Book #65

Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, by David B. Currie. Paperback.

I have read a number of similar books, relating the author's journey (or return) to Catholicism. As a hesitant Protestant, I find these books interesting. I confess that conversion stories have always intrigued me.

This book is less personal than similar memoirs, and is instead more theological in its approach. I prefer this approach. Currie covers the "big" issues he had to deal with as he felt drawn to the Roman Church, such as the Eucharist, salvation, and Mary. He also covers the canon of Scripture, authority, and moral theology. He covers all of these in a consistent, systematic way.

One of my quibbles with the book is the loose use of the word "Fundamentalist" in the title. The word is rarely used in the text of the book, where the more accurate "Evangelical" is regularly used. The book's is targeted at Catholics, for whom the differences between Fundamentalist and Evangelical are minor.

There are also numerous "straw man" arguments against Evangelicalism, where Currie puts words into the mouth of an unidentified "leading Protestant" or "Evangelical professor." Perhaps there were reasons for doing this, to keep the manuscript brief or perhaps even for legal reasons. Nevetheless, I found this annoying, and for an otherwise well-argued book, this does stand out as a weakness.

Those small issues aside, I was impressed with Currie's facility with complex and touchy theological questions. Generally speaking, he presents the standard Evangelical view of issues fairly, and shows that Protestants and Catholics do not disagree on many issues. His point is that they disagree on a few issues, and it is the logical implications of these few disagreements that create divisions on major issues.

Book #64

Take One, by Karen Kingsbury. Unabridged audio.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I read a fair amount of Christian fiction, and this is another from that category.

This novel has the advantage (for me) of dealing with a subject of interest to me (film-making) and not being a romance. Along with authors like Dee Henderson and Terri Blackstock, Kingsbury is able to write christian fiction that does not automatically scare off men. For this category of fiction, that is not common.

The story itself revolves around a pair of Christians making a low-budget movie in and around Indiana University, a movie that they believe can change the world. The men, formerly foreign missionaries, see the movie business as their new mission field. How they overcome the multiple issues in the filming of the movie are central plot points, as are the dramas involving a pair of IU undergrads, who land small parts in the film.

All genres have their particular conventions, or expectations. As a matter of fact, it is these conventions that put a work into a particular genre. Genre readers have expectations, and the role of authors is to meet those expectations. Christian fiction is no different, and this novel certainly fits the mold. Miracles happen when needed, Christians behave better than non-Christians, and standard American evangelical theology and politics are presented.

That being said, there were some pleasant surprises here. I liked that artistic vocations were portrayed as not being "second-class" compared to traditional mission work. I also liked how struggles and doubts were portrayed among some of the younger characters. There is a bit more subtlety and nuance here than christian novels usually have, with the exception of the Hollywood stars, who act exactly as you think they will. And the little I know of the film business seemed to track with how Kingsbury portrayed it.

There are more books in this series, and I expect to pick up the next one soon. I am curious about a few of the characters, and want to see what is next for them.

I appreciated the fact that the audio version of the book included two male voice actors, and two female. This made it possible for the multiple POV characters to have distinct voices, a nice bit of production.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

From chapter 23 of Take One, by Karen Kingsbury

MY TEASERS:

"Cody had walked her home, right? Which meant her car was still parked across fron the frat house ... Then she remembered thr breaskfast date she'd had with her mother."

Book #63

Highland Blessings, by Jennifer Hudson Taylor. Paperback.

I am not the target audience for christian fiction -- I am a dude, and the vast majority of christian fiction is either inspirational or romance, sometimes both at once. Do these genres dominate because the overwhelming proportion of purchasers of christian fiction are women, or are the overwhelming proportion of purchasers of christian fiction women because these genres dominate? Hard to say which came first.

But this does raise a question -- why do I read so much of it?

Well, I am a Christian, mostly an evangelical, and I choose to participate in some aspects of modern christian culture -- and that means including christian fiction in my reading mix. And I do read some mainstram "chick lit," so some books in this genre, although not targeted at me, are within the bounds of what I read.

But on to this book in particular, a historical fiction set in 15th Century Scotland. I found the book overall to be better than average among christian novels. The research and prose style were both particularly strong, especially for a debut work.

My issues were in the story structure itself, where relationships take precedence over action and suspense. There were many opportunities where "stuff" happened, and I would have preferred more time spent on those scenes, but the "stuff" scenes moved on quickly to relationship scenes. The book inlcuded murders, investigations, kidnappings, and war -- but these were merely brief stops as the romance train rolled on.

Another issue I had with the book was that none of the characters seemed to actually be 15th century Scotsmen. I mentioned previously that the research was strong, and this shows up in language, clan structure, geography, and dress. But the characters seemed to all have the beliefs, practices, and worldviews of 21st century American evangelicals. They were thoroughly modern, and the men in particular seemed to be people out of time. One of the roles of fiction is escapism, and in this way I suppose christian romance serves the same function for many Christian women (although less erotically) that mainstream romance or urban fantasy serves for the mainstream female audience.

Both of the issues mentioned above are not at all particular to Highland Blessings, which again is an above-average work within the genre. They are common issues for me within christian fiction. As I said, I am just not the target audience.

Again, this book was strong in areas where christian fiction is not always strong, and despite a few misgivings, I expect that I will read the sequel.

Podcast Marathon

My wife was out of town all day last Saturday, so it was just me and my iPod Touch for the day. I listened to podcasts all day long, including these:

Guild of the Cowry Catchers, book 3 -- Full-cast novel, distributed via podcast. I listened to episodes 6, 7, & 8. It is turning darker as the story moves on.

Katia & KylieMac , episode 465 -- Two girls, an American and an Australian, who live in Paris. A great episode with frequent guest, Frog the Frenchman.

Tales of the JSA, episode 58 -- One of the best comic book podcasts out there. Terrific stuff.

A Podcast of Ice and Fire, episode 64 -- This was a listener call-in episode, all about the book series, crazy theories, favorite scenes. They even gave this blog a shout-out, when I mentioned the podcast in a previous entry.

Chaos Chronicles -- It has been great listening to Lian Dolan over the years, as her life has changed. This used to be mostly a mommy-cast, but the show has changed as Lian's life has changed. She published a novel last year, and is now pitching 3 separate TV shows. It's been fun following this unexpected journey.

Golden Age Superman, episode 26 -- I did not finish this episode on Saturday, because it was NEARLY FOUR HOURS LONG! Jon Wilson is one of my favorite podcasters, and he did a great here covering all the Superman activity from May, 1940. The comic books, newspaper strips, and radio, Jon covers them all in and entertaining and infomrative manner.

Book #62

Y: The Last Man, Deluxe hardcovers, vols 3 & 4, by Brian K Vaughn, Pia Guerra, et. al. Graphic novel.

Comic books are a medium, not a genre.

I like supeheroes, really I do. But some of the strongest stories being told in sequential art in the 21st century are not of the "caps and cowls" variety. And of these non-superhero books, Y: The Last Man may be the best.

A strange virus has struck earth, killing every male mammal on the planet. All except two, a man (Yorick) and his monkey (Ampersand). Desperately trying to reunite with his girlfriend halfway around the world, Yorick's journey has brought him under the protection of the mysterious agent 355. There seems to be hope for a cure to the plague in Asia, and he detours there. A pseudo-journalist has snapped a photo of Yorick in a pose that reveals his, ummmm, definite maleness. Will this photo be believed, which could hamper Yorick's efforts, or will it be dismissed as a hoax? Will a cure be found? Will Yorick find his girlfriend? These are the questions that are left to be anwered. These volumes take us through issue 48 of the series 60-issue run, so we are entering the last act. I look forward to finishing the series with volume 5.

Unfortunately, Guerra did not draw as many of the issues in this part of the run as I would have liked. Although the other artists tried to ape her style, her strong lines and ability to differentiate characters stand out among the other artists.

Comic books are a medium, not a genre.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

MY TEASERS:

"Bright spring dawn, with no traces of the night's gale, was scarce an hour old over Redwall when little Arven flung himsel fon Tansy's bed in the sick bay and began buffeting her with a pillow ... [w]ith a bound the young hedgehog maid was out of bed and attacking back with her pillow."

From page 58 of the YA novel Pearls of Lutra, by the late Brian Jacques. Talking animals having adventures!