Books in Brief: 2004/4
by Paul GrantOnce a quarter, urbana.org staff compiles brief reviews of books they’ve been reading lately. Here’s December 2004’s edition.
Some fiction, some nonfiction, some old and some new books are listed below. It is our hope that you will enjoy some of these, and will fall more in love with reading in general, and with exercising diverse lobes of your brain. Not all of the books listed here are recommendations. Some are problematic.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Mark Haddon
ISBN 1400032717
This is a lovely story. A mystery about a neighborhood crime, Curious Incident is narrated by a fifteen-year old English boy with Autism. Christopher Boone is living a comfortable but self-sheltered life with his father, progressing through school but terrified of the noisy world around him. He arranges his life as methodically as possible, and generally keeps to himself.
But when ill befalls a neighborhood dog, Christopher’s curiosity pushes him to investigate. His ensuing adventures lead him into terrifyingly unknown territory, including talking to strangers, taking public transportation, and eating foods that are touching each other on the plate.
Haddon makes the mundane seem thrilling. Like James Bond movies, the enduring success of which lie in their predictability, rather than in their novelty, Christopher Boone has a lot to teach the reader about delighting in the repetitive, and about the adventure of life.
At the same time, this is not exploitation fiction, a story taking advantage of a behavioral handicap for the sake of a fictional experiment: Christopher is a humane character, not a point. He changes, and grows throughout the story. Even as he sticks to his imaginative whimsy (numbering the chapters by prime numbers, for example), he makes enormous progress in relating to his father and other adults, and in self-aware self-improvement. He chooses which of his behavioral problems truly are problems, and which are merely inconveniences for others. A delight of a book.
The Preservationist
David Maine
ISBN 0312328478
Historical fiction about the Bible tends to fall into one of two hackneyed genres: saccharine devotional stories, or half-baked subversion of the church. The former attempts to “justify the ways of God to man” as Milton put it. It can get pretty boring to read inspirational fiction about flat characters. But every bit as formulaic is subaltern literature attempting to offend Christians, or to morally corrupt biblical characters. In both cases, authors are not trying to tell a story; they’re trying to make a point.
What a breath of fresh air is The Preservationist. A retelling of the story of Noah and the Ark, it mixes piety with a bit of rudeness and a lot of love for the cast of characters. “Noe” as he is called here is an old man trying to follow God, trying to keep his family together, and sometimes failing. David Maine asks fascinating questions of Noe’s sons and daughters-in-law, adding his imagination to the text without violating the spirit.
The Preservationist is not always comfortable, but usually believable. It gets a little crude and rustic on occasion, not without warrant considering the beastly circumstances and what the Bible tells us about the surrounding culture. But there is a lot of laughter and still small beauty contained here. Try to figure out who the “preservationist” is.
Tears of the Giraffe
Alexander McCall Smith
ISBN 1400031354
The second book in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series has Botswana’s only Female Private Detective on the beat again. This time, Mma Ramotswe is looking for a child gone missing in the Desert, while planning her wedding to Mr. J.L.B Matekoni.
This series now has five books, as Mma Ramotswe outgrows her stories. She is becoming one of the more delightful people in current fiction. McCall Smith develops some of the peripheral characters here, while keeping the limelight on the roly-poly bumbling detective herself.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
Jim Collins
ISBN 0066620996
On a more serious note, Good to Great is one of those books with such an awful title that urbana.org dilly-dallied for three years before getting around to reading it. It’s basically a how-to book for managers, but less about management technique than about values and principles.
As it turns out, we were being stuck up. The book is really good, and recommended for all Christians. In fact, the leadership principles here may very well transfer to the church better than to the corporate world.
One of the worst aspects of contemporary executive culture, Collins argues (and “worst” in the business subculture means “inefficient”), is the superstar CEO making the big bucks and intimidating everybody else into obedience. These men, and they’re mostly men, dream of being Lee Iacocca or Steve Jobs – they dream of peer acclaim for conquering the world, especially when starting with a dysfunctional corporation. Collins calls this the “genius with a thousand helpers” model. True leadership, he argues, is selfless. It is leadership directed toward the long-term survival and prosperity of the company, long after the leader in question has retired.
Isn’t that what we’re about, as Christians? We’re building an institution (actually, the Holy Spirit is, but the point is the same) that is meant to last forever. The tension lies in addressing the pressing problems of today without stepping away from the eternal projects.
Good to Great, yes indeed, is a book Christians in the church can learn from. It’s a testimony to God’s grace that he allowed us to get over our juvenile bad attitudes in time to grow up and recognize wisdom, even in surprising packages.
Right-Sizing Your Life
Philip Patterson, Michael Herndon
ISBN 0830819428
As the holidays draw nearer, and the slender margin for error with which too many of us survive our hectic lives becomes razor-thin, this book is the right thing at the right time.
Between consumer debt, family demands, busy schedules and more, ever increasing numbers of North Americans are running themselves to death, and the pleasures of life seems more and more like an old-fashioned word. We are becoming a society with no hope, not because of terror, or disease, or Republicans, or worse, but our culture is becoming unsustainably busy and overdrawn. This small book can help you get out before it’s too late.
Written a little on the simplistic side, the intended audience is someone too harried to read a deep analysis. Focusing instead on stories of people and how they dealt with their problems, Patterson and Herndon know exactly how to help.
Hope’s Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land
Chip Ward
ISBN 1559639776
Far from simplistic is this tome. Eco-philosophy and journalism at once, Hope’s Horizon is about three approaches to major environmental challenges in North America today: Preservation (of wildlife corridors); Restoration (repairing human-caused destruction); and Nuclear Abolition (specifically, the problems related to current nuclear energy and pollution policy).
Chip Ward is a librarian in Utah, so he knows how to balance between the unreasonable activists on either end of the political spectrum. He has to work with both on a day-in, day-out basis. Accordingly, Hope’s Horizon expresses a realistic but still radical vision for a safer North America, one in which our children don’t come down with horrid diseases stemming from toxins in our water and air.
This is a deeply Christian message, unintentional though that might be for the author. Much of the ecological disasters discussed here are avoidable. But we allow them to happen to the poor, rather than to us. We allow radioactive material to be relocated to Indian reservations, because anywhere else would trigger Not-In-My-Backyard lawsuits. We allow injustice because we like having cheap electricity.
The title of the book is appropriate, because Ward doesn’t leave us with much hope. But he points us to the horizon: hope is over there, he seems to be saying. Too bad he doesn’t feel he can include, or gain from, Christians. We’re specialists in hope after all, but we have allowed the world to lead us in this matter.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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