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Posts from the ‘Literature’ Category

Jul 27

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Monday Miscellany

Even in normal times, late July tends to be a time when things slow down. Church programs have mostly paused for the summer. Services are sparsely attended as many people flock to the cabin or the mountains or wherever else. For those stuck at work, it can be a hot, sluggish stretch of time where inspiration and motivation are in short supply. And this is, again, in normal times. During COVID time? Well, everything feels somehow worse. Words, and the motivation to produce them, seem to have abandoned me. That’s how it’s felt over the last few weeks at any rate. But a few things have been rattling around my head over the last little while. A quiet Monday morning seems as good a time as any to dislodge them. Read more

Mar 21

6 Comments

No Religious Books!

I was walking around downtown this morning in a pleasant little neighbourhood near some stately old churches. It was gloriously warm—a desperately welcome respite after our sub-arctic February. People were out and about. Spring was in the air and it was delightful. Read more

Dec 9

3 Comments

little gods

There’s this fascinating conversation in Jesse Ball’s novel The Curfew. The scene is an undefined dystopic future, as so many seem to be, where a faceless government has assumed dictatorial control over an unnamed city. The people live in constant fear and anxiety, never going out after dark, always being careful not to cause any sort of ripple that might be noticed by the powers that be, living lives of weary resignation, whispering along the edges of shadows that never disappear. William lives with his young daughter Molly and makes his living as an “epitaphorist,” which entails visiting people whose loved ones have died or been killed, consulting with them about the words they want to adorn the gravestones of the deceased.  Read more

Jan 13

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Vanishing in Order to See

I get a lot of books in the mail, but there are few that I can recall anticipating as keenly as the one that came in a little brown box today.  Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss has been on my radar for a while now, whether due to the almost unanimously affirming reviews it has received, or simply to the nature of the story behind the book: poet/writer/scholar gets cancer in his thirties and begins (begins again? continues?) to chart the rocky terrain from secularism to religious belief.  The story and the subject matter both compel me, but it is the writing that is blowing me away.  This man is, truly, at home with words.  I am reading, and rereading, and reading more slowly than I have in quite some time.  Occasionally, very rarely, I come across a writer whose words leave me thinking, “Yes, I have found a friend.”  One chapter into My Bright Abyss, and I am convinced that Christian Wiman is one of them.

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Jun 4

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Fyodor Dostoevsky: Book Review

It sounds a weird combination of presumptuous and downright comical to say that when I was in my early twenties I had a “Russian phase.”  After a less than inspiring academic track record in high school, I was starting to fancy myself a “reader” and began to read as many impressive-sounding books as I could.  Many of these were Russian.  Tolstoy, Turgenev, Solzhenitsyn… And, of course, Dostoevsky.   Read more

Jan 27

3 Comments

Doodles

I always enjoy Kim Fabricius’s theological “doodlings” over at Faith and Theology. He’s got a real talent for coming up with short, punchy, provocative statements that are invariably theologically insightful and interesting, and amusing to boot!

Today’s post is well worth a quick visit.  Here are a few of my favourites: Read more

Aug 3

24 Comments

Sad Stories

Yesterday I was reading Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes while my son sat across the table munching away on a late breakfast. It’s a magnificent book that tracks the journey of an African girl who gets taken from her home, sold into slavery, and spends the bulk of her lifetime in conditions of appalling cruelty and inhumanity a world away from her home. It is a beautifully told tale of an incredibly strong, courageous, and good woman, but it is also a story of unspeakable suffering, depravity, and loss. It is a story that does not shrink from laying bare the evil of which human beings are capable. Read more

Feb 4

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Preferred Futures

I thought I would throw out some thoughts about a book I read last week and this morning’s church service. Last week, a good chunk of my bus time was spent reading a book I picked up for a couple of bucks at a used bookstore on Broadway. Albert Camus’ The Outsider was an interesting read, but one that left me feeling a little bewildered, somewhat annoyed, and deeply saddened by the bleak outlook on life it portrays. Read more