Colum McCann. Apeirogon. Random House, 2020.

Years ago I did some research on the migration of birds through the Holy Land. Birds throughout Europe and Asia that winter in Africa funnel through that neck of land that connects West Asia with Africa. I wrote an article for a magazine on the subject, but it was never published. Apeirogon describes various birds of Palestine and Israel, both residents and migrants.

Even longer ago than that I read some stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I once attended a public lecture given by him. I loved his tales, but there was one story that was over my head. Apeirogon mentions Borges a number of times and alludes to that story. When Borges refers to the Aleph in a story by that name, he is suggesting not just the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, he is describing a degree of infinity, according to McCann. (See David Foster Wallace’s Everything and More.) I will have to reread that story.

An Apeirogon is a polygon with an infinite number of sides. Technically, it is not a circle because it has an Aleph sub zero points (i.e., the set of rational numbers [א₀]) while a true closed curve like a circle would have an Aleph sub one set of points (i.e., the set of real numbers [א₁]).

So the conflict over the Holy Land that developed in the twentieth century appears circular—A attacks B, who attacks back, and it goes on and around like migrating birds. But it is not exactly circular. It is a conflict with many sides. The first chapter begins “The hills of Jerusalem are a bath of fog.” The last chapter, also called chapter one, ends with, “The hills of Jericho are a bath of dark.” A many-sided circle? How well does either side see?

Apeirogon touches on many things, but it is mainly about two men on two different sides who come together in the name of peace. Their unlikely connection begins because of evil.

One of the men, an Israeli named Rami Elhanan, is a seventh-generation Jerusalemite on his mother’s side. His father was born in Hungary, survived Auschwitz, and was smuggled into Palestine after World War II ended.

His father-in-law was an honored general who fought in three of Israel’s wars between 1948 and 1967. Yet after 1967 he spent the rest of his life campaigning against what is called the Occupation. He believed that it was possible for Arabs and Jews to live together without the intimidation and bitterness that the Occupation has provoked. At one point McCann notes that Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the father of the modern Hebrew language, believed that Arabs and Jews were brothers with a similar language and cultural background.

Like most Israelis, Rami was drafted. He served in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Though assigned to a tank repair unit, he saw action in the Sinai and knows he killed some Arab soldiers who were trying to kill him. These Arabs were probably Egyptian, not Palestinian.

After directly seeing war, he expressed some sympathy with his father-in-law’s beliefs. Still, he wanted nothing to do with politics or the military after his tour of duty. He married, began a family, and worked as a graphic artist in Tel Aviv. His life would radically change one day in 1997 when his thirteen year old daughter Smadar was killed on her way home from school by two Palestinian suicide bombers.

Eventually Rami joined a group of parents who lost children in the conflict: both Jews and Palestinians. Many sided, indeed. There are even more sides because Smadar had already adopted her grandfather’s opposition to the Occupation. Still, to the bombers she was just another infidel.

The other main character is Bassam Aramin. He is a Palestinian who was arrested at the age of seventeen for throwing rocks at an IDF jeep. He was sentenced to seven years in prison as a terrorist.

Apeirogon retells some of the treatment he received at the hands of the prison staff. Much of it was meant to humiliate him, but there were occasional acts of kindness as well. He never compromised with the authorities even when the raised the possibility of extending his prison term. His reaction was reminiscent of Thoreau’s in On Civil Disobedience where he expresses the idea that some things are more important than being set free from jail.

Released from prison at the age of twenty-four, Bassam gets married and raises a family. In an incident that is like a mirror image of Smadar’s, in 2007 Rami’s daughter Abir is shot and killed by an IDF soldier while she was on her way to school.

Rami befriends Bassam. He understands. Together they promote the parents’ group and each tells his story. Over the years they have spoken all over the world, yet in their homeland they often have to resort to subterfuge to meet. They are very frank.

Bassam and his family spend a couple of years in England as he studies the Holocaust. He knows it really happened—he is no denier—but he wants to understand the Jews better.

Both Bassam and his wife Salwa appreciate the freedom in England, especially the freedom to travel. Apeirogon has pictures of various signs from Israel warning that Jews or Palestinians are prohibited from entering certain areas. But the Aramins do not stay in England. Palestine is where they belong. Bassam meditates on a line from the Persian poet Rumi:

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I have begun to change myself. (325)

At one point the author observes that the Kabbala sees two aspects of God:

The first, known as Ein Sof, finds God to be transcendent, unknowable, impersonal, endless and infinite [always infinity]. The second is accessible to human perception, revealing the divine in the material world, available in our finite lives.

Far from contradicting each other, the two aspects of the divine—one locatable, one infinite—are said to be perfectly complementary to one another, a form of deep truth to be found in apparent opposites. (236)

Not only does this say something about the way God reveals Himself, but in its subtle use of chiasmus, it really points to the two natures of the Messiah: He is both God and man. That is indeed the main way God revealed Himself to mankind. See Hebrews 1:1-3.

Speaking of Messiah, there is a detailed and accurate description of what crucifixion was like, notably the crucifixion of Jesus. That is chapter 358.

There are 1001 chapters, corresponding to The 1001 Nights, a.k.a. The Arabian Nights. They average less than a page per chapter. Many are just one or two sentences. A few are photographs. As you may have already noticed, the chapters cover a variety of topics, but together they provide many of the infinite sides of the story.

Although the world stereotypes both Jews and Palestinians, Bassam seems to be more aware of this. Once when being interviewed for a television show, he felt his interviewers wanted him “to fit into their box of ideas” (312). From my own experience with the press when I was in the Coast Guard, I can identify with that experience.

Bassam would note that:

So many times people would come up to him after his lectures and say that they wished there were more like him. What do you mean? he would ask. Immediately they would realize what they had said and drop their heads. As if he didn’t encounter people like himself every single day, at every single angle [infinite angles?]. As if he were the only sort of Palestinian they could stomach. (382)

Prejudice is simply part of who we are.

Since one man served time in prison and the other in the military, there is a small amount of strong language.

There is so much more. Apeirogon is a work of art, but it is not precious or elitist. We do not have to get it all to get it.

As a reviewer I am left with two minor questions.

In chapter 121, writing about a German concentration camp, the book mentions a German lieutenant named Rahm. Corrie ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place tells about a conscience-stricken German Lt. Rahm when she was caught rescuing Jews and sent to concentration camps. Same man? A deliberate choice of name on McCann’s part?

One of the chapters on bird migration lists nearly forty reasons why six out of ten birds do not survive migration. I would be surprised if it is much different in the Old World, but in the Americas cats kill more birds than just about anything else. Why are cats not on McCann’s list?

It is a minor quibble over a major work.

Arthur Phillips. The Tragedy of Arthur. Random House, 2011.

The Tragedy of Arthur can be fun for those with a literary bent, especially those who enjoy Shakespeare or enjoy making fun of Shakespeare.

The author observes, quoting Moby-Dick:

“This absolute and unconditional adoration of Shakespeare has grown to be part of our Anglo Saxon superstition…Intolerance has come to exist in this matter. You must believe in Shakespeare’s unapproachability, or quit the country. But what sort of belief is this for an American?” I liked Moby-Dick until I read that quote. Now I love Moby-Dick. (95)¹

The author may be a bit jealous of Shakespeare and is trying to prove that he can write just as well as Shakespeare can.

We know this is going to be a little different because one of the first pages has the typical “Other works by” page. This has two authors listed: William Shakespeare, with a list of all his works including collaborations and lost works, and Arthur Phillips, with a list of the four titles under his name. Similarly the back matter includes the “About the Authors” page with two short paragraphs, one on each man. Immediately, we understand that much of this tale is going to be tongue in cheek.

This is really two stories. The first story is reminiscent of Tristram Shandy. If you have ever read or even flipped through that eighteenth century novel, you know that it purports to be an autobiography of Mr. Shandy. It is very discursive. Indeed Tristram is not even born until about a quarter of the way through the novel!

So we learn that Arthur Phillips’ family has discovered a lost play of Shakespeare, a folio edition printed in 1597 by a well-known London printer. Mr. Phillips has agreed to publish it if he can write the introduction. But the introduction is over 250 pages long, and in it he tries to show that the play is a forgery. Well, maybe he does.

The remaining hundred pages or so is the play attributed to Shakespeare.

You see, Arthur Phillips’ father is a forger. His father was attracted to his mother when he met her in college as soon as he learned her name: Mary Arden, the same as the maiden name of Shakespeare’s mother. Now Mary keeps this suitor at arm’s length because she has a bland but earnest boyfriend back home in Ely, Minnesota, by the name of Silvius. (Like the bland but earnest shepherd in As You Like It?)

Ely, Minnesota, is the gateway to the Boundary Waters region along the Canadian Border where Rainy River and the Lake of the Woods, made famous by Tim O’Brien, are located.

His father gets Silvius out of the way (this is the sixties) by forging a draft notice to him. Silvius arrives at boot camp in North Carolina, and no one can find any records, but it is obviously a genuine draft notice. After a few months of trying to decide what to do with him, the army gives him an honorable discharge, but by then Mary is engaged to Mr. Phillips. They will live in the Minneapolis area where Arthur becomes a Twins fan. At one point his father gives him a baseball autographed by Hall of Famer Rod Carew. Arthur later assumes it is, like most things from his father, a forgery.

Mr. Phillips really only figures in the life of Arthur and his twin sister Dana a when they are aged 5 to 8 and a bit when they are in their teens. The rest of the time he is in prison for various forgeries or only has visitation weekends because Mrs. Phillips divorces him after his second imprisonment when the kids are nine. Silvius is still patiently waiting, and she marries him on the rebound.

Both Arthur and Dana have identity crises partly related to the fact that their father is incarcerated. Phillips observes:

Adolescence produces all sorts of variations of incomplete emotional development; it’s the Island of Dr. Moreau of human personality. (45)

Dr. Moreau, who ran the island named for him in H. G. Wells’ sci-fi novel, experimented with people and animals, crossing them genetically and making half-men and half-beasts. (Crichton’s Next is in some ways merely an update of Dr. Moreau.)

So much for the thin background. Dana and Arthur are not unlike Viola and Sebastian in Twelfth Night. Like many twins, Arthur describes how close they identify with one another. It is really very moving.

They grow up. Like others with a distant or uninvolved father figure they both have some identity problems. Arthur is simply a cad. You would not want him around your sisters or daughters. Dana becomes a lesbian.

They do sometimes go out looking for women together. If see a woman they both find attractive, they make a friendly bet whether she is gay or straight. Eventually, after many years, Dana moves in with a woman whom Arthur is convinced is his soul mate. I suppose that would be Twelfth Night for the twenty-first century.

This could be considered the first tragedy of Arthur because he is lonely at the end. But this is hardly a tragedy. We are supposed to feel pity for the tragic hero, as we do for Hamlet or Othello or King Lear. All I can say about Arthur is from the musical Chicago: “He had it coming!” He does love his sister, but he is a cad.

He is amoral and seems to gloat about it. At one point he does admit, though, that “…the pleasure of being angry and right was (and still is) a delicious brain cocktail, and a moral license unrevokable until the mood passes.” (56) True enough!

Although I have skimmed over the plot of the Introduction of the book, this is not much of a spoiler. What is fun is reading between the lines about Shakespeare and the cleverness of Mr. Phillips’ forgeries. He gets even with someone whom he does not like by making a crop circle in his corn field one night when Arthur is ten. Everyone in southern Minnesota is talking about the alien visitation!

Gradually, we learn that Mr. Phillips was a talented artist but had trouble selling paintings. He started working for an insurance company by painting copies for its art-collecting clients. He learned his craft well.

Phillips notes the uneasy irony of his own occupation as a novelist. He also is creating a kind of forgery.

It also equates writing with a sort of con job (building illusions with a reader’s own imagination, then being far away when the pigeon realizes there’s nothing real at all in the experience). (79)

Mr. Phillips, Shakespeare fan that he is, reads Shakespeare out loud to the twins when they are young. All three of them can quote Shakespeare fluently. The last time Mr. Phillips is arrested, he is nearly sixty. He is penniless and is given a public defender. He is frustrated with her because she does not recognize Shakespeare. He complains that twenty or thirty years before if he quoted Shakespeare, a good lawyer would know what lines came next. Times are changing. (I think of my Great Uncle Jim who was a lawyer born around 1880. He quoted poetry frequently.)

There are allusions to many Shakespeare plays in the course of the story. Arthur even spends time in London and Venice. He is Jewish, so The Merchant of Venice strikes a chord with him. But even there it seems people do not understand him when he speaks of a pound of flesh. Of course, one could argue that Arthur is looking for about a hundred and twenty pounds of flesh at any given time.

Without giving too much of a spoiler, there is even a spot where the Introduction alludes to probably the most famous stage direction in Shakespeare and maybe in all theater: “Exit, pursued by a bear” (The Winter’s Tale 3.3.58). At one point he notes titles of numerous other classics which themselves allude to Shakespeare such as The Sound and the Fury and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Dana becomes a stage actress. Some of the humor comes from the way she and other actors and directors interpret the same scene or character. For example, is Ophelia tragic or on the make like Gertrude? A recurring theme is that since there are few stage directions and no production notes, interpretations are largely up to the director and actors.

One example from personal experience: Usually A Midsummer Night’s Dream is played as a comedy. One of funniest productions of any play or film I have ever seen was done by Hartford Stage around 1989. Still, I once saw a version that played it like a horror film. With mischievous spirits, rivals threatening to kill each other, and a nighttime setting, one could do it that way. That production was not funny, nor was meant to be.

In his Introduction, the author notes that not all of Shakespeare’s plays were that great. Phillips notes that only recently have people thought Shakespeare might have had a hand in Edward III. I have read or at least watched some version of most of his plays, but I had never seen anyone do Henry VIII. I read it. There is probably a reason why no one performs it. It is pure plotless propaganda, kissing up to the queen.

While I do not recall Phillips mentioning Henry VIII, it fits in with some interpretations of the Arthur play. