Citizen Reader

Basement Reading: Letters to Malcolm

I must say, one good thing came out of last week's basement cleaning extravaganza/existential book crisis. I realized there's a lot of books in my basement I haven't read yet. So periodically for the rest of this year I think I'd like to delve into some basement books and see what I find.

As last week was the last week of Lent, a.k.a. Holy Week, I thought I would start with a C.S. Lewis selection titled Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Good Catholics actually give something up for Lent, but I was too weak (although I tried to go easier on the butter--we're starting to go through it at a scary pace around here, and Mr. CR doesn't really use a lot of butter, so we know who the culprit is there), so I thought maybe spending a little more time on religious reading might be a good plan.

It's a short book, in the form of letters Lewis wrote to a friend, Malcolm, and covering their discussions on prayer. Nothing too deep--they discuss using pre-written prayers vs. more free-form ones, etc.--but still a very thoughtful little book. And each letter, or chapter, is only a few pages long, so it makes for good bedtime reading. I'd read it before, but I find with Lewis you can read all his stuff again and again and always find something new.

But this time what I found was something I'd remembered from my first reading of this book: "The Jones boy's name is Cyril--though why you find it so important to pray for people by their Christian names I can't imagine. I always assume God knows their surnames as well. I am afraid many people appear in my prayers only as 'that old man at Crewe' or 'the waitress' or even 'that man.' One may have lost, or may never have known, their names and yet remember how badly they need to be prayed for." (p. 18.)

I always got a kick out of that, as I am a former waitress, and believe me, we'll take all the prayers we can get. Although, if the choice is between a prayer and a big fat tip, go with the big fat tip.

Quick reviews of books I haven't read.

Now that's the kind of expertise you visit Citizen Reader for, isn't it?

Through no fault of my own, I'm coming up against all sorts of library due dates for books that I really wanted to read, but which I have to return before I get the chance. The first such book is Angela Miller's Hay Fever: How Chasing a Dream on a Vermont Farm Changed My Life. I did read the first few chapters of this one, which seems to be a completely typical "driven city person tackles life on farm" narrative. Miller is a literary agent who still works several days a week in New York City, but who has also been moonlighting as a farmer and goat cheese maker on her Vermont farm for the last several years. The writing was okay but nothing special (it's actually co-written with another author, Ralph Gardner Jr., which isn't often a very good sign) and I must admit that I'm getting a little weary of the "back to the land" genre. I was particularly annoyed by this title because I don't understand how a woman past the age of sixty could have the energy to commute four hours back and forth to NYC once a week, be a high-powered literary agent, and also farm on the side. Where do these people get all the drive?

I was also annoyed by this, on the jacket's front flap copy: "Angela Miller and her husband set their sites on a charming nineteenth-century farm in Vermont." I know that's not the author's fault, but still...hacky. I will not be getting this one back.

The second book in question is Stephen Prothero's God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter. I only read the Introduction of this one, but I totally want to get it back and read it someday. I think Prothero's a good writer about religion; knowledgeable and open and not necessarily connected to any one dogma; I particularly enjoyed his earlier title Religious Literacy. And I like no-nonsense paragraphs like this one:

"Yet we know in our bones that the world's religions are different from one another. As my colleague Adam Seligman has argued, the notion of religious tolerance assumes differences, since there is no need to tolerate a religion that is essentially the same as your own. We pretend these differences are trivial because it makes us feel safer, or more moral. But pretending that the world's religions are the same does not make our world safer. Like all forms of ignorance, it makes our world more dangerous." (p. 4.) Awesome.

The last book that has to go back is a novel, David Nicholls's One Day, a new novel by the British author of the novel A Question of Attraction (which I really enjoyed, and which was made into an equally enjoyable movie, titled Starter for Ten, starring James McAvoy). I really wanted to read this one, and now I'm just not in the mood for its love story, told over the course of twenty years. Perhaps some other time.

Worth the whole month.

While I took my fiction reading vacation over the past month, I couldn't entirely neglect nonfiction (of course). Earlier I alluded to a nonfiction book that took me a month to read; the book in question was Suzanne Strempek Shea's Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip In Search of Christian Faith.

It didn't take me a month to read because I didn't like it, or because it was hard to read. It took a month to read because for once I gave myself the luxury of simply slowly chipping away at a book--I read it three or five pages at a time, and yes, although this may be too much information, I read much of it in the bathroom.

It was perfect for that kind of reading. Shea did exactly what her subtitle promises; she spent a year going to different Christian religious services, and then wrote about each week in short chapters about five to ten pages long. She roamed all over the country to do so, although many of her experiences were based in her native New England. The result is a thoughtful, fascinating book, not only about religion, but also about a personal search for meaning (told from the perspective of someone who is primarily observing others' searches for meaning). As a Catholic who "had experienced a spiritual disconnect," she relates her memory of watching the outpouring of grief over the death of John Paul II, and wishes she could feel such passion about her religion and spirituality again. Hence, her quest to "to on a pilgrimage of sorts, tour a few other houses of worship, finally find out just what goes on in those churches I grew up forbidden to enter, and understand what makes for devotion to a religious community." (p. xi.)

She only chose various Christian denominations (she was particularly interested, as a Catholic, in those "banned" Protestant churches she'd heard more about during her childhood) to visit, and each of the chapters describing her experiences in Baptist, Quaker, Greek Orthodox, Episcopalian, Pentecostal (and many other faiths) is a fascinating window into new worlds. As is my habit, I stuck bookmarks in wherever I really enjoyed something or thought I might want to quote it; rather than trying to put any such quotes in context, I'll simply say that this book collected no fewer than seven bookmarks, which is pretty impressive.* My favorite chapters were the ones where she really felt at home, and I also enjoyed her chapters about several "megachurches" she attended, as she managed to be much less judgmental about Rick Warren and Joel Osteen than I would have been.

I wouldn't have minded a little longer conclusion, discussing a bit more how she felt after her year and what services particularly stayed with her, but that's a small quibble. If this isn't the subject matter for you, I can also recommend her earlier memoir, Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore.

*It's always very satisfying to me to finish a book and see it still stuffed with bookmarks. I feel like I really got something accomplished.

Evidently you can go home again.

Because I was staring down a library due date, last night I started Rhoda Janzen's memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home,* and this morning I finished it. Although it did not set me on fire, and I do not feel the need to tell everyone I meet to read it, I did get a lot of good, solid enjoyment and thought out of it. And I appreciate that too.

Janzen grew up in a Mennonite family (she also provides a handy appendix explaining some things about Mennonite faith and history: please note, they're not Amish), but when she left home to pursue her education and career, she largely left the Mennonite community and ways behind, without much in the way of regret. However, after her husband of fifteen years left her for another man (and after she had largely supported him financially and lived through his problems with depression and bipolarity), and after she was involved in a car accident that broke many of her bones and caused other health problems (all in the same month!) she decided to spend some time living with her parents, recuperating and hoping perhaps to understand more about her youth and her reaction to her upbringing.

The book is not so much a memoir as it is a series of interconnected essays, and in each essay she relates a different piece of her childhood, marriage, and Mennonite culture memories. For being a pretty short book, it's also profound in the best possible way: without belaboring its point, without endless pages of poetics and/or unnecessarily drawn-out stories, and with a great deal of humor. Consider this exchange she had with one of her friends, when she is reading to start dating again:

"One of my friends, Carla, who said I could use her real name in this memoir as long as I described her as a svelte redhead, offered to run my love life for five bucks. 'What are you looking for in a guy?' she asked, whipping out a little notepad.

'Hmm,' I said thoughtfully. 'He has to be kind. And culturally literate. And on the path to consciousness...reflective, open. No cynics or angry atheists. He has to have a sense of humor. That's important. And he should be tall. And employed at work he loves. And--'

'Whoa there, Nellie,' Carla interrupted. 'I'm gonna give you some free advice. You ready for this? How about we lower the bar? How about we look for someone who's straight, for starters?'" (p. 21.)

I found that really depressing, but also really hilarious, and it seemed to sum up everything I love about women: you can hope for the best, but most of the time you've just got to get down to the nitty-gritty and do the best with you can find. In all, I liked this book much more for Janzen's overall positivity, which was not of the cloying type, but of the accepting type, and for her female perspective. The Mennonite stuff was interesting to me too but not as fascinating as it might be to some others--although my childhood surroundings weren't as austere as hers (quite), my mother was the type who made arrangements for someone at Girl Scout camp (which I went to maybe twice or three times in my life) to drive me to a mass anywhere nearby if the trip went over a Sunday morning. (So I was not entirely unfamiliar with the theme of religion playing a big part in one's upbringing.) My point is: it's a great little memoir, and there's more than one reason to like it.

*A big shout-out to one of my favorite book recommenders, Katharine. If she hadn't championed this book I probably would have just returned it without trying to get it read first.

When subject trumps style.

I tend to be somewhat of a generalist nonfiction reader; I am not so much interested in specific subjects* as I am in well-written and interesting nonfiction titles. This is why I am such a huge fan of William Langewiesche; he writes about a ton of disparate subjects in his magazine articles and books, and no matter what he's writing about, it's always a pleasure to read.

But sometimes even I get suckered in by subjects I find fascinating. This week's case in point is Gina Welch's immersion journalism title In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church. I really didn't enjoy it (although parts were very interesting, and I don't think Welch is an unskilled writer), but I'll be damned if I didn't end up reading the whole thing anyway, for one reason and one reason alone:

I am fascinated by Evangelicals, and Evangelical churches. I mean, really, I can't look away.

I don't really know why this is, although I have always tended to find all things religious, even books about atheism, vaguely interesting. And I don't even mean it in a bad way. I have known and loved many people who are members of more evangelical churches. And, as I am Catholic and very well aware of the disorder and problems in my church's house, I want to emphatically state that I don't really care much one way or the other what religion people choose to practice. But there is something I so deeply don't understand about the Evangelical experience that I just had to finish this book.

Welch, a young writer and atheist who grew up in Berkeley, also seems fascinated by Evangelicals, and she doesn't fool around in her choice of churches to infiltrate: she goes right for Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist congregation in Lynchburg, Virginia. For two years she attended the church, joined some of its classes and ministries, befriended many of its members, and even joined a mission trip to Alaska to "save souls."

As previously noted, the writing here is just fine. It was just more that I couldn't figure out Welch's tone--she seemed committed to staying an atheist, yet she also enjoyed the feeling of warmth and community and the stirring nature of the church music. She was conflicted about lying to people she was befriending, but still became quite close to some of them. She seemed genuinely very sad when Falwell died, but throughout, it quite simply seemed like she was focusing more on the church practices and trappings than on the religion behind it. I'm explaining it badly. But when I read a work of immersion journalism, I just like to have a little better idea of where the author is coming from; in Barbara Ehrenreich's classic in the genre, Nickel and Dimed, the reader is never left in any doubt that she thinks paying people non-living wages to work as maids, waitresses, and at Wal-Mart is complete bullshit. But I could never get a read on this author.

She still provided some interesting information, which showed she really did start to understand the mindset. I liked this paragraph: "Considering the Evangelicals' inclination to trust and support their Christian brethren, it makes sense that there's a strong desire to work primarily with Christian businesses...One directory, Ohio's Blue Pages, polled its users and found that the top two reasons people used it were a 'higher trust level' in Christian businesses and a desire to 'be good stewards of their finances'; payments to Christian businesses, the users assumed, circulated back to the church through tithes and offerings, keeping the money within the fold." (p. 104.)

I just chuckled at that. I typically throw away any business ads with prominent Christian symbols on them, even though I am a Christian, because I always figure if you're low enough to try and exploit God for business, where else will you be cutting corners? But, obviously, the thought process can go a different way. I was also shocked at Welch's many stories of how welcoming and accepting many strangers were of her church groups' proselytizing. Again, something I'll never understand, as my first reaction when anyone knocks on my door or talks to me about being saved is, "I'm Catholic and I LOVE being Catholic," at which point they usually can't get far enough away from me.

So, yeah. I think I'm still waiting for a slightly better or less uneven book on this subject, but if learning more about the Evangelical Christian lifestyle holds any interest for you, I'd still consider picking this one up. And I did like one of Welch's stated reasons for undertaking this project: she considers it more important to understand this lifestyle than to dismiss it. I can't really argue with that--it's as good a reason as any to write, not to mention read, nonfiction in general.

*British history, and, well, all things Brit notwithstanding.

Ah, relics, they always make for good reading.

You know you have slightly strange tastes in nonfiction when you see a book about saints' relics and you think, "Ooh, goody!" And you further know you've probably read too much nonfiction when you think, "I wonder if it will be as good as the other relic book I read?"*

I was very, very excited to find Peter Manseau's book Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead in my library catalog. Not only because I find the idea of saints' relics (purported remnants of saints' bodies and other holy items--like pieces of the cross Jesus was crucified on--that are honored and venerated within various religions, including Catholicism and Buddhism) fascinating, but also because I love, love, LOVE Peter Manseau. (His memoir Vows, about his parents, a former nun and priest, and his childhood spent trying to understand their and his relationship with the Catholic Church, was hands-down one of the best memoirs I've ever read.)

This book finds Manseau traveling around to various holy sites, including Jerusalem and Goa, a city in India where the remains of Saint Francis Xavier are kept, and investigating such relics as the foreskin of Jesus (you heard me) and the burnt bones of Saint Joan. He strikes just exactly the right tone throughout; he is respectful without being obsequious, skeptical without being rude. He is, above all, fascinated by and thoughtful about his topic. This is what he has to say about Francis Xavier, who was an unenthusiastic missionary (at best) to India, although that is where his remains are today: "In death Francis Xavier had joined the lives of a people and a place where he had never wanted to remain. These children, born in the country he scorned, educated in a school that bears his name, have lived their lives in his shadow, but now they run in front of his church, casting their own." (p. 52.)

When I really love nonfiction I fall into very distinct feelings when reading it. Some nonfiction is exciting; some is inspiring, some makes me very angry; but my very favorite titles make me feel settled and thoughtful and peaceful. You know what I mean, about different feelings that books give you? This book makes me feel settled and peaceful, and it's wonderful. Right on, Peter Manseau.

*The other relic book was Anneli Rufus's Magnificent Corpses: Searching through Europe for St. Peter's Head, St. Claire's Heart, St. Stephen's Hand, and Other Relics from the Saints, which was also excellent. More personal in some ways, sharper in some ways, less historical and even-toned in others, but still brilliant.

Double Catholicism whammy: Part 2.

Part two of this week's Double Catholicism Whammy was Veronica Chater's memoir Waiting for the Apocalypse. The author's parents, who were disgusted with Vatican II Catholic reforms, eventually moved from California to Portugal to experience a more pure faith, and then, when Portugal wasn't Catholic enough, moved back to California to start the counter-revolution.

The memoir's an odd mix of the quietly horrifying and the bleakly funny. Although Chater's father is the real mover in the family, dictating their circumstances, the person I couldn't get over was her mother. Who good-naturedly goes along with moving their family to Portugal, then back, all while bearing (eventually) eleven children? Unbelievable. Her mother plays a prime role in my favorite exchange in the memoir, when the family arrives in England en route to Portugal:

"'Look around, kids,' Dad said from ahead. 'England used to be a great nation. Thanks to St. Augustine of Canterbury, who converted the Anglo-Saxon pagans to Catholicism in the sixth century, and then the Normans, who invaded the country in 1066 and reestablished Catholic rule. England has a fine, noble history...[but] She murdered her heroes and crowned her heretics. She embraced the ideals of the Renaissance: humanism, pride, and narcissism. Her gooal was 'The devil's work, done by the devil's ministers.' Yep. England became what she deserved: the whore of Babylon.'

'For goodness' sakes, Lyle. Don't spoil England for the kids," Mom said." (p. 102-103.)

I didn't think I was going to be able to read the whole thing--it's so sad, in parts--but I surprised myself and read to the end. What I found most interesting was how, after a number of cruelties and misunderstandings (at one point when she's a teenager she gets kicked out of the house; for a while her parents make her wear dresses rather than jeans for the sake of modesty--this latter doesn't sound as bad as the kicking out but I agree with the author--it would have infuriated me) she still comes back to loving her family, and particularly thanking her mother for doing her best to keep the family all together.

Chater also notes in an epilogue that almost none of her siblings (herself included) are still practicing Catholics, which, conversely, makes her father happy, as he continues to believe that the Vatican II church is not the real Catholic Church.

All told, it's an intense and sobering story. And it made me really glad that, although my parents sometimes grumbled about Vatican II, they grudgingly went along with the peace handshake in church, didn't move us to Portugal, and let me wear jeans. Sure, we said the odd rosary in public (I did recognize Chater's desire that her family not be so obviously Catholic, breaking out rosaries and scapulars at the slightest provocation), but that was a lot better than being forced to wear dresses.

Double Catholicism whammy: Part 1.

My suggestion, if you are a Catholic and have some doubts about the faith, would be to not read the books The Secret Scripture (a novel), by Sebastian Barry, and Waiting for the Apocalypse (a memoir), by Veronica Chater, simultaneously. It's not that they're bad books. One at a time would be fine. They're both quite interesting, actually. But the Catholic Church doesn't really appear to its best advantage in either.

In the former, Irish author Barry tells the story of Roseanne McNulty, a woman over one hundred years of age, who is living in a psychiatric hospital that is about to be closed down. It's a twice-told story; Roseanne is writing down her version of events, while the doctor evaluating her is writing down what he knows of her from medical records, past reports, and her conversation. Roseanne, who lived in Ireland during the time of "the Troubles," has not had an easy life, and suffered from living during a time when being seen alone with a man who was not her husband got her branded a nymphomaniac (and committed) by the local priest.

It was an interesting book, and it's got a nice little twist at the end. But a real "upper" it was not. Come back tomorrow for part 2 of the double whammy: Chater's memoir. Oh. And happy St. Patrick's Day!

Nothing to get all that excited about, either.

I don't know why I picked up Julian Barnes's Nothing to Be Frightened Of. Oh, wait, yes I do: it's been getting great reviews, has just been named a New York Times Notable book for 2008, and is by an author with whose name I'm vaguely familiar but whose novels I could never find the energy to read. Whenever I see nonfiction by a novelist I feel like I should read but never have, I'll invariably pick it up.

After reading the first line I had high hopes for this book:

"I don't believe in God, but I miss Him. That's what I say when the question is put. I asked my brother, who has taught philosophy at Oxford, Geneva, and the Sorbonne, what he thought of such a statement, without revealing that it was my own. He replied with a single word: 'Soppy.'"

That, as one of J.D. Salinger's characters once said, had the possibility of being an interesting answer, so I read on. Seventy pages later I was annoyed, bored, and I hadn't found another sentence that lived up to that first one, so I stopped. The book jacket here promises that Barnes, "an atheist at twenty, an agnostic at sixty, Barnes looks into the various arguments for and against and with God," but I didn't find much of that. In one other aspect the jacket is entirely correct: he also writes about "the writers--'most of them dead, and quite a few of them French'--who are his daily companions, supplemented by composers and theologians and scientists whose similar explorations are woven into this account." He also offers an account of his own family and their relationship with religion and believing, which I also couldn't get interested in...

...and I just realized I am doing a terrible job of describing this book and why I didn't like it. Although I find religion very interesting, I can't say I've ever been all that fascinated by any atheists' manifestos. The way I see it: Believe what you're going to believe (or not), and that goes for God, the afterlife, and everything. The atheists aren't going to convince me to give up a belief in God, and I know I couldn't convince them. And, frankly, I TOTALLY don't understand being afraid of death if you are a true atheist. I may just be a total downer, but "nothingness" actually sounds kind of relaxing, so why fear it? But most of all, I am tired of old men telling me about their religion or their lack thereof. Why do these guys (Richard Dawkins, Barnes, Christopher Hitchens, etc.) think their personal lack of belief is so fascinating? Does anyone know of any female atheists writing these types of books? It'd be nice to read one of these by a woman, just for a change of pace, if nothing else.

Damn it, he got me!

I am so tired of politics, political ads, and political books, that the thought of reading yet another political book, this time Matt Taibbi's The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, & Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire, made me very sad.

But, Taibbi gave a great interview on the Jon Stewart show, so I determined to give it a try. And, damn him, I couldn't stop until I read the whole thing.

It's deeply disturbing, I'm not going to lie to you. Tired of political reporting himself, Taibbi heads off to Texas to join Pastor Hagee's infamous (and huge) Cornerstone Church to see what the whole Religious Right has going on. As an atheist, he finds that it's quite the scene, but also a lot easier to fit in than the originally thought it might be (you can never throw too many "Gods" in your sentences, he finds, even though it might feel like you are). After a weekend church retreat, where he and the others spend at least part of the time vomiting their demons into paper bags, this is what Taibbi concludes:

"By the end of the weekend I realized how quaint was the mere suggestion that Christians of this type should learn to 'be rational' or 'set aside your religion' about such things as the Iraq war or other policy matters. Once you've made a journey like this--once you've gone this far--you are beyond suggestible. It's not merely the informational indoctrination, the constant belittling of homosexuals and atheists and Muslims and pacifists, etc., that's the issue. It's that once you've gotten to this place, you've left behind the mental process that a person would need to form an independent opinion about such things. You make this journey precisely to experience the ecstasy of beating to the same big gristly heart with a roomful of like-minded folks. Once you reach that place with them, you're thinking with muscles, not neurons." (p. 87.)

Wow. That's quite a statement. And it's not the only one. Taibbi's got lots of scary stories about government, the press, the 9/11 Truth Movement, and much more.

So no, I didn't enjoy it. But I enjoyed Taibbi's voice. I don't think the guy's got a dissembling bone in his body. I haven't read something I simultaneously didn't enjoy but loved all the same since John Bowe's Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy.