variety show

On our recent road trip to take my sister to university, I read The Case of the Late Pig, Police at the Funeral, and Tether's End, all Margery Allingham mysteries. The first two were good, but the last one was rather badly written. I'd be somewhat surprised if Allingham actually wrote it, but maybe she was just in a hurry.

Road trips are excellent occasions for doing a lot of reading. I also read Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung, a good, basic, Christian common sense book about making decisions. It's short, simple, and easy to read, so even if you're looking for a quick read, this would be an excellent one. His point is surprisingly basic. Gavin, I think you would find his analysis of modern youth culture interesting after Honors last year. He deals with contemporary college students' propensity for drifting in a refreshingly Biblical way.

Also on the road, I read aloud Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede. It's the first in a series of young adult fiction. Charmingly written, full of little witticisms. It pokes loving fun at fairytales. Another good light read (though, of course, much different from DeYoung's book!).

From here on out, it's the Norton Anthology and GRE prep books for me!

Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light

Leonard Shlain, a surgeon from California, began this project after visiting an art museum with his young daughter. He realized that in the cases of some modern works, he could not explain to her why they qualified as "art" at all! What, he wondered, was modern art trying to communicate, and why was so much of modern art difficult to comprehend?

Shlain concluded after extensive research that "the radical innovations of art embody the preverbal stages of new concepts" concerning the nature of reality. Art and Physics explores how different styles of art (from ancient times to the modern era) have treated space, time, and light; then compares the artistic vision to the work of scientists trying to grasp those same concepts. He believes that artists have often portrayed ideas about, for example, the nature of light or the relativity of space before physicists arrived at those same ideas.

If artists really are unknowingly creating works that anticipate cutting-edge physics, what could explain such prescience? (Pardon the pun.) That question pulls Shlain into metaphysical territory. He suggests that the existence of a universal mind -"an overarching, disembodied universal consciousness that binds and organizes the power generated by every person's thoughts" - could explain "how an artist can incorporate ideas into his or her work that have not as yet been discovered by physicists and that are certainly unknown to the general public."

The strengths of this book are that it is very readable and that it assembles incredibly wide-ranging material into a coherent narrative. However, I doubt that an expert in physics or in art would be entirely satisfied with Shlain's exposition. The book's subject is simply too broad for its thesis to be rigorously supported.

* * * *

I googled the author's name before posting this, and learned that Leonard Shlain died this year. He wrote three other books after Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light. Each has an ambitious title: The Alphabet Vs. The Goddess: the Conflict Between Word and Image; Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution; and Leonardo's Brain: the Left-Right Roots of Creativity (the third book will be published posthumously in 2010). It sounds like he was a remarkable person who enjoyed synthesizing information to get a big-picture perspective on the human story.

Funny in Farsi

One of my roommates this year is from Iran. It has been very interesting to hear her talk about her life in her home country. She loaned me a memoir by an woman who moved from Iran to America as a child. The book describes cultural clashes and family quirks in a lively and humorous way. Even serious topics, like the suspicion that Iranian immigrants were subjected to during the hostage crisis, are treated with a light touch. Reading Funny in Farsi was a pleasant way to learn a little bit more about Iran's culture.

Mystery Mile

Actually, I read this book about a week ago, but then I had to put a moratorium on book reading for awhile so that I could finish some other work. Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham is the second in her series of Albert Campion mysteries. Allingham's mysteries are somewhere on the food chain below Dorothy Sayers but above Agatha Christie, in my opinion. Her detective, Campion, is a hilarious fellow, very colorful, with an even more colorful sidekick, Lugg, who is the requisite manservant. Allingham's dialogue is pure joy to read. I read some online reviews that were less than complimentary of her ability to construct a good mystery plot; nevertheless, her books are excellent light reads. They're set in roughly the same time period as Sayers's mysteries and concern roughly the same social class, but with much less of the Austin-esque social commentary. I plan to read more when I have a chance.

The Perilous Gard

Amanda and Syneva recommended this book to me several years ago, but I never could get my hands on a copy of it until a friend of mine in Stillwater happened to mention it. I read it in an afternoon. The story is set in Elizabethan England (or the reign of Queen Mary, Elizabeth's predecessor, to be precise). Kate, the main character, is sent to a castle called the Perilous Gard for what paranoid Queen Mary decides is treason. The story unfolds from there. It's one of those excellent tales that both explains old legends and treats a world-within-a-world. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's written for young adult readers, but it combines historical fiction and mystery and is very well-written. At one point an unusual Gospel presentation is even made. A good quick read.

Geeks in Las Vegas

I read Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, an old bestseller that was made into a movie, 21. I haven't seen the movie, but the book gave me a slight adrenaline rush as I entered the world of MIT students who beat the system at casinos by using their highly skilled card counting techniques to give themselves a statistical edge in blackjack. Over the course of a few years, the blackjack team raked in millions of dollars, and eventually the casinos caught on and barred them from returning. As a Harvard graduate, Mezrich has social connections with interesting people-- one of his acquaintances was on this blackjack team, and this year he published another book about the inside story of Facebook's origins by interviewing other people he knew. The story is highly entertaining and very well-written. I recommend it enthusiastically, with reservations; read it if you want a vivid picture of the modern equivalent of Babylon.

At the end of the book, there is an essay by the (real-life) main character, describing a basic card counting technique. It sounds simple, but it's no easy feat to track cards accurately through six decks while acting like a drunk novice to deflect suspicion.

When I visited Vegas, the only thing that interested me was taking pictures of the cool chandeliers and slot machines. I would not have done that if I realized how many cameras were tracking my every movement, and that people must have been eyeing me suspiciously until they realized I was just a silly, bored, underage girl-- no threat at all. The city is a twisted Neverland, for those who want to live in an endless frat party.

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

Just finished The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty last night. She's a prolific author, so it's a formidable collection. Her early stories are very similar to Flannery O'Connor's in some ways. Southern Gothic. She tends to give a gritty, depressing picture of normal life in the South. The small, isolated towns in which her stories are set give her the opportunity to explore the darker side of human nature. However, as her style develops, her style becomes more and more beautiful. Though she doesn't leave behind her dark thematic material, she treats it more gently, with more pathos. Her later stories have some really lovely moments in them. Her ability to weave similes and metaphors is unparalleled, and I went through my copy with a pencil underlining the best bits. Nevertheless, one has to take these stories a few at a time. Read a couple, then go find something a bit more cheerful.

The Most of P.G. Wodehouse (etc.)

First, as an aside: Last night some friends and I watched Secondhand Lions, which is a hilarious film except for the attempt at moral values in the middle. One of the characters tells another character just to "Believe!" in something. "It doesn't matter if it's true or not! Just believe!" was the mantra. That moment reminded me of The Screwtape Letters, where Screwtape plumes himself on the fact that evil has been able to convince humans just to "believe" without any regard for the truth of belief. The essentially wonderful thing about the Christian Gospel is that it is true, C.S. Lewis seems to be saying. Otherwise, what would be the point?

(Though he seems to undercut this in The Silver Chair, where Puddleglum declares to the witch that he's going to live like a Narnian whether or not there is a Narnia. A point for discussion?)

Anyway, last night I finished The Most of P.G. Wodehouse, a collection of several of his short stories plus a novel. A delightful read. His style draws you in and addicts you to its sheer light-heartedness. His characters are all completely laughable. My favorites are Jeeves and Wooster, of course, but the members of the Drones Club could be Wooster's twin brothers. I love Wodehouse's gentle satire of British aristocratic life. I rather wish someone with the same sort of humor could write similar satires about today's culture. Though perhaps today we have the opposite problem. P.G. Wodehouse slags off his young aristocrats for refusing to do any useful work, but in our American culture we seem to have glorified work to an extreme.

Pontius Pilate

This book by Paul Maier is one I bought at the McFarlin book sale for two dollars, and is billed as a "biographical novel." It blends both Biblical, historical, and traditional sources to paint a probable portrait of Pilate's life. The notes explain that several orthodox churches have a tradition of Pilate's wife Procula being an early convert and celebrate her as a saint, and the Ethiopian Orthodox actually have St. Pilate and St. Procula's day, indicating a belief that Pilate also converted. The book does not take a stand on whether they ultimately did, but the book does offer a large amount of accurate historical data about the rules of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius and the governorship of Pilate. It was interesting to read this one right after the Anne Rice book, they were complements from different perspectives.

Pilate has short interactions in the book with several Biblical figures, including Paul, the Centurion Cornelius (who, Maier notes, Pilate almost certainly would have met, given how few Roman officers were in Judea at that time), and of course Jesus. It gives context to many of the occurrences of the Bible, including the identities of the "Herodians" who succeeded Herod the Great, their actions, and Pilate's authority with respect to Christ's prosecution.

It makes the interesting theological point, through Paul, in fact, that the presence of Pilate was to indicate the guilt of Gentiles in the death of Christ. Based on this and a reference in the preface, I feel that Maier was trying very hard not to write anything that could be construed as anti-semitic, but nonetheless I think it is a legitimate point and a true interpretation. Though I do wonder what all of you think about this point and the method of its presentation. Actually, having delved slightly into the genre of religious fiction set in Biblical times, I was wondering what your opinions might be on that type of writing.

Certainly this is a recommendable book, though there is a lot more darkness in it, what with the Roman politics, Caligula, Tiberius, and all, than in many of the others. It is intensely interesting if you have a interest in ancient history.

The Phantom Tollbooth

This came at the very enthusiastic recommendations of Asher and Katie, and a sale at Borders.

It is one of the best children's books, the kind that still holds legitimate appeal for adults.

A bored and dull young boy gains entrance to another world though the Phantom Tollbooth, and there he learns some lessons from a very interesting set of characters, through a series of harrowing adventures. It bears similarities to Narnia, then, but without Christian undertones.

With humor, wit, and an impressive (but not pompous) vocabulary, it pokes fun at some illogical human tendencies that suck the enjoyment out of life, and teaches us to live wisely and richly.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

This is a book that Anne Rice, of vampire fame, wrote after reconverting to Catholicism. It is the story of Jesus and his family, when he was about seven years old, leaving Alexandria and traveling to Nazareth in the Holy Land after the death of Herod the Great. It draws on both Biblical, historical, and other sources, such as one reference to Christ creating birds out of clay while bored. Real, flying, living birds, which was startling to his friends and classmates, to say the least. At the beginning of the novel, he also curses a kid who bullies him and his cousins, causing that boy to instantly die, and then promptly brings him back from the dead.

It is interesting how Jesus' divine nature is handled in the book. Naturally, he is not omniscient, as that would make such a first person narrative almost impossible. But he does have power and instant theological knowledge, and he heals people at several points. I think Rice did a difficult job well and managed to not include anything very theologically questionable

The main plot of the book centers around Christ trying to discover the truth about the circumstances surrounding his birth, in particular the killing of the innocents, which, understandably, no one in his family will talk about to him, and none of the rabbis he meets wish to discuss with a small child. So it is a mystery novel, but one to which the reader knows the solution.

Overall, I recommend this book very highly. It is easy to read, well written, and contains some beautiful scenes both of family life and of religious devotion, though, at the same time, there are some very horrible things that happen in it during the turmoil surrounding Herod's death.

Hard Times

Hard Times is at heart Dickens' critique of economists and utilitarians, and so the book was at times slightly incensing, in that it seemed to portray people like me and Rachel as nothing but rational calculators, and this oversimplification and mischaracterization was certainly the genesis of a stream of disutility that led to sub-optimality in terms of both pure utility and productivity for me for the period of three days, four hours, and eighteen minutes, but I digress.

The criticism of early utilitarianism is much more potent than that of economics, as the main family in question, the Gradgrinds, bring up their children much as James Mill raised J.S. Mill, leading to horrific consequences in terms of their happiness and character. The book demonstrates the obvious effects of depriving children of play, imagination, and emotion. It seems that Dickens did not fully understand the economics of his day, and does not address their arguments abstractly, but does point out the flaws of early classical economics by offering clear examples of serious pollution and individuals caught in machinery. These, particularly the first, are now seen as inefficient and detrimental by economists, and of course the second is seen as just as horrible and barbaric as it always was. Thus what he lacks in abstract understanding Dickens makes up for in practical example.

The book is, overall, quite humorous and interesting, although not as good as either David Copperfield or Oliver Twist. It is certainly worth the time it takes to read it, though.

The Screwtape Letters

We seem to be doing well for variety on this blog....

I read The Screwtape Letters Friday evening as a change from Eudora Welty. Every time I read Screwtape, I come away scared. Ironic, since the book is all about the devil's ultimate defeat in the case of his "patient" and about the power of God to deliver a man from the clutches of the evil one. In some ways, I wonder if C.S. Lewis doesn't attribute too much to the devil's power and too little to our own sinful natures. Whichever the case, the book makes a strong warning against certain common Christian vices. I found the chapters or letters on prayer and on spiritually dry times to be particularly valuable. The need for us as believers to focus on Christ and solidly grounded on the truth of His Word is never more important.

The Big Sleep

This is a classic detective novel, by Raymond Chandler, the first of those he wrote featuring the detective Philip Marlow. Marlow is engaged by the elderly General Sternwood to look into attempts by several men to blackmail him based on potential impropriety on the part of his younger daughter. At the same time, it appears that the General wants to find the husband of his other daughter, a man whose company he had enjoyed in his seriously infirm condition, who appears to have left for another woman, but has also disappeared entirely.

Crystal's post made me think of this because it involves many scenes of the same empty decadence. The General is very rich from oil and his daughters are able to behave as they please, with their indiscretions covered up by Marlow and their butler. Their carelessness and the machinations of the criminal world are ultimately juxtaposed against the simple need of the old General for companionship as he is slowly dying, after numerous people have been killed out of greed and for revenge. The novel is stark, but not entirely bleak, if that makes any sense, and the genesis of the conflict is revealed to be a spitefulness on the part of one of the daughters that qualifies as mental illness. This makes it ambiguous as to whether their lifestyle caused the conflict or an inborn trait which caused the mental illness, with strong hints towards the latter.

Given that my brother was assigned this book for school I was surprised by its content, though Chandler does an excellent job of portraying extreme vice without being graphic. I would recommend this book highly, even though detective novels are not usually my cup of tea.

The summer brain drain, intellectual inertia, and Gossip Girl

I have lost interest / motivation to read most, if not all, of the books on the list I posted in May.

And this is one of many reasons I've decided I'm not quite ready for seminary yet. Please, no more compulsory reading and writing for a year. It will be nice to read and write because I want to, not because I have to. So I'll be in Tulsa for this year.

I've read books at Borders, for entertainment, that are probably not worth talking or writing about, in the sense that they are unlikely ever to be considered part of the canon of great books worth studying. (Well, perhaps they will be of academic interest 50 years from now, as a snapshot of the turn-of-the-century cultural moment. And they are definitely "flarfable.")

I had first read Gossip Girl when I was 16, around when it first came out (and when I was still legitimately part of the target audience). I picked it up again this summer because I wanted something mindless to replace television, and I certainly succeeded. It glorifies the lifestyle of girls attending private school in New York City, whose wealthy parents give them limitless credit cards and almost no restrictions or supervision. (Apparently the author either was one of these girls, or went to school with them.) This glamorous life revolves around endless parties, and the bitchily condescending prose is peppered with enough references to designer clothes to sound quite ridiculous. The anonymous Gossip Girl is a character in the series who provides a blog update every couple of chapters, referencing the other characters.

I can't give a satisfactory explanation for why I kept reading, but it was entertaining. Whatever it is, it must be the same reason that reality TV shows are so popular.

It was interesting because there are really people who are like that, and because having a lot of money doesn't make them happy. It is a hollow thing they take for granted, even while they elevate it to one of the most essential elements of their identity. In the midst of all this material wealth, there is still great relational poverty-- the parental neglect that I mentioned before makes friends and peers (and their approval) even more important. The self-absorbed, wealthy parents are always going off to operas, and they have a tacit agreement with their children: you can do and have whatever you want, as long as you don't embarrass us. The luxury suite penthouses are stocked with lots of liquor to fuel the endless parties, and condoms, just in case.

After a while, I began to feel sorry for them, and I wanted them to grow up.

At the center of the series is two girls and a guy -- a formula that permeates pop culture, dating back at least to Archie comics, and probably further. In case you don't recognize it, it is a best friend / love triangle, in which both girls are in love with the noncommital guy, who is generally "loves" them both. Since none of you are ever going to read these, I'll spoil the ending: the guy finally decides to go sailing around the world for a year, instead of choosing a serious relationship with one of his beautiful friends. This is the first decision he makes as a man, after drifting through life in a haze of constant pot smoke since eighth grade, playing lacrosse, hooking up with any of the constantly available girls he wanted (in addition to the main two), and getting mediocre grades.

The ending gives a false sense that they are going to grow up and be okay, until you remember their self-absorbed, shallow parents, and realize that this is most likely their future. How depressing.

---

After I finished reading this series, I dug back into my treasure trove of books from my 20th century American lit class. I found two books there that bear some surface similarities to Gossip Girl, but are considered intellectual: Edith Wharton's House of Mirth and Mary McCartney's The Group.

Like Gossip Girl, these are about young women in New York high society. The Group follows the lives of eight popular girls graduating from Vassar between the world wars, and it seems like most of the chapters are set in New York. According to the accolades printed on the back, it is a great social history. Indeed, it seems thoroughly researched, saturated with authentic-sounding references to politics, food, businesses, slang, cultural trends, and everything else of the time. After my re-reading of it, I came away with a fierce hatred of one of the characters' husbands, which, for me, distinguishes it as a great book. Not many books provoke strong emotions in me; my reaction is usually, "Hm, that's interesting."

House of Mirth is a tragedy about a young woman, bred for high society, whose downfall results from conflicting and irreconcilable circumstances and personal inclinations. She is shallow and wants money to maintain her lifestyle, but not shallow enough to marry for money. She is too flighty to focus on a viable course of action (marry for money at the sacrifice of dignity, or uphold dignity and deal with the dinginess of a cheap apartment and membership in the working class). Her mood, outlook on life, and even her entire worldview vary in direct correlation with her physical surroundings. Luxury eases her into ignoring her problems and feeling good, while dinginess, a quality her mother taught her to fear and despise, reminds her of her bleak life situation and checkbook balance. Reading about her downfall made me feel panicky, even though I had read it before, because I realize that I, too, could be this foolish and irrational (although in somewhat different ways). What if I mess up my life with indecision?

The heroine's friends were never truly caring. Society valued a person solely according to his or her money and amusing / impressive qualities. I'd like to think that they might have helped her more than they did, if she had asked, and that her downfall really accelerated when she cut herself off from them, but I dare not contradict the very knowledgeable author. Before marriage, she was Edith Jones, an influential family in New York we still remember in our colloquial phrase, "keeping up with the Joneses."

--

I wish I could finish this small study by taking a trip to New York. Maybe I can do it by next spring. Who wants to come with me?

The Life of Henry George

A book that I read this summer that is not on my initial reading list is a biography of American social thinker Henry George. The man's son, Henry George Jr, wrote it in 1904 and dedicated it "to all who strive for the reign of justice."

Henry George’s life was more varied and adventurous than you might expect of a nineteenth-century self-taught economist. When he was young he voyaged to Australia and India. A few years later he sailed to California to make his fortune. He never “struck it rich,” but he did work as a typesetter, elope with a Catholic girl from Australia, and eventually get mixed up in politics.

It is an engaging story, and it actually helps the reader understand why Henry George developed his ideas. Living in California for much of his life, Henry George watched land values skyrocket due to speculation. He saw “robber barons” become fabulously wealthy with the help of land grants and government subsidies. At the same time, it was becoming more difficult for a common laborer to make a living. It is not suprising that Henry George advocated abolishing taxes on labor and on capital and replacing them with a tax on land’s unimproved value. I suspect that his arguments are not quite as persuasive as they probably were in Henry George's day.

But Henry George was convinced that he had discovered a timeless truth. He was confident that this truth must eventually prevail. And when it did prevail, he was sure that it would end inequality, poverty, and misery. This was Henry George’s gospel, and he preached it with tireless zeal.

On Free Choice of the Will, by Augustine

The title of this book is somewhat misleading, as it does not address the issue of free will in the sense of free will versus predestination. Rather, it is about the way in which human beings will to sin and therefore render themselves worthy of punishment. It is a dialogue which begins with the question "Please tell me: isn't God the cause of all evil?" asked of Augustine by his companion Evodius. They determine that the will is a good that is given by God, that is misused in the doing of evil. Therefore God is not the cause of evil, but the cause of the will. The entire point of the book, then, is that God is the source of all that which is good, and of nothing that is truly evil. It was written against the Manichees, a sect Augustine was quite opposed to and used to belong to, and Augustine later directed it against the Pelagians, after they arose and tried to use it to support their views.

There are several other good points in the book, such as the distinction between those things possessing existence, possessing life, and possessing reason, which is a helpful and neat classification. Perhaps the best point outside of the main theme is the description of the way in which those things which are unchanging are preferable to those which are mutable for procuring happiness. This leads to the conclusion that dependency on material objects for happiness when we may depend on God is incorrect and foolish, something that is seldom, if ever, brought up in our comfortable heavily industrialized society.

As a side note, Rachel, I recall that your brother was intending to do some philosophy reading, this would be a good book for him to take a look at, in my opinion.

Puck of Pook's Hill

While I was in St. Andrew's with Nicole and Alyson, we went to a used bookstore where I found two very old books by Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. I'm fairly sure that they're out of print now, so I was delighted to have come across them.

They're historical fiction meant for children. Two children living in "modern" England meet Puck, who then introduces them to people from moments in England's past so that the book becomes a sort of novel about British history in very simplified form. They're well-written, of course, since it is Kipling, and each chapter has a ballad before it.

While I was flying back on Tuesday, I read Puck of Pook's Hill. I read both books way back in highschool, and they still make for a charming light read.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

This book by Adam Smith is the one he was actually known for during his lifetime, rather than the Wealth of Nations. The book is basically a system of morality based upon the feelings of individuals, as corrected by reason. Smith outlines the source of moral sentiments about the feelings and virtues of others as the sympathy that individuals have with the feelings of others. Hence, if someone throws a rotten pomegranate at me, then, sympathizing with my resentment for that action, others will feel that it is just for that person to be rebuked or punished, if it is done in proportion to the action taken. Thus most would consent to the person being ticketed, but would not sympathize with a demand on my part to have the offender beheaded, and would consider such to be a symptom of vice. Further, each individual may gauge their own sentiments using the 'impartial observer in their own breast' to paraphrase, thereby avoiding excess or deficiency in feeling.

Smith includes a summary of various other systems of morality and distinguishes his system from them, dividing them into systems based on propriety, such as those of Aristotle and Plato as well as Stoicism, systems based on selfish virtue (prudence), such as Epicureanism, and those based on benevolence, such as Neo-Platonism. This was interesting in that I had formerly heard of Smith being a Stoic, but he emphatically denies this claim himself, criticizing this philosophical school as being inhumane in its lack of emotion. Also, it appears that he may have misunderstood Epicureanism, in that he states that Epicureans would seek office for the comforts of it, whereas what I have read of them seems to indicate that they would regard this as a source of anxiety, which would be contrary to their philosophy. However, this does not really detract from his overall point.

This book is extremely edifying but very long and the writing style is convoluted. The only books I have read that are more difficult to read are by Edmund Burke and possibly John Locke, and the joke I normally tell about Burke's style is that his sentences are longer than his paragraphs. So, if you can handle the sheer volume of subordinate clauses, then I recommend this book very strongly.

Little Dorrit

This is one of Dickens’ “dark novels,” the preface of my edition informs me. One of its themes is captivity: the first chapter introduces the reader to two prisoners in Marseilles; we later meet good-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Meagles waiting to be taken out of quarantine; and Our Heroine Little Dorrit was born and raised in a debtor’s prison. Each of these characters, and many more, come to play an important part in a plot so intricate that it is positively... Dickensian. Typical of Dickens, too, are the book’s castigation of social ills (although in this case, government bureaucracy is a principle target), the quick changes in mood from heart-wringing pathos to satirical comedy, the dramatic changes of fortunes of the protagonists, and the distinctiveness of the characters.

All of this I expected. What surprised me was that Dickens – long before Alan Greenspan spoke of “irrational exuberance” or John Maynard Keynes discussed “animal spirits” – created an insightful description of a speculative financial boom and bust. Given the blame that has been cast on today’s macroeconomic and financial models for our current economic woes, the plight of Mr. Pancks seemed startlingly relevant:

'It was my misfortune to lead him into a ruinous investment.' (Mr Pancks still clung to that word, and never said speculation.) 'Though I can prove by figures,' added Mr Pancks, with an anxious countenance, 'that it ought to have been a good investment. I have gone over it since it failed, every day of my life, and it comes out—regarded as a question of figures—triumphant.' ...These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation of every moment of his leisure since he had lost his money, and were destined to afford him consolation to the end of his days.

Is anyone else a huge fan of Charles Dickens? Reading Little Dorrit reminded me why I love his books.

Sophie's World

One of my greatest fears is running out of reading material on a trip, which I may be in danger of doing. Today I finished Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. Since I had read it before, the ending wasn't much of a surprise.

The book basically gives a series of philosophy lessons framed by a novel about two teenage girls. The worldviews of the philosophies, from Plato onward, are played out in the plot of the novel. Thus, as the philosophy course approaches contemporary times, the novel becomes increasingly strange, even surreal. The counterpoint between philosophy lessons and the novel itself would take a lot of time to appreciate fully.

Though the book is well-written, Gaarder's worldview presents difficulties for a Christian reader. He's definitely feminist, and emphasizes environmental concerns, especially at the end. Though he is careful not to subscribe to any one philosophy, the novel definitely takes postmodern twists toward the end. Perhaps Gaarder's very carefulness about not supporting any particular philosophy is a symbol of the postmodern age.

The NIght Climbers, Turpentine, and 2010: Odyssey 2

These are three books I read whilst in Belize, all fiction.

1. The Night Climbers is the first book by Ivo Stourton, which is about several students at Cambridge and after, told through flashbacks, coping with their extravagant lifestyle and the crime they end up committing to support their opulence. The conflict centers on the relationship between the main character and the self-destructive yet utterly charismatic leader of their group. The ending feels slightly weird, but is believable and brings about fairly comprehensive resolution.

2. Turpentine is the first book of Spring Warren, and is the story of Bayard Turrentine (Last Name) the Third; I am writing this from memory. "Turpentine", as he is nicknamed, is an invalid sent to the West to recuperate at a Sanatorium that turns out not to exist. The sheer fact that he is away from his doctor means that he improves, and he proceeds to meet a variety of interesting persons, including a transvestite, an insane paleontologist, various Irish people who include his love interest and possibly the worst behaved child imaginable, a painter, Mormons, and an extremely stubborn, yet quite sensitive, horse. The book is well written, but is incredibly sad, with only a very partially happy ending.

3. 2010: Oddysey 2 is the sequel to 2001: a Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark. The first book is the story of the discovery of an alien monolith on the moon and a second, much larger, monolith between Saturn and one of its moons. A ship is dispatched to investigate it, and the ships computer, HAL, decides it ought to kill the crew, ya know, cause they are fleshy organic sacks made of pulp and therefore incompetent, gets several, then they get HAL and reache the monolith, and then things get very weird in a way that cannot be concisely explained. The book was written at the same time the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, and the movie is very good if you have already read the book, or at least the final chapter. The sequel picks up where it left off, with another expedition being sent to determine what happened to the first, so you find out why HAL went crazy and get to see what the moons of Jupiter are like, and then, once again, things get weird, not in a bad way, but certainly in a way that is too long to describe beyond it results in the destruction of Jupiter as a planet. I recommend 2001 as it is a masterpiece of Sci-Fi, one of the top ten most important books of the genre, and it is worth reading even if you know the general outline of the plot already, as you now do, and recommend 2010 if you like it.

Epicurus Reader

This book was basically an overview of Epicurean philosophy, including all the known fragments of text from his works, as they are all now lost as full books. The philosophy is basically antithetical to what I believe, being essentially atheistic and hedonistic, but does have some good points in it emphasis on friendship and simplicity. Basically this is a case of false reasoning leading to a positive conclusion. The point of life, according to Epicurus, is pleasure, which can be achieved through the avoidance of pain and in particular anxiety through the living of a simple life, staying out of politics, and not craving honors or praise.

Perhaps the most edifying part of the book were discourses on physics, as it is interesting and unusual way of thinking to examine what was thought on that subject by ancient authorities. It seems the habit of modern authorities to discount them, but even if they have been proven wrong the complexity of, and intensity of thought necessary to produce, their systems make them worthy of respect, and an examination of their beliefs is a good exercise of the mind. The Epicureans were atomists, and pure materialists, after Democritus, and posited that the universe was composed of both unlimited void and limitless quantities of atoms, as any other configuration would result either in a dispersal of all matter or a contradiction (such as their being a limited void to hold limitless quantities of atoms).

For a cursory examination of this philosophy, I would recommend a summary off the internet, as reading these original sources can be difficult and repetitive, but to hear arguments for a very different way of looking at every facet of life, this book is recommended

Living the Cross-Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney

Living the Cross-Centered Life exhorts Christians to be always mindful of the basic message of the gospel. We never “move on” from the fact that Jesus died on the cross for us. When we neglect the cross, we are in danger of falling into the following traps:

We may slip into legalism, trying to earn God’s favor.

We may become subject to our emotions and our circumstances.

We may fall into self-condemnation.

Since I am prone to all three of these errors, I appreciated Mahaney’s brief and simply-presented book. Particularly helpful was the admonition that instead of “listening to yourself” – accepting your feelings and opinions as fact, and dwelling on them – you should “talk to yourself”—that is, deliberately remind yourself of the truth.

Evil for Evil and Escapement

I failed to post on the Meditations, and will do so soon. In the meantime I will post about the last two of three books in this series.

Both of these books are from The Engineer Trilogy, written by K. J. Parker. The series is part of the fantasy genre, in the sense that it is a complete deconstruction of the fantasy genre. Of course, it has a made up world and military conflict, but the other normal parts of such a story are subverted utterly. The main character is a very competent engineer, but a horrible fighter. He sets in motion events, out of love for his wife, which result in the sack of at least one major city and the deaths of 200+ thousand people. Obsessive love is in fact the motivator for much of the plot. Other tropes are also subverted. The two best fighters, who are intensely capable in general, are a boring buffoon and a murderer/rapist, the Evil Empire is run not by any grand emperor, but by committees and guilds, and characters are not able to take pain very well. In the end, the two great love stories throughout the series (for which all the death has occurred) fail or turn out to be partially false, meaning that most of the things that happened were almost pointless in and of themselves, although they turn out to be instrumental to the punishment of the person who manipulated the main character into initiating the horrifying conflict that is the center of the plot, meaning that there is satisfactory resolution. Overall, it is a very good series, even if it is quite grim, but at sixteen hundred pages or so is probably not worth it for someone who is not a fantasy reader like I am. So, if you want to see a criticism of the genre in the form of an interesting and somewhat realistic novel, then go for it, but, once again, its longer than The Brothers Karamazov.

Liberalism and The Road to Serfdom

I think it is useful to post about the books we have read, if anyone thinks there is a better way or if mine need to be shorter please let me know. I will say one thing about each of these two books

1. The Road to Serfdom- In this book Hayek points out the Socialist roots of Nazism, as many people at the time he wrote it thought that Nazism was the last gasp of a dying capitalist system. Economic planning was in vogue (it was 1943) and many were calling for the continuation of planning past the war. Hayek notes the necessity of a free market society for the continuation of social liberty, such as free speech and press. He also noted the need for laws that are predictable and relatively unchanging for society to be just, as people need to be able to plan their actions. He was fighting against an intellectual orthodoxy that called for "scientific" governance, and basically pointed out that this was not going to work, I recommend this book highly.

2. Liberalism, by L.T. Hobhouse- Sociologists should not write books on political theory. Period.

3. OK, seriously, the intellectual orthodoxy obsessed with planning seems to have a large portion of its roots in Hobhouse and his contemporaries, although his emphasis is on the "general will" which showed up in Rousseau and many enlightenment writers. Basically his is a liberalism that justifies itself more on the basis of democracy than on rights and is very fond of economic and social engineering. In fact, his refutation of rights is quite disingenuous, as he does not really focus on the theorists who described rights and more on the vague assertions of the French Revolution. The social engineering part is actually very creepy, as he talks about influencing (conditioning) people to be socially proper. I would not really recommend this book, parts of it, such as his section on the history of English Liberalism is useful, but other parts are a train wreck.

I'll post on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations tomorrow.

Crystal's list

The books I've finished so far have been light reading:
--The Giver - Lois Lowry
--The Pilot's Wife - Anita Shreve (yeah, I know.)

The books that are now in my purse every day:
--Bible (ESV)
--The Loveliness of Christ (excerpts from Samuel Rutherford's letters)
--Christian Apologetics - Cornelius Van Til
--Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture - David Powlison

Stuff I never finished reading in undergrad that I want to read now:
--Purgatorio and Paradiso - Dante
-- Confessions and City of God - Augustine
-- The Midnight, The Nonconformist's Memorial, and Singularities - Susan Howe
-- The Office of Soft Architecture - Lisa Robertson
-- Augustine of Hippo (biography) - Peter Brown

Other stuff I might get to:
-- Some Yeats, Eliot, Frost, and Bukowski
-- The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
-- The Concept of Anxiety - Kierkegaard

I haven't unpacked my books yet. I might have to update this list later.

I feel completely outdone by the postings on here so far. Crystal, you need to put up your reviews from summer conference! :o)

My reading list thus far includes:

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
The Pursuit of Godliness by Jerry Bridges
Moo by Jane Smiley (academic satire as a graduation gift from my advisor)

Of more distant interest:

Middlemarch by George Eliot
works by Virginia Woolf
works by Eudora Welty
Canticle for Leibowitz
The Sound and the Fury by Soren Kierkegaard (if I feel particularly adventurous)

Also, as lighter reading:

Ted Dekker's Circle trilogy
novels by Stephen Lawhead

Sophie's World and The Pursuit of Godliness are currently in my backpack that I'm taking overseas, so they'll be read first. They're both good so far. Sophie's World is a leisurely philosophical novel, and I've only read the first couple of chapters of Bridges's book, in which he stresses that our search for living Godly lives must be based on an understanding of grace and the help of the Spirit.

