovers and Women in Love and found the latter especially to be one of the most powerful, sensuous and meaningful novels I have ever read and rate it certainly in my top five novels of all time.
It has taken me to the ripe old age of 74 to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover, not because of any objection, but simply the vast catalogue of reading material that comes along with teaching for fifty years and so many new books to savour.
I enjoyed Lady Chatterley very much and the key characters, Connie, Sir Clifford, Mrs Bolton and the magisterial game-keeper Mellors will stay with me for a long time. The famous naughty words, as Durrell’s essay notes, have lost much of their power to horrify since 1928. This enables a reader to enjoy the gradual unfolding of the relationship between the keeper and the Lady of the House with its emergent romance, halting arguments, powerful passion, and thought provoking realism about their situation.
The novel is also an account of a struggling England after World War 1, with the coal industry exploding but also in trouble, the tension between aristocrat and the majority poor, and the gradual unfolding of a more modern world with sporty cars and new inventions daily. Some of this material, although historically interesting, tends to turn the novel in places into a cultural analysis.
The descriptive power of the summer holiday in Paris and Venice with its catalogue of misbehaviour, ennui, torturous heat and languid nothingness is depicted with all Lawrence’s insight and picture writing. Lawrences’s extended essay about the book and its scandals and his view of the short comings of the English, makes interesting reading. Today’s modern England with cultures from all the world have no doubt done a lot to enlarge the emotional and romantic world of England in 2023. I would give this novel 4 stars.
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby: London,Vintage Books, 1910 (1925).
F Scott Fitzgerald
Undoubtedly the best of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s four novels set in the nineteen twenties, Fitzgerald has left us a never to be forgotten masterpiece. I have read this book three times and watched Baz Lurman’s amazing movie the same number of times.
The book is better than the movie with the powerful scene of Gatsby’s funeral,one of the triumphs of literature omitted from Lurman’s film.
In one sense the story is just about the fraught and uncertain wealth of the Anglo-American twenties, with its charleston, devil may care postwar freedom, money and eventually bust. In another sense it is a delicately sensuous love story.
The narrator Nick Caraway takes us on his own journey from the relatively safe and secure West to the fast moving and chaotic reality of life in New York. The magical story of James Gatz from the West who became Jay Gatsby, arguably the richest man in the East based on cleverly marketed illegal bonds, becomes a strangely heroic tale of poor boy makes good and gets the girl of his dreams (almost!)
Gatsby falls in love with upper class Daisy Duckman in his youth before being called to the war. When he returns with no money or prospects she turns to safer shores and marries the unfaithful Tom Buchanan. Nick Carraway, who happens to rent a small house right next door to Gatsby’s mansion, gets to know Gatsby and tells his story at the same time as (almost) falling in love with Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker.
Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived this 1920’s life itself and and Fitzgerald creates the power and danger of it with imperious skill, joy and terror. The Great Gatsby is one of the truely great works of English Literature. 5 stars and rising.
James Baldwin: Go Tell it on the Mountain, p/b, London, Corgi, 1968 (1954).
I read Go Tell it on the Mountain as a teenager and never forgot the mix of African American spirituality, vigorous worship and a degree of hypocrisy alongside commitment.The story is set against an American world which though freed from slavery was still mired in racial anger, disadvantage and division. Fifty six years later I wanted to read this powerful story again in 2023, still disturbed by racial divisions in both the USA and Australia. The book has lost none of its power. I was unaware of its semi-autobiographical nature until reading more about the author very recently.
There are several strong characters in this novel, none more so than successful preacher Gabriel Grimes whose powerful message gained admiration but whose manic behaviour towards his own family brought only anger and disarray. Gabriel, in spite of his holy name, was brutally vicious with his male children and seems unable to find any genuine repentance at any point in the novel. His first wife, Deborah had been gang raped as a teenager and was unable to bear children, dying childless.
His marriage to Elizabeth was almost accidental. She had escaped the rigidity of her powerful aunt who had looked after her after the death of her mother. She travelled north to start a new life and fell in love with a young poverty stricken Richard. They lived happily together in unmarried poverty, until Richard was tangled up in a false accusation of robbery and imprisoned. Although found to be innocent the trauma destroyed him and he suicided before Elizabeth could tell him they were pregnant. Gabriel had also travelled north for a new start and they met through Gabriel’s sister Florence and soon after were married.
The basis of the novel is the story of their family life totally dominated by the church. The children consisted of John (who was of course Richard’s son and the key player in the narrative); Roy, a rebel, both loved and persecuted by his father and a sister who does not appear in the narrative. The tension between John and his father is the central story of the novel.
Baldwin writes with impressive power and vigour and the narrative remains in the mind after many years. His writings have earned him many significant awards. He died in 1987. 5 stars.
Austin Farrer: Saving Belief: A Discussion of Essentials: h/b,London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1964
Austin Farrer was a major C20th English theologian and philosopher in the high church Anglo-Catholic tradition, in spite of being the son of a Baptist Minister. He was for twenty five years the Warden of Keble College in Oxford and wrote a large number of philosophical and theological works. His closest friend was C S Lewis and he ministered to Lewis at his death bed. Saving Belief was his most accessible work but still demands hard thinking from his readers. No longer in print, Saving Belief is readily accessible second hand on line.
Farrer suggests that Christian faith can only come from hearing about God underlying the importance of Christians reaching out to others about their Christian faith. Farrer suggests that a virtuous and dutiful lifestyle, thinking about faith and/or considering the beauty of creation and the universe might move a person towards faith but that the scandal of faith is that belief in God must be personal. “God” as an explanation or a hypothesis to be tested will not work. There needs to be an openness, acceptance and sympathy towards faith for belief to be formed in a person.
Farrer argues that the basis of theology comes down to a belief that human existence demands a superhuman creator. Acknowledging God’s existence is not the faith that saves. It is not enough to believe in the existence of God. The Devil believes and trembles he argues, citing the Epistle of James.
Farrer’s helpful book has chapters on Providence and Evil (the world is not created perfect, p47), Creed and History, Sin and Redemption, Law and Spirit and a very helpful final chapter on Heaven and Hell. Saving Belief is a small, neat and thoroughly demanding read which will encourage and help believers, make seekers want to know more and might even challenge unbelievers to give faith a second thought. 5 stars.
Barbara Kingsolver: Unsheltered, p/b, 2018, London, Faber & Faber.
Clever partly historical novel which describes the lives of two couples and their families about 150 years apart. Willa and her Greek science teacher husband Iano have two children and having moved house for employment find themselves the unlucky owners of a home which proves to be unredeemable.
At the same time both their twenty something children find themselves in difficulty and need to return home to live. Along with their seriously ill grandfather on a breathing machine and a new baby of one of their children, the couple struggle to make ends meet as their house gradually disintegrates.
Meanwhile in the 1870’s Science teacher Thatcher and his beautiful wife Rose are living in the same house 130 years earlier, along with his equally attractive teenage daughter Polly. At his school Thatcher is caught up in the scandal of Charles Darwin and his new theories of biological evolution which he passionately supports.
Thatcher’s convinced Darwinism is strongly opposed by his Headmaster who becomes determined to destroy Thatcher’s name and career. At the same time Thatcher meets the remarkable Dr. Mary Treat (1830-1923), a naturalist and a key contributor to Darwin’s work through her scientific collections, explorations and experiments.
The two scientists become soul mates as the marriage begins to fail.
Double story novels with some connection seem to be a current fad with Geraldine Brooks’ novel Horse a typical example. Kingsolver even commences each chapter of one family with the last sentence of the previous family’s story. These days I have trouble keeping up with all the characters in one novel let alone two novels side by side, so I found the structure difficult to cope with at first.
As a sometime biologist myself I found the Treat/Darwin connection fascinating and well told. The opening story line with its lessons about twenty somethings having the answers to all the world’s problems felt more like a series of school lessons at times and became a bit tedious. I gave this novel 4 stars.
Christopher Watkin: Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, Foreword by Tim Keller, h/b, 648 pp including full bibliography and Index, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Academic, 2022.
Dr Christopher Watkin is Associate Professor in French Studies at Monash University in Melbourne and has an international reputation in the area of modern and contemporary European thought, Atheism and the relationship between the Bible and Philosophy.
A critical theory is any approach to political philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures.
Watkin has modelled this major work of Christian and philosophical thinking on Augustine’s magisterial The City of God in 426 C.E. The City of God analyses C4th Roman culture alongside a grand sweep of Biblical literature from Genesis to Revelation.
Watkin’s work is equally monumental and demanding. In 28 dynamic chapters Watkin introduces his readers to a wide range of theological, philosophical and Biblical ideas including Trinity, Creation, Humanity, Sin and Society, The Cross, Resurrection, Eschatology, Identity, Culture, and a host of other topics which include all the major events of the Biblical story from Genesis to Revelation.
A major feature of this work is Watkin’s introduction to the fierce assault of philosophic thinking on to the Biblical narrative, challenging many of the assumptions which moderns have assumed to be taken for granted.
His targets include Marx, Heidegger, Foucault, Russell, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus and many others.
Watkin’s reply to the philosophical attack is well supported by an equally articulate collection of sympathetic and Christian thinkers including David Bentley Hart, Terry Eagletion, Colin Gunton, C S Lewis, Leslie Newbigin, Bonhoeffer, Pascal, Alvin Plantinga, Jaques Ellul, Chesterton, Midgely and many others too numerous to name.
Each chapter finishes with a series of helpful Study Questions and suggestions for further thought and action so this monumental study would make an excellent small group study series.
A distinctive and helpful feature of Watkin’s approach is his use of diagrams. One very common example is the use of diagrams with two opposing ideas in their own squares, neither of which are capable of moving forward. Watkin then adds to the diagram a Biblical or Christian solution which diagonally cuts across both squares to provide a way forward. These diagrams themselves would make excellent discussion starters.
Biblical Critical Theory is an intimidating and challenging read and would not do for someone coming new to theological or philosophic discussion. Thoughtful Christians however will rejoice that here at last is a book which not only challenges but unpicks and defeats many of the controlling thought centres which dominate C21st Western thinkers. New attacks on Christian faith in this post-Christian era require equally valid and newly formulated Christian responses and here Watkin has delivered in Spades. Watkin has written an amazing book which will be frequently referred to in theological training and conversation for many years to come. 5 stars and rising.
Margaret Mitchell: Lost Laysen, Ed. Debra Freer, h/b, New York, Scribner, 1996
Lost Laysen is a relatively recently discovered novelette written by Margaret Mitchell when she three months short of sixteen years old. For many years it was thought that Mitchell had written only one novel, the extraordinary American civil war novel, Gone With the Wind. Mitchell had many beaux in her life and one constant was a school friend Henry Love Angel along with four other particular male friends. One of these was Red Upshaw whom she married in 1922. This was an unsuccessful marriage and she eventually divorced him and married John Marsh, another school friend. Throughout all this time Mitchell’s friendship with Henry Love Angel was very strong.
Mitchell died in 1948, killed in a car accident crossing a road in Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Georgia. Her will stated that all of her literary works, letters, journals manuscripts including most of the original pages from Gone With the Wind were to be systematically incinerated. Unbeknown to her many fans and anyone else, Henry Love Angel had kept many souvenirs of their close relationship including over thirty photographs and the gift of the manuscript of her teenage novel Lost Laysen.
Henry Love Angel took his friendship, and the knowledge of his photographs and novelette manuscript with him to his grave but his son Henry Angel Junior saw towards the end of his life a financial opportunity in the material and approached The Road to Tara Museum of Atlanta, Georgia. Debra Freer, a Margaret Mitchell historian, was asked to validate the material and the Museum duly unveiled Henry Love Angel’s legacy of his friendship with Mitchell and her novelette in April 1995.
The story of Lost Laysen tells of a friendship between would be missionary Courtney Ross and a rough and ready fighting sailor Billy Duncan who met on a trading ship sailing in the South Pacific near the mythical island of Laysen and the subsequent tragedy that unfolds. For a fifteen year old, Lost Laysen is an impressive yarn which keeps the reader occupied and keen to see the outcome!
To be fair the most interesting part of this book is the many now published photographs taken by Henry Love Angel of Margaret Mitchell and their many love letters and the material put together by Debra Freer. This material beautifully reproduced with authentic photographs of letters, gives a delightful picture of Margaret Mitchell, the socially active and dynamic 1920’s flapper who eventually came to write one of the most popular novels of all time, Gone With the Wind.
Mark Sayers, author of “A Non-Anxious Presence”
Mark Sayers, Pastor of Red Church in Blackburn South and Nunawading and a partner in Uber Ministries has written a challenging analysis of the impact of COVID19 on many church congregations and leaders. In a world where Google replaces Pastor and Screens replace disciples the world has entered a “Gray Zone”. (that’s a US spelling of grey!) It is not the end or the start of an Era, it is a grey zone of uncertainty. Grey zones exist in the overlap of two eras, making life confusing and contradictory. Shifts in urbanisation and consumption, technology and competition, ageing and labour are affecting all countries.
In a huge comparison Sayers compares the total destruction of Krakatoa after probably the earth’s largest ever earthquake with the extreme rapidity of change in our own day. In Krakatoa new growth eventually came. Sayers writes that the current Western world’s preoccupation with “continual consumption,ever-present anxiety, and self-focus” also demonstrates a hunger for renewal. The result is that Christian leaders facing an anxious world can become paralysed.
Sayers notes that not long ago Christian leaders of super large churches and influential Christian organisations were the leaders and influencers. Today media influencers have far more sway shaping the views and thoughts of the Christian world. The result is “that a secular autopilot version of Christian leadership takes hold, where we lead like practical atheists, with God as an afterthought.”(Sayers, p.53) Further Sayers writes “The modern world promises progress and perfection without God. Leaders therefore presume that dependence on God is optional” (p.56)
Sayers notes that “with no agreed-upon defining story or shared values, identity becomes something the participant in a networked society must search for themselves.” (p.83). Sayers also notes that we are coming to the end of the American Century. China will surpass the United States in terms of gross domestic product in the next decade. Sayers quotes George Town University Professor of International Affairs Charles Kupchan: the next world will have no centre of gravity. It will be no one’s world. (p87)
Sayers analyses Social media’s immense access across the internet which enables dynamic activists to apply real pressure on large organisations including the church through online feedback to advance their goals. This tactic, called cancel culture “can exclude opponents from the network resulting in a privatised form of censorship” he writes. (p94) Such digital networks can become a primary influence on folk, more important than their church network.
American political scientist Edward Friedman writes about today’s “herd instinct swamped by chronic anxiety”. People no longer act rationally and the more aggressive members, with a perpetually argumentative stance will start to rule. “In this brutal world humour, satire and irony are lost. Everything becomes at best a slight, at worst a direct assault. Sayers notes that “Conflict, sexual activity, and even violence become normative forms of social engagement,”(p.99)
Friedman has proposed a novel and radical leadership solution. Instead of leadership being found in those with charisma, drive, intelligence, training, or achievements, Friedman argues that “the most vital attribute to lead, especially in anxious human environments and systems, was a non-anxious presence. Retreating to our comfort zones insulates us from development. Increasing individualism and a dizzying diversity of opinion in the West contrasts strongly with the complete lack of individualism in China and many Islamic states. On the other hand grey zones are our wilderness. It is in the wilderness that God gave Christ the power to conquer Satan. It was in the wilderness that Israel’s leaders learned obedience to God. Sayers suggests “The Wilderness is where God woos us!” (p.119)
Sayers further notes that character and maturity in leadership are more important than comfort or ease. There will be many events and situations that will be outside of our control and yesterday’s management model will not work today. “We do not need superhuman resilience and we don’t want spiritually stagnant leaders on the couch buried in their phones. We must vanquish the infective foe of anxiety,” Sayers writes.
But of course we can only be non-anxious presences with God’s presence. Sayers quotes Dag Hammdkjold whose rule was that “we need humility to experience reality.” St Paul said when I am weak then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10) and Sayers notes that “we certainly do not need an addiction to approval.” There will always be pressure in leadership. Without pressure there would be no development and no holiness.
Here is a book on leadership that should be read carefully. It will particularly help leaders who are feeling a bit down and defeated. I warmly commend it. 5 stars.
Cormac McCarthy: All The Pretty Horses: p/b, New York, Picador, 2022 (1993)
Hard hitting novel involving sixteen year old John Brady Cole who grew up on his grandfather’s cattle ranch outside of Saint Angelo Texas. When his grandfather sells the ranch Cole sets off with his friend Lacey Rawlings to find work on a horse breeding ranch in Mexico. Trouble soon arrives when they are joined by thirteen year old Jimmy Blevins, a runaway with a taste for killing people. After losing his horse in a thunder storm and stealing it back Blevins leaves them to hide in the mountains. Eventually Cole and Rawlings find work on a wealthy horse stud where Cole falls deeply in love with the Mexican owner’s daughter Alejandra and a life that gets more and more complicated and particularly dangerous as Blevins re-enters the narrative.
There is a great deal of blood and death in this writing as in most McCarthy novels. These grim passages would not be to every reader’s taste, authentically told though they may be. The description of the Mexican foothills, mountains and plains is remarkable. McCarthy won significant acclaim for this work and indeed the novel totally engages the reader as events go from bad to near impossible. I found this novel violent, romantic and powerfully written all at once. For folks not fluent in Spanish significant sections of dialogue have to be guessed at and the online translation guide is by no means complete. This novel is part of a trio so I will reserve judgment until I can get through the remaining two volumes. 4 stars so far.
George A. Lindbeck: The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, 25th Anniversary Edition with a new Introduction by Bruce Marshall and a new Afterword by the author.
Lutheran Theologian and ecumenist George Lindbeck, who died in 2018 at 94, was a child of Lutheran missionaries in China and Korea and played a major role as a delegate observer in the Second Vatican Council. His major theological work, The Nature of Doctrine, is a penetrating study of the future of Christianity in a post-Christian era. First published in1984 Lindbeck’s book has to my knowledge ever been out of print. As a delegate to the Second Vatican Council 1962-65, Lindbeck has spent a theological lifetime grappling with divisions within the Christian faith and exploring whether the Christian faith will even survive in the C21st.
Lindbeck provides a pathway through the classical propositional approach to Christianity; the experiential/expressive Christianity of evangelicalism, and the attempts by Catholic theologians Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonegan to combine both approaches in a cultural and linguistic approach to Christian theology which might reach out usefully to folk in other world faiths. Lindbeck’s work reaches out also to a C21st Post-Christian society asking why modernity cannot also be religious, particularly reaching out to Islamic and Buddhist approaches to faith in a modern world order.
Lindbeck respects the countervailing traditional tendencies of C20th scholars like G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge as well as the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth and even some key ideas about faith found in Wittgenstein’s influence. Nevertheless Lindbeck, against all odds, argues strongly for his cultural-linguistic alternative. Lindbeck cites Rahner’s notion that devout followers of other faiths could be regarded as “anonymous Christians”. (p.43) Rahner also proposes that dying itself be pictured as the point at which every human being is ultimately and expressly confronted by the gospel, by the crucified and risen Lord. It is only then that the final decision is made for or against Christ. (p.45). I myself am personally attracted to this idea also.
Lindbeck notes that theology and doctrine are assertions based ultimately on faith (p61) and Evangelicals would add, on New Testament history. Much discussion on these matters hinges on the nature of doctrines, how they are formulated and how they are expressed (p.66). In Christian faith formation the experiential dimension is more important than hard core doctrines. Practical doctrines like “the law of love” carry more weight than discussion about ontological truths (p.71) and then there are “accidental doctrines” like Sunday or Christmas. (p.72)
The standard doctrines like those of Nicaea and Chalcedon have worn well, but later R.C. Marian doctrines like the Immaculate conception, the Assumption of Mary and Papal infallibility cause big problems for non Roman Catholics.(p82f) especially since many of the Popes throughout history have been morally corrupt. As for the doctrine of the Trinity itself it is beyond formulation and comprehension ..it just is! (p.92). Lindbeck finds support from Wittgenstein who notes that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but is exhibited in what we call ‘obeying the rule’ and ‘going against it’ in actual cases!..interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning. (p97).
In a concluding chapter Lindbeck argues that the marks of good theology are faithfulness, applicability and intelligibility. (p.98). All the major world faiths have relatively fixed canons of writing that they treat as exemplary or normative (p102). For Christians to know how to live we need to know about God’s Being from the text of Scripture but in the end it is difficult to “know” God. Post liberal “intratextuality” (p.108) may help some moderns interpret the Biblical text but in the end theology must be practical and empirically defensible. (p.111).
Post-Liberals start with a vision of the kingdom of God in a quest for transcendence and selfhood but the responsibility for the wider society is more important than personal fulfilment. (p.113) Service rather than domination is the best course for Christians. Credibility comes from good performance…there is still hope (p.116). We need to absorb the universe into a Biblical world is LIndbeck’s final word. Thinking about Christian doctrine is hard work. The Nature of Doctrine will help you do this but it could also confuse you. Enter this world with care! 4 stars.
Barbara Kingsolver: Unsheltered, p/b, 2018, London, Faber & Faber.
Clever partly historical novel which describes the lives of two couples and their families about 150 years apart. Willa and her Greek science teacher husband Iano have two children and having moved house for employment find themselves the unlucky owners of a home which proves to be unredeemable.
At the same time both their twenty something children find themselves in difficulty and need to return home to live. Along with their seriously ill grandfather on a breathing machine and a new baby of one of their children, the couple struggle to make ends meet as their house gradually disintegrates.
Meanwhile in the 1870’s Science teacher Thatcher and his beautiful wife Rose are living in the same house 130 years earlier, along with his equally attractive teenage daughter Polly. At his school Thatcher is caught up in the scandal of Charles Darwin and his new theories of biological evolution which he passionately supports.
Thatcher’s convinced Darwinism is strongly opposed by his Headmaster who becomes determined to destroy Thatcher’s name and career. At the same time Thatcher meets the remarkable Dr. Mary Treat (1830-1923), a naturalist and a key contributor to Darwin’s work through her scientific collections, explorations and experiments.
The two scientists become soul mates as the marriage begins to fail.
Double story novels with some connection seem to be a current fad with Geraldine Brooks’ novel Horse a typical example. Kingsolver even commences each chapter of one family with the last sentence of the previous family’s story. These days I have trouble keeping up with all the characters in one novel let alone two novels side by side, so I found the structure difficult to cope with at first.
As a sometime biologist myself I found the Treat/Darwin connection fascinating and well told. The opening story line with its lessons about twenty somethings having the answers to all the world’s problems felt more like a series of school lessons at times and became a bit tedious. I gave this novel 4 stars.
Flavius Josephus: The Antiquities of the Jews, Trans. from Greek, by William Whiston, h/b, USA, Hendrickson, 1987 (1736).
Josephus was a child of a significant priestly Jewish family and grew up in the turmoil of Roman occupation of Israel. Born in A.D. 37 and dying near the end of the C1st A.D. Josephus was a key military leader in Israel’s fateful war of independence from the Roman war machine which resulted eventually in the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70A.D. In spite of the horrific defeat, slaughter and surrender, the captured Josephus managed to become directly acquainted with and gained the favour of the Roman leader Vespasian. When Vespasian eventually became emperor in A.D. 69 Josephus was officially freed and eventually was able to return to Rome with Titus, Vespasian’s son and future Emperor. Josephus settled in Rome as a client of the emperor on an imperial pension, eventually gaining the rights of a Roman citizen and adopting the emperor’s family name, Flavius. From this point on he began his literary endeavours.
Josephus’ Antiquities is a monster read, 514 pages printed in small print with two columns on each page! This work tells the history of the people of Israel, commencing with extracts from the Book of Genesis. Josephus then takes the reader through the Old Testament narrative of the history of Israel from God’s covenant with Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt, the period of the judges and first kings including David and leading the reader to the destruction of the first temple and the Israelite sojourn in Babylon, their release under the Persians and the challenges they faced with occupation from in turn the Egyptians, the Seleucids, and finally the Romans. Josephus does not deal with the wars and destruction of Jerusalem in The Antiquities as he had covered this period in a previous book, The Wars of the Jews, or, The Destruction of Jerusalem.
The reader obtains regular detailed additional footnoted commentaries on various events from the translator, William Whiston who was himself not just a scholar of the Greek language, but a mathematician, philosopher and theological scholar of some note. Readers need to make up their own mind about the veracity and value of Whiston’s additional comments! An additional historian often quoted helpfully in his footnotes is Dean Humphrey Prideaux who wrote in 1845 a well regarded 2 volume History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations and the Connection between the Old and New Testaments!
In spite of the size of Josephus’ work I think thoughtful Christian readers will enjoy The Antiquities of the Jews. Its story of the faithfulness of Jewish believers through two millennia to 70 A.D.and, three hundred years after Whiston’s translation, we in our generation still see the Jews today, after another two millennia of trauma, fighting to stay alive on the same piece of dirt in the State of Israel. In addition there are occasional references to figures from our New Testament including Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, James the Brother of Jesus and of course Pontius Pilate and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. I can honestly say I enjoyed reading The Antiquities of the Jews. 5 stars.
Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind, p/b, New York, Avon Books, 1964 (1936)
Powerful narrative of a three-way love triangle set in the context of the C19th American Civil War over the abolition of the Slave Trade and the rights of black Americans. Scarlet O’Hara, the spoilt first child of a wealthy Irish American Coffee planter in Georgia, is thwarted in love when her first love Ashley Wilkes announces his engagement to his cousin, the ever sweet and adoring Melanie. Made into a memorable film starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh Gone with the Wind one of the old time great love stories.
At a vast garden party just before the war at which the engagement is announced Scarlet has a violent and losing fight in a library with Ashley which happens to have been seen by the suave Rhett Butler who also has his eye on Scarlet. The civil war changes the lives of every Southern State in the South East as Scarlet’s house Tara is taken over by Yankees and she flees to family in Atlanta where both Scarlet and Melanie found initial security while Ashley went to the war. Rhett Butler manages to inveigle himself into Scarlet’s life so the love triangle continues against the background of horrifying accounts of the four year progress of the Civil War.
This extremely lengthy novel was enjoyed by our club members although not all were able to finish the 1024 pages in my paperback edition. Mitchell paints a too glossy account of the happy lives of black African slaves but her analysis of the horrors of the war and the impact on the Southern States is powerful and accurate. 5 stars.
Review of Jane Austen: Shorter Works, Intro, Richard Church; Decorations, Joan Hassal:
h/b, London, The Folio Society, 1975 ( writing from 1787-1817)
Jane Austen I am sure will always remain in my list of favourite authors and although six acclaimed novels is a considerable achievement indeed, one always hopes for more. From the age of 11 Austen was writing Juvenalia, and even in these fragments the gift of future genius can be seen emerging.
Her adult writing can be said to have begun with the incomplete The Watsons (1803) and the epistolary Lady Susan (1805). All of Austen’s delicate shades of meaning, deft and witty conversation and surprising twists that force the reader to continue reading are already found in these works. Her last work Sanditon written in 1817(only one chapter completed) has recently been reproduced as a major television series. The dedicated lover of anything Jane Austen will be unable to put these varied pieces down. Austen’s ability to commit the reader to find out “how things will work out” forces the reader to keep on keeping on. Austen even created a very humorous if not always accurate history of England with a particular leaning towards Catholicism as well as Mary Queen of Scots. Her complete minor novels: Lesley Castle/Evelyn/Frederick and Elfrida/Jack and Alice/Edgar and Emma/Henry and Eliza/ and The Three Sisters, all offer Austen gems, humour, surprise and wonder. This is a collection to savour and remind ourselves that for character, wit, sangfroid and style she still has no equal…even after 236 years!
Ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata: Josephus, The Bible and History, h/b, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1989
This book is a series of essays connected with the extraordinary and controversial life and writings of Flavius Josephus, who lived in the First Century A.D. Josephus’ extensive writings [The Antiquities of the Jews, The Wars of the Jews, Against Apion, The Life of Flavius Josephus and An Extract of Josephus’ Discourse to the Greeks,]are, apart from the Old Testament the major source of our knowledge of the history of the Jews from the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes (B.C.E 175-163) to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70 and the fall of Masada in A.D. 73. There is no comparable source for determining the setting of late inter-testamental and New Testament Times, so Josephus’ work is absolutely critical for our understanding of Judaism in the period of Jesus’ life and death and the period of the writing of the New Testament.
In addition Josephus is also a most important source of our knowledge of the biblical canon and text, since our earliest complete manuscripts of the Bible, at least in the Hebrew, are a millenium later. In addition Josephus is indispensable for our understanding of the political, social, economic, and religious background of the rise of Christianity and of the other sects of the era, as well as of Jewry and the Diaspora.
Josephus is also our most important literary guide to the geography, topography, and monuments of Palestine so that modern day archeologists are as reliant on Josephus as they are on their spades and other techniques. Further than this Josephus is most important as a historian of the Graeco-Roman Republic and on the first century of the Roman Empire.
These essays provide detailed analysis of and criticism of Josephus’ writings written by major C20 historians and Jewish scholars. A brief summary of the issues discussed in these essays follows:
Sid Z. Leiman writes about Josephus and the Canon of the Old Testament. Josephus’ canon corresponds very closely with the twenty four book canon of the Jewish Talmud which was being put together at the start of the third century Common Era, commencing at first with the Mishnah.
Louis Feldman’s essay is a comparison between Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews and the late C2nd Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo One of the interesting results of this comparison is that Josephus is clearly writing to the Greek speaking community of Judea and the Roman Empire as a recommendation of the Jewish faith. Feldman notes that Josephus’ Antiquities [history] of the Jews omits such embarassing episodes as Jacob’s cunning in tricking Laban out of his good sheep flocks, the Judah-Tamar rape episode, Moses’ slaying of the Egyptian, Miriam’s leprosy, Moses’ angry striking of the rock to obtain water, the story of the brazen serpent held up to cure those bitten by serpents, the building of the golden calf, and his creation of the story of Moses as a General employed by the Egyptians against the Ethiopians.
Eugene Ulrich’s study on Josephus’ text for the Books of Samuel demonstrates clearly that Josephus’ work was very largely based on the Greek text of the Old Testament as his source, rather than the Hebrew text at least in relation to the Books of Samuel.
André Pelletier discusses the importance of Josephus’ use of the term Septuagint for the Greek version of the Old Testament and the validity of the so-called Letter of Aristeas.
Isaiah M. Gafni writes about Josephus’ description of the Hasmonean uprising and demonstrates that Josephus is totally reliant on the Book of 1 Maccabees until the portion devoted to Simon, where Josephus clearly uses a different source. He also suggests that Josephus did not hesitate to invent facts for the purpose of making his text more interesting to his Greek audience.
Joseph Sievers writes about Josephus’ useful treatment of significant female figures in the Hasmonean Dynasty about whom we would otherwise know very little.
Ben Zion Wacholder demonstrates Josephus’ use of the pagan historian Nicholas of Damascus, as did Strabo and Socrates. He was a tutor for the children of Antony and Cleopatra, became a friend of Augustus and was Herod’s chief advisor. Josephus particularly relied on Nicholas for chapters 13 -17 of Antiquities.
Günther Baumbach discusses Josphesus’ writing about the Sadducees, concluding that his few references to the Sadducees at least prompts the question as to whether prejudice played a role.
Clemens Thoma writes about The High Priesthood in the Judgment of Josephus, an area that Josephus knew well from his own status as an aristocratic chief priest theologian and ambitious politician. This background explains Josephus’ deep interest in the rituals, cult proceedings and functions of the Jewish priesthood in this work on the Antiquities.
Valentin Nikiprowetzky deals with Josephus’ treatment of the Revolutionary Parties and the notion of the “zealous” or “jealous” state of mind which lead these leaders to oppose the Romans as enemies of God, an approach which Josephus himself did not approve of.
Shimon Applebaum writes about Josephus and the Economic Causes of the Jewish War.
Heinz Kreissig offers A Marxist View of Josephus’ Account of the Jewish War.
Zeev Safrai writes a Description of the Land of Israel in Josephus’ works. As noted earlier much of this material has no parallel elsewhere so the reliability of this material is difficult to test.
Benjamin Mazar discusses Josephus in the light of Archaeological Excavations in Jerusalem and questions whether the 7th Book of The Wars of the Jews” which contains the story of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Masada story were not written by someone else.
The final essay by Louis H. Feldman is entitled A Selective Critical Bibliography of Josephus. This monumental and exacting analysis runs to 120 pages and contains a forbidding analysis of academic work relating to Josephus, written with clarity and care and indicating areas for further study.
Feldman and Hata’s achievement in putting these essays together has provided scholars interested in Josephus with every possible guidance and further exploration. It is an impressive volume indeed. 5 stars.
Virginia Axline: Dibs: In Search of Self, p/b, Ringwood, Penguin, 1975 (1964)
Dibs: In Search of Self Is a psychological study of a young child [Dibs is a made up name] of exceptional intelligence who was badly misunderstood by his parents but through careful psychological therapy was able to live a profoundly rich and significant life.
The story is told word for word by the therapist Axline from recordings made during the therapy sessions. Although initially this description of their relationship can be unsettling and a little boring the impact of the therapy on the child leads the reader forward with increasing interest. It is a story that many misunderstood children, whether or not of high intelligence, will relate to in terms of their relationship with their own parents.
Dibs: In Search of Self was set for many years in the senior years of Victorian secondary schools but although I had heard about the book it was never set in my years at school so I have read it for the first time now in 2023. Now, sixty years on the novel still leaves a powerful effect on the reader and is a reminder to parents to think carefully about how they respond to their children. It is also probably a book which helped a lot of students to understand some of their own parents reactions to them in the home.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and as an ageing and increasingly grumpy old man I found some tips for myself that I am sure will help me in the challenging years ahead! 5 stars.
Betty Smith: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, p/b, London, Arrow Books, 1992 (1944).
Beautifully written and delightfully engaging book written by American Betty Smith in 1944 (1896-1972) and never out of print since. Smith tells the story of an Irish-American family living in poverty in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City populated in the early C20th by European immigrants seeking a new life. The story tells the coming of age of Francie Nolan. Her Irish born family, brother Neely, mother Katie who scrubbed floors for a living, and their father Johnny who was an occasional night club singer and a drunk lived happily in a small rented house and got by. There is nothing romanticised in this narrative…all the ups and downs of family/street/school life are described without embellishment or over dramatics. Katie has strict standards in spite of their humble existence and Francie, ten years older than Neely, has the additional support of Katie’s unmarried sister Sissy, who is far more street-wise and keeps an eye out for Francie.
The story creates an accurate and detailed account of Edwardian life from a poor child’s point of view with all its creativity and bustling New York action eventually leaning towards the first world war. The tree which grows in Brooklyn is a cut down tree with roots growing deep from a street grating and surviving and even flowering. It is an image of Francie, facing a tough life and still getting by and even thriving but it is told without sentimentality and exaggeration. It is hard to put describe the pull of this book for the reader. The writing is taut, realistic, clever, real, and compelling. It is the sort of book you are sorry when it is finished and I for one, do not find many books like that these days. 5 stars and rising.
Review of Harper Lee: To Kill a Mocking-Bird, p/b, London, Mandarin, 1992 (1960)
I must be one of the few readers of my age not to have read To Kill a Mocking-Bird before now. During my teaching years in the seventies and eighties it was set for Years 10, 11 English in just about every school going around but it never made any of my secondary school lists. It was also of course, made into a fine movie with Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch, the town’s lawyer, and I have never forgotten that image of the quietly calm Atticus sitting in his rocking chair on the verandah of their house and answering the most difficult questions with quiet detachment.
The novel’s story is told in the voice of Scout Finch (Jean Louise Finch) and her much loved older brother Jem. From the movie I have always imagined the story as a courthouse drama but soon realised realised it was more a coming of age story for Scout and Jem Finch who had lost their mother when Scout was just two years old. Set in a fictional Southern American town of Maycomb we read about their school and family life, the mysterious Boo Radley who never emerged from the house next door, their fussy Aunt Alexandra who came to live with them to teach them manners, and the rich and varied characters of Maycomb. Mocking birds were regarded as beautiful song birds, not to be killed by thoughtless shooters for fun.
The drama of the novel is certainly centred on the trial of a young negro boy named Tom Robinson, falsely accused of raping the daughter of Mr Robert Ewell, a wasted and morally corrupt drunk and incestuous alcoholic whose children run wild and have to shift for themselves. The court room scene is high drama indeed and the subsequent impacts on the parties involved are brutal and horrific, in spite of a degree of redemption in the conclusion. In some ways the story could be that of a thousand stories in southern American black and white relations but in many other ways the story is much more. Here we see a young girl of a good family wrestling with growing up in America and trying to forge a way to live in such a divided and hypocritical society.
I am amazed that Harper Lee wrote no other novels for the rest of her life apart from one story which is really an earlier version of To Kill a Mocking Bird. The novel has humour, history, high tension and horror. It is easy to read and hard to put down. It is still relevant in the C21st. Five stars.
Review of Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, p/b,London, Vintage, 2004
Children’s author Mark Haddon has written an outstanding narrative for children and adults about a fifteen year old high functioning Asperger’s Syndrome child named Christopher Boone. Christopher not only has to deal with his Asperger’s, he also has to deal with his separated parents, neither of whom can cope with the demands of his precisely self-ordered life. Christopher is highly intelligent, with an acute memory and with a vast array of knowledge about all sorts of scientific, geographic and literary information. Although he attends a special school Christopher has a fine mathematical ability enabling him to complete his A level mathematics tests (three of them) with Honours. For children with a mathematical bent, this story is also complete with a wide range of demanding mathematical puzzles and mathematical problems to be solved.
Haddon tells Christopher’s story from his own viewpoint so the reader gets an Asperger’s view of growing up in a world in which he sees things quite differently from other children of his age. His adventures with adults both helpful and unhelpful and his determination to sort out his life for himself along with his pet rat Toby, make for exciting and at times very funny reading as well as some very sad experiences. Haddon is a multi-talented artist as well as a writer and has himself worked with Asperger’s Syndrome children and adults. He describes himself as a hard-edged atheist and there is certainly a strong rejection of any suggestion of the existence of God in this narrative. 5 stars.
Review of Josephus: The Life of Flavius Josephus, 93 C.E., (Greek), Trans. William Whiston, h/b, USA, Hendrickson, 1987 (1736)
Josephus’ brief account (36 pages) of his life begins with his family history including his priestly father Matthias and his brother, also called Matthias. He was well educated and notes his early interest in Jewish history and philosophy and especially his early interest in the major Jewish sects including the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes as well as his following for a time of a solitary prophet Banus. Josephus finally joined the Pharisees.
At age 26 he made a fateful journey to Rome which included a shipwreck in which many died but some including Josephus were able to swim to another ship and were saved. Josephus’ purpose in going to Rome was to defend some of his fellow priests who had been sent to Rome for trial. Through a friendship with a Roman actor Aliturius who was a friend of the Emperor Nero, Josephus also became known to Poppea, the second wife of the Emperor Nero and through her entreaties was able to gain the release of his priestly friends.
Josephus returned to Israel profoundly impressed by the power of the Roman Empire and came home strongly opposed to the Jewish revolt. On his return however he was unable to restrain Jewish rebellion and assumed a command in Galilee where he fortified a number of cities against future Roman attack. At the same time he was opposed by one John of Gischala who hated and distrusted him. The rest of this “life” relates his rise to power in Galilee and his internal ‘war’ with John of Gischala and his mercenaries in Tiberias who were determined to destroy him.
Josephus survived both his problems with John of Gischala and also the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews ( a story he tells elsewhere in The Wars of the Jews.)He concludes
his narrative with a brief account of his post war life which remarkably included becoming a Roman citizen, the gift of an apartment in the Emperor Vespasian’s house, and a pension for life! (which he spent writing his Antiquities of the Jews and The Wars of the Jews as well as other works. ) He divorced his first wife who had born him three sons and remarried a highly regarded Cretan Jewess who gave him another two sons. After the death of Vespasian Josephus continued to to receive support from both the Emperor Titus and later the Emperor Domitian in spite of ccusations from Jewish survivors that he was of ill repute. It is fair to say that Josephus’ contribution to our understanding of the social, political and religious background of the New Testament era cannot be over emphasized. Although he is not completely unbiased, he remains a remarkable and reliable historian. 4 stars
William Whiston. Translator of the Works of Josephus from Greek into English
Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms, p/b, London, Vintage Books, 2005 (1929):
Hemingway’s early semi-autobiographical novel covering his brutal experiences as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War 1 is a demanding and powerful read. There is somehow always a hovering sense of tragedy throughout and not far away in this novel. I first read this story when I was quite young and found Hemingway’s style somehow rushed and clipped. It was nowhere near my top ten list. Reading it today in one hit after fifty years, I found the novel had a driving power to hold my interest and impossible to put down, especially as I could not recall the ending from my first reading.
Hemingway achieves a powerful account of the folly and cruelty of war at the same time as a tender and entrancing love story. Hemingway manages the stoic and hopeless courage of soldiers, the agony of cold, wet and wintery conditions and the grim camaraderie of soldiers who had lost comrades and knew their own time could come anytime, any where. At the same time he manages to detail the softest and most loving relationship between Henry and Catherine that stays in the mind long after the novel has finished.
This is no swash-buckling hero story but real time war-time life with its horror and futility and its grasping for love under extreme circumstances. 5 stars.
Wei-Han Kuan: Foundations of Anglican Evangelicalism in Victoria: Four Elements for Continuity 1847 -1937, Eugene, Wipe & Stock, 2019
The Revd Dr Wei-Han Kuan is the State Director of the Church Missionary Society in Victoria, having served previously as a priest in the parishes of All Souls Ferntree Gully and St Alfred’s Blackburn North. This fascinating study of the early beginnings of Evangelicalism in Victoria was Wei-Han’s Doctoral Thesis which he obtained through the Australian College of Theology. Doctoral theses do not always make exciting reading due to the strict requirements and detail required by supervision. This book is an exception because, at least for someone as old as me, many of the characters and leaders referred to are known to me personally or are revered as Christian figures of significant character and indeed fame.
The settlement of white Australia coincided with deep divisions within the English Church of England caused by the development in the 1830s of the Tractarian Oxford movement which placed significant emphasis on matters of church liturgy and ritual, high end choral music and a reaching out to Roman Catholicism especially in relation to the manual acts associated with the Eucharist. Opposing the Tractarians were the traditional prayer book low churchmen and a rising tide of energised Evangelicals, intent on mission to the far corners of the world with the good news of God’s atoning love. The early days of Christian faith in Victoria are also inevitably tied in with the gold rush and the rapid growth of Melbourne due to the gold fever, money and people from all nations who poured into the southern most mainland Australian State.
A key issue of this story is the contested character of Victoria’s first Bishop, the evangelical Revd Charles Perry appointed in 1847 from England by William Grant Boughton, the first and only Bishop of Australia! Khan notes that Bishop James Grant, in his chapter in the Diocese of Melbourne’s official sesquicentenary history, described Perry as having a “reputation as a narrow minded bigot in matters of churchmanship.” (p.115) Similarly historians Manning Clark and Alan Shaw characterise Perry as a militant low churchman and a sectarian. Kuan challenges this view of Perry in a detailed study, noting that Perry’s exceptional drive and energy created a powerful church and evangelical movement in rapidly growing Victoria, especially in Gippsland and Bendigo but he also accommodated and was willing to appoint a number of non evangelical clergy.
Kuan moves on to describe the impact of Bishops Moorehouse (strong parish development) and Field Flowers Goe (cathedral builder) and Henry Lowther Clarke. At the same time, in spite of some very strong evangelical parishes, Evangelicals tended to focus less on parish life and more on mission and conversions at home and abroad, open air preaching, Societies like the Church Missionary Society, MBI , League of Youth, CSSM, CEBS, Keswick style conventions at Upwey and later Belgrave Heights, visiting preachers like Spurgeon, George Grubb and Dr Howard Guiness, University missions and eventually the founding of Ridley College. Kuan notes that the large number of Evangelical leaders who gave their lives and talents to overseas mission, weakened the strength of evangelical parishes in this early period of Victorian Christian growth.
Individual leaders in this story are too numerous to mention here but note must be made of the generosity of the Griffiths Family of tea business fame who originally bankrolled almost every evangelical cause. In addition the exceptional impact of the ministry of Canon C H Nash in so many lives and parishes and his fall out with Lowther Clarke is a key factor in this story. Will Dr Kuan venture to write part 2 of this story from 1937 to 2023? We must wait and see.
Exceptional excerpts from the diary of Alathea Fitzalan Howard who was the elder daughter of the second and last Viscount Fitszalan, and of Joyce Langdale, who later became Countess Fitzwilliam. She was born at Norfolk House, Sheffield on 23 November 1923. Had she been a boy she would have succeeded as Duke of Norfolk, since her father’s first cousin Bernard, the 16th duke, had only daughters….she would have been Earl Marshall, and, as such, played a major role in state occasions after 1975, when he died. Her mother, Joyce, was from an old Catholic family and was separated from her husband and moved between Houghton, her family home in Yorkshire, and London.
At the beginning of World War 11 Alathea was sent to live with her rather staid, old fashioned paternal grandfather and maiden aunt Magdalen at Cumberland Lodge, on the Windsor Estate, her mother visiting rarely. Her Father, wounded in the First World War, was ill-equipped to deal with a teenager, and spent most of his time in London, and came to Cumberland Lodge at weekends. Old Lord Fitzalan, a widower, was a distinguished elder statesman and leading Roman Catholic layman. Cumberland Lodge had been loaned to him for his lifetime as a grace-and-favour house by King George V in 1924. His family home, Derwent Hall in Derbyshire, was compulsorily purchased in 1939 and drowned for the creation of Ladybower reservoir, serving Sheffield.
Throughout her life Alathea had kept a daily diary and this was continued throughout the war years when she lived on the Windsor Estate just a bicycle ride away from Windsor Castle where the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret had been sent for safe-keeping during the war. The result was that a close friendship sprang up between Alathea and the two princesses resulting in their spending much time together over the five years of the war, sharing in dancing and drawing classes, pantomimes, balls and games often staying over at the Castle and sharing meals with the princesses and on many occasions with the King and Queen.
Alathea carefully recorded all these events in her diary and in addition her personal comments about the character, dress and behaviour of the young princesses, and the King and Queen! In addition her diary contained regular updates on the progress of the war and its aftermath. All of this makes for intriguing reading today especially given the carefully guarded access of journalists and other writers to the personal lives of royalty at that time. Some of Alathea’s comments are extremely personal, not to say bitchy! At the same time the reader gets a delightful sense of the happy early life of the royal couple and their children in spite of the horror of the war years including significant German attacks on the Windsor Estate itself including several deaths. The diary has been carefully edited by Celestria Noel so that only significant paragraphs are included and each one has significant interest. Alethea herself would have been completely lost without the friendship of the princesses as her war-time home was formal, barren, cold and friendless. I found this diary account totally engrossing and it provides a unique birds eye view of the upper classes at home in the midst of the chaos of war. 5 stars.
William Paul Young: The Shack: In collaboration with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, p/b, Los Angeles, Windblown Media, 2007.
Unusual approach to understanding the Trinity from William Paul Young, Canadian writer now living in Washington D.C., married with six children. Young’s parents were Christian missionaries in New Guinea. Young originally wrote the story for his six children and was persuaded to publish by his two collaborators noted above. The novel was well received on publication and is certainly a different look at the Trinity.
The novel centres on the story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips (Mack), a Midwest farm boy whose Church attending father was also a drunkard and wife beater who left a bitter mark on Mack. After walking away from his father Mack was eventually happily married to Nan and they had six children. On a camping trip Mack’s youngest daughter Missy is abducted and murdered by a sociopath and the horror of this event traumatises Mack who blames himself for not being alert to protect the youngest member of his family. Police eventually locate the shack where evidence proved the child was murdered but there was no sign of the body.
Gradually the horror and sadness of this event takes its toll on Mack and a grim sadness engulfs him, making him deeply moody and unable to relate easily to his world, his family or his church. At this time he receives a written message, unsigned with no stamp, from God inviting him to the Shack, the very place where the murder occurred. Mack makes this journey alone and instead of a ramshackle murder scene he finds himself in a beautiful environment, confronted with the three persons of the Trinity who engage him on a weekend journey of discovery about the God he is so angry with. The result is an unusual theological dialogue and series of events which enable Mack to see God as Trinity through radically new eyes. The result is an entertaining, unusual, insightful and challenging theological discussion focussing largely on the problem of evil and its ramifications in human life and God’s seeming inability to do much about the horror of many events in life on earth.
Young’s theology takes particular aim at a Christianity based on laws, judgment, rules, requirements and responsibilities. He replaces these rubrics with living with God in expectancy in any situation, finding a way to trust in God in the midst of no matter what trauma occurs in one’s life. Towards the end of the novel this denouement extends to folk of all faiths and none and seems eventually to lead to the salvation of all although this is not a major theme.
There are many interesting and thought provoking ideas in Young’s novel which repay deep thinking. Some of his key ideas include: Jesus: “I’m not a Christian!” (p182); Those who love God come from all faiths and none. (p.182); Faith does not grow in the house of certainty. (p.189); True love never forces (p.190); Pearls are made by pain (p.177); religion, politics and economics have ravaged humanity. (p.179); On p.112 it is implied that the members of the Trinity have different powers. On p.129 God makes use of fractals and on p172 God makes use of time dimension coupling. On p. 148 we have a circle of relationship…man from dust, she from man, every male since birthed through woman.
This is a novel which invites reflection and self/church examination. I enjoyed reading this book and found it both challenging and helpful in my faith journey. 4 stars.
Review of John Carey: 100 Poets – A Little Anthology, p/b, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2002.
John Carey is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. For addicts like myself who have spent a lifetime of studying, collecting, reading and thinking about poetry this is a book to savour, pause over and be thankful that there are inspired voices throughout history who have been able to put thoughts and ideas in such extraordinary and compelling ways.
This collection takes the reader from Homer, Sappho and Virgil right up to Les Murray’s brave final verses in 2019. All the poetic heroes are here but also distinctive and beautiful words from writers I have never read or heard of. Carey does not overwhelm the reader with screeds of poetic theory or whole of life stories but provides just enough enticement and background to make the reader pause for thought. Older readers of this book, if they are anything like me, will find themselves going back to book shelves and reminding themselves of long unread poetry which once set them thinking in a totally new idiom and direction. Younger readers who like poetry will simply be amazed by the flexibility, wisdom and fluidity of the human mind and the unique impact good poetry can have on our sensitivity, mood, dreams and hopes.
The depth of Carey’s literary knowledge is impressive indeed and has encouraged me to locate his A Little History of Poetry, purchase of which I suspect is not far away! 5 stars.
Jane Austen: Persuasion, Intro, Richard Church; Wood-Engravings, Joan Hassall, h/b, London, the Folio Society, 1975 (1815).
Persuasion was Jane Austen’s last of seven impressive novels, written as she was succumbing to an unknown illness (perhaps leukemia?). The novel has a vast array of characters which take some keeping up with but all of Austen’s genius of expression, elegance, sensitivity and complex emotional intrigue and anxiety are on show. There is something of the fineness of expression, minute differentiation of emotion, understanding and wisdom that keeps Austen’s writing at the head of the class.
Mr Eliot, a distant relative and the inevitable villain hides his character very effectively for some time and so well that the reader wonders whether he will ever be defeated by the sailer hero Captain Wentworth. The Captain is the more diffident for having been rejected by the heroine Anne Eliot, having been persuaded against the marriage at an earlier stage of the novel by an older family confidante, Lady Russell.
After the happy reuniting of the couple at the end of the the novel, Austen has the heroine saying You should not have suspected me now; the case was so different. If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty…. We are left with an uncertainty of the degree to which one should allow ourselves to be moved by persuasion!
I, like many others, am an unashamed Austen fan. The complex array of characters in this novel is demanding but still one is left with sadness at the thought that no further novels from this amazingly gifted writer will ever come. 5 stars.
Review of Emily Wilson: Seneca – A Life, h/b, London, Allen Lane/Penguin, 2014
Emily Wilson
Emily Wilson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and has written previously on Tragedy from Sophocles to Milton and on the life of Sophocles.
Her venture into the life of the Stoic philosopher Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger), is a masterpiece of exceptional scholarship which also manages at the same time to be a real page turner. Born in Corduba in Roman Spain in c.5 B.C. Seneca was a sickly child and after five years at home spent some ten years of his life in Roman Alexandria in Egypt, overcoming significant lung disease problems which would challenge him for the whole of his long life.
Seneca eventually came to Rome in 31 CE at a time when the ruling Emperor Tiberius had lost interest in public life and become paranoid and antisocial almost to the point of madness. He had gone off to live a life of allegedly constant sex orgies on the Isle of Capri leaving the empire to be ruled by the Senate in a state of terrified uncertainty. This reign of terror continued under the Emperors Caligula and Claudius. Early in Claudius’ reign the married Seneca was banished to Corsica on the doubtful grounds of adultery but was eventually brought back by Claudius’ new wife Agrippina, the former wife of Tiberias to be the tutor of her son by Tiberias. This child was the young Nero.
Upon the death of the Emperor Claudius, Nero, engineered by Agrippina, became Emperor and Seneca one of his most trusted advisers, his speech writer and even served for part of a year as consul, the highest political office in Rome. Nero poured great wealth and properties on Seneca. Along with Burras, a trusted friend, they were the power behind Nero’s throne for five years with Seneca’s skills in public relations superb.
In this period Seneca obtained enormous wealth both in money and property (over three hundred million sestercii), a very large number indeed. Seneca began to rival even Cicero for his wisdom and skill. Daily self-examination, meditative practices, the literature of self-scrutiny matched the sort of interior self-evaluation we see today in Virginia Woolf, Proust and Joyce, argues Emily Wilson. (p.107) In addition his output of satire, violent tragedies, metaphysical theory and moral and political discussions was enormous although not all has survived. Seneca wrote deeply and powerfully within the Stoic tradition.
In due time as Nero became more and more sure of himself he found less demanding advisers and became increasingly erratic and fickle and dangerous in his behaviours. Seneca could see the dangers and tried to withdraw from public life and give back to Nero much of his immense wealth. Nero refused his offer and Seneca sensed coming danger. He solved this problem by “being everywhere and nowhere”. He travelling widely within his own properties, never long in any one place. At the same time he reduced his diet to an absolute minimum to avoid poisoning opportunities. Seneca used this time to produce some of his most famous writing much of which has survived and includes some of the key tenets of Stoicism
Seneca deserves his reputation as a truly impressive, influential and wise man. He was not the perfect wise philosopher; he was not always consistent; he was not always kind to his wives; but he did try very hard to live up to his Stoic philosophy and to help others. Christian theologians in the early centuries tried very hard to fit Seneca’s philosophy into a type of Christian living (except Augustine, who would have none of him!) There is a possibility that Seneca met Paul the Apostle on Paul’s journeys. Certainly Seneca’s brother Novatus had been appointed as the Roman magistrate or proconsul in charge of Achaea and appears in Acts making a decision to throw out complaints made by Jewish opponents of Paul. (Acts 18:12-16)
Emily Wilson has a very helpful epilogue in this book in which she tracks the ways in which Seneca’s philosophy has been both popular and unpopular in various periods of European history. He made a huge impact in the writing of Montaigne’s Essays. This is a wonderful book especially if reading the whole of Seneca’s extant writing is a step too far which it certainly is for me.
Many of Seneca’s aphorisms have stood the test of time. Attached are a selection of Seneca’s aphorisms discussed in Wilson’s Seneca: A Life.
– leisure without study is death; it’s burial for a living man.
– it would be better if some parents never gave birth.
– everyone is the source of their own success.
– only virtue is essential for happiness
-vices tempt you by the rewards they offer.
– While I stood high, my fear was endless; I was even frightened of my own sword. How good it is, to stand in no-one’s way, to eat your dinner safely, lying on the ground.
– Even a sick lion can bite!
– Among the rest of our troubles, this one is the worst of all, that we even change our vices…our problem is that our choices are not just bad but fickle. …we abandon the things we tried to obtain, we search out the things we’ve abandoned, in a state of constant oscillation between desire and regret.
– There’s no easy path from earth to the stars.
– how despicable humans are, unless we rise above the human!
– We must reconcile ourselves to the inevitability of death.
– We’re all saved for death.
– He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.
– Continuous writing makes one depressed and exhausted; continuous reading makes one lax and weak.
– show me a person who isn’t a slave.
– It is not the writer’s job to teach, but that of the reader himself.
– the main part of progress is wanting to progress.
– I have sold myself to no-one; I have no master’s name.”
– What we all do, every day, is begin to die.
– the best comfort is to keep one’s memories intact.
– from the end of one desire springs up another.
– “The greatest proof of an evil mind is fluctuation, and constant wavering between the pretence of virtue and the love of vice.
– one’s life should match one’s teaching.
– nobody is ever changed by precepts..either you teach somebody who already knows how to behave well, or else you teach somebody who does not know, and precepts will never be enough to change him.
– Just because philosophy can’t cure everything, doesn’t mean it can’t cure anything.
– Virtue is aroused by a touch or a shock.
– Everything belongs to other people; only time belongs to us.
– money never makes one rich; enough is never too little. 5 stars and rising.
Christopher Marlowe: The Tragical History ofDoctor Faustus, Ed. & Intro., J. B. Steane, p/b, Ringwood, Penguin, 1969 (in Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays.)
Christopher Marlowe (born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare), wrote five major plays as well as a translation of Ovid’s Amores, the lengthy Hero and Leander and many other poems, in addition to his five major plays. Traditionally Marlowe has been regarded as a hothead and an atheist but this summation is based on very little information about his life. We know only that there was a street fight after which Marlowe was arrested and bound over to keep the peace, and that he performed some services for the Government of the day in Europe; and that a week or so before he died he was summoned to report to the Council. His death is well known since the Coroner’s Report has been researched. After a quiet meal and afternoon in a private home with four friends a dispute arose about the reckoning. Marlowe was said to have suddenly attacked one of them and in the ensuing struggle killed his opponent in self defence.