That's all for now.

Gavin's Reading List

Here are my selections, ranked by importance, those before the first break are most important, those after it are second, and those at the bottom are last. Some of these books contain views that are contradictory to my own, just a disclaimer.

1. The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich Hayek
2. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume
3. The Complete Works of Shakespeare
4. The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
5. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, By Adam Smith
6. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by Joseph Schumpeter
7. Small Footprint, Big Handprint (A Book for Church)

8. The Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle
9. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya
10. Cool It, by Bjorn Lomborg
11. The Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
12. The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis
13. On Liberty, by J. S. Mill
14. Invitation to Sociology (Sociology text)
15. Window on Humanity (Anthropology Text)
16. Democracy's Discontent, by Michael Sandel
17. Liberalism, by L. T. Hobhouse
18. Symposium, by Plato
19. On the Free Choice of Will, by Augustine
20. Discourse on Free Will, by Erasmus and Luther
21. The Religious Philosophy of Quakerism
22. On Law, Morality, and Politics, by Thomas Aquinas
23. Small Christian Communities Today
24. The Essence of Faith According to Luther, by Feuerbach
25. Wild at Heart, (I know, I know, but it's not that long and I'm curious)
26. Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee
27. The Epicurus Reader
28. De Rerum Natura

29. Evil for Evil, by K. J. Parker
30. Escapement, by K. J. Parker
31. Turpentine, by Spring Warren
32. The Night Climbers, by Ivo Stourton
33. Illusions, by Richard Bach
34. Out of Egypt, by Anne Rice
35. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
36. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
37. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
38. Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
39. The Autumn of the Patriarch, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
40. 2010: Odyssey Two, by Arthur C. Clark
41. Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
42. Pontius Pilate, by Paul Maier

Sorry for the length, I am clearly a bibliophile masochist.

Rachel's List

Here are the dozen books I picked out to read over the summer, organized topically.

Literature
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw

Religion
The Everlasting Man by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
George Whitefield by Arnold A. Dallimore
Living the Cross-Centered Life by C. J. Mahaney

Thought
Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain

Economics
An Introduction to the Theory of Interest by Joseph W. Conard
A General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes

Entertainment
Manalive by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clark

It should be possible to read all of these books before August by reading one book each week. If there are other books that the group would like to read together and discuss, I would be happy to add them to my list.

I look forward to hearing about the books that you all read over the summer!

On Liberty

Well, I have finished my first book for the Summer, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Granted, I had already started this book, but nonetheless it is book number one, so I will start the discussion part of the blog. There were two things that were most interesting to me.

1. Mill gives a very concise critique of the Christians of the time, which my roommate Isaiah thought was very good also. The point that he made was that early Christians followed the precepts of Christianity closely, but that while Christians of his time gave reverence to the sayings of Christ, they just followed in most cases the mores of current civilization. I think this is applicable in our time also, not merely for marginal Christians, but for many others. People do not often really analyze the way in which many of the commandments in the Bible apply to their own lives, as they should.

2. Mill makes a distinction between the requirement by the state that individuals educate their children and state education of children. I believe that this is important in that the state generally assumes the role of the educator in the United States, which means that parents do not have very much say in the education of their children if they are a minority in their area and disagree with the methods used or the curriculum taught. Mill suggests requiring education, subsidizing those who cannot afford to give their children education, and then giving examinations in indisputably factual disciplines such as mathematics, history, and grammar while not exercising direct control over schools. I would suggest that this is an excellent way of doing things that would be great for Christian education and would allow religious education in schools while preventing the government from fiddling with religion. Further, the decentralization of education would insulate the system from a proliferation of errors caused by the acceptance of erroneous ideas by central authorities.

Well, that's my take on the book, and a shameless plugging of my political ideals in the second point. (Though of course the book aligns with my political ideas pretty closely)

This is the reading blog of the salt-and-vinegar crisp club at the University of Tulsa. Our club began informally when Crystal started to come over to Evelyn and Rachel's apartment in the evenings. Evelyn's friends in Northern Ireland had posted her salt-and-vinegar crisps, and when she discovered that Crystal and Rachel liked them, too, they started to eat them together routinely during study sessions.

After the RUF Christmas dance, Gavin came up to our apartment and was inducted to the salt-and-vinegar club. We drank Earl Grey tea and port and ate salt-and-vinegar crisps, and we discussed economics, random computer games, internet jokes, films, and England.

Thus was born The Salt and Vinegar Club.

Sadly, the time has come for us to disband, at least in physical reality since three of the four of us are graduating. However, tonight we have decided to use the internet to keep our club alive. Because Gavin has a desk job over the summer, he has forty-two books on his reading list. The rest of us want to read lots of books, too, so we have resolved to keep track of the books we read over the summer.

We will each post a list of the books we want to read this summer, and then we will post our reviews of or comments on the books we read.

We may also decide to read books together and discuss them on this blog.