As regards religion, on the basis of a written statement by one Richard Baines two days after Marlowe’s death, Marlowe is said to have been an atheist, and one utterly scorning God and his ministers. Similarly one Richard Chomley, charged with atheism, argued in his defence that Marlowe is able to show more sound reasons for atheism that any divine in England is able to give to prove Christianity. Likewise the playwright Thomas Kyd, under arrest for atheism, also made accusations regarding atheism against Marlowe! The fact remains that the predominant themes of both Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine are thoroughly Christian in their content, and as J B Steane, the editor of this volume remarks, neither of them are readily conceivable as the work of an atheist in the modern sense of the word. (p.16). Let readers enjoy Doctor Faustus and make up their own minds regarding his view of God!
The origin of the Doctor Faustus story is based on a C15th story about a scholar and magician Johann Faust, born in 1488, who allegedly sold his soul to the Devil to gain magical powers and spent his life wandering through his German homeland until his death in 1587. The first story of his life, translated into English in 1502 was titled The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor Faustus.
The extraordinary German polymath Goethe wrote a demanding two volume account of Doctor Faustus simply called Faust. He began Faust in 1773 and continued to work on it sporadically, not completing the work until a year before his death in 1832! Equally demanding is the German writer Thomas Mann’s Dr Faustus written in the United States in 1947. Mann linked his version of Faustus with his constant theme of the character and role of the artist especially in relation to the Nazi regime and further elaborated on the Faustus theme in The Genesis of Dr Faustus in 1949. At least four major movies of the Doctor Faustus theme have been created.
The Faust story and theme is traumatic in the extreme. Twenty four years seems a long time to have power and lust fulfilled but as the time draws near for Mephistopheles to have his way so does Faust’s fear grow and his desire to recant. Marlowe’s Faust is doomed for eternity whereas Goethe’s version has a happier ending. 5 stars.
John Julius Norwich: The Popes: A History, p/b, Camberwell, Penguin, 2011
Church Historian John Julius Norwich has written an outstanding three volume study of the Byzantine era as well as a major two volume study of the Normans in Sicily alongside many other studies of European history. His study of the Popes is a massive achievement. While detailed information of the earliest period of Christian history is harder to find, Norwich plots a clear and helpful path through the complexity and challenges of emerging Christian faith in the Roman Empire as well as the tension between Constantinople and Rome for superiority and power. Constantine’s decision to embrace the Christian faith and the subsequent theological disputes are well covered as well as the chaos caused in Europe by the collapse of the Roman Empire. From Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) onwards every significant pope and antipope is given individual attention.
For the Christian reader much of this story makes for terrifying reading. Nepotism, greed, gross immorality and pride dominated the mind of most of those who were appointed by the largely Italian cardinals. Since the popes had temporal as well as spiritual powers they became “kings” of their own fiefs negotiating and fighting for their rights alongside the powerful Italian states including Venice, Genoa, Ravenna, Sicily, Bologna and many others. Even more intrusive were the regular armies from Austria, France, Spain and Germany, not to forget Napoleon, who regularly invaded the Italian Peninsula in search of wealth, power and influence. The Pope became a political power (although with limited military strength) up against the Holy Roman Emperor from Charlemagne onwards, the Various kings of France and Spain and not forgetting the Normans who took over Sicily. On a regular basis Rome was sacked and brought to the ground with the Pope retreating to Avignon in France or to Bologne or some other bolt hole.
Somehow through all of this destructive chaos papal authority of some sort continued eventually facing the upheaval of the Reformation and the development of the Counter Reformation. It is at this point that some genuine spirituality emerged from the Catholic revolution created to rebuff Protestantism alongside the extension of Catholic faith overseas as new continents were discovered. Meanwhile in Europe warfare between nations and powers continued from the C15th to the C21st with the Papacy playing various roles and eventually losing their temporal power to European nationhood with their “statehood” limited to the Vatican City. Norwich deals well with the C20th popes good and bad and his analysis concludes with a study of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict V1) The C20th failure of Pope Pius X11[1939-58] to speak for, defend and protect the Jewish community is a standing tragedy and horror in this story.
Although this story is complex Norwich’s style is hard to put down. It leaves the Christian reader with much to think about and is a reminder that political leaders who claim to speak for the Christian Gospel are rare, face significant challenges and need much courage and prayer. 5 stars.
Alex Miller: A Brief Affair, p/b, Sydney, Allen & Unwin
Alex Miller is in my top five authors of all time. He is now 85 and I did not think we would see a new novel from him but here it is. A Brief Affair is vintage Miller with his central themes of the Australian bush, love/family/marriage, the alienation and failure of soul in education especially in Victoria. Above all Miller has the courageous willingness to dig deep and give meaning to the well springs of human thriving in our short stay on this planet.
His central character, Fran, forty two years old, is happily married with two children but yet seeking meaning and Spirit in her life and work. She lives between country and a daily lengthy commute to the city.. an increasingly popular yet challenging life for those who love the bush but for various reasons need to work in the city. We only have one life on this planet and whether rich or poor Miller suggests we need to have good reasons to get up in the morning and truly “be”.
In my view Miller is the true heir of Patrick White in the ability of both men to “see into the life of things” and write powerfully and insightfully about both the banalities and the deep and sometimes dry spirituality of the Australian emptiness. The human experience would be a poorer place without Alex Miller to nudge us into a genuine search for meaning and truth each time we get up in the morning. 5 stars.
Outstanding horse racing and art history novel based around the mid-C19th American race horse Lexington, arguably the greatest race horse of all time and certainly the most celebrated and important breeding horse in the history of racing. The key figures, horse industry operators Robert Aitcheson Alexander, Richard Ten Broeck, Cassius Marcellus Clay and his wife Mary Jane and her daughter Mary Barr Clay, William Johnson, Harry Lewis, Willa Viley, Elisha Warfield Jr and John Benjamin Pryor and artists Thomas J. Scott and Edward Troy are all historical figures. The New York art collector and Gallery owner Martha Jackson is also a genuine person.
Geraldine Brooks has woven a fictional story around this amazing horse and its owners and trainers based around Jarret, a young negro groomer and trainer. The fictional relationship between the boy and his horse is powerful and mesmerising.
The narrative jumps between the C19th and the C21st as Jess a fictional Australian scientist and her close friend Theo, Nigerian-American art historian piece together what became of Lexington’s skeleton and the paintings Thomas J. Scott made of the great horse. Inevitably the narrative is tangled up with the horrific events surrounding the American Civil War as well as the trauma of race relations in America in both the C19th and the C21st.
The result is a novel which requires attention, close reading and either a good vocabulary or an iPhone handy for some unfamiliar language. Whilst the chapter jumps between centuries was initially annoying the sheer magnetic power of the novel soon takes over. 5 stars.
Michael Reeves: Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith, p/b, Downers Grove, IVP Academic, 2012
What a delight to find an intelligible, easy to read and deeply Scriptural account of the doctrine of the Trinity. Michael Reeves, a theological advisor for the English Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) has written a book about the Trinity I found hard to put down. In five clearly written chapters Reeves asks the question What was God doing before Creation? and then spends three chapters dealing with the themes of Creation, Salvation and the The Christian Life. The final chapter discusses the uniqueness of the Christian understanding of God.
Reeves has a light touch but manages to cover a vast amount of ground. It is not a “how to” book for Christians. Rather it is a love story about one God in three persons. Reeves demonstrates that the Trinity is the vital oxygen of the Christian life and joy. It is understandable because the triune God has revealed himself to us. We do not need theologians five hundred years after Christ to explain the Trinity. The Apostle Paul understood clearly that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11).The Trinity is not a mystery, it is a spiritual truth emerging from the New Testament.
Reeves explains the meaning and joy of the doctrine of the Trinity with clarity, humour and a wealth of very readable historical data and more particularly with the help of numerous key figures in the history of Christian faith. Along the way he includes a helpful critique of Islamic theology about the nature of God, the challenge of Gnosticism, the problem of evil and its explanation, Pelagianism, as well as insights into musical harmony, mathematics and atheism.
Reeves pays particular attention to the Puritans especially Jonathan Edwards’ writings but also references Tolkien, Luther, Calvin and Hitchins amongst many others. He is a critic of Schleiermacher and who made the Trinity “a mere appendix to the Christian faith” and is also a critic of Adolf von Harnack who dismissed the Trinity altogether.
Delighting in the Trinity is an enjoyable read. I know of no other book on the Trinity that could be said to be “enjoyable”! 5 stars.
Theological, Cultural and Educational Reflections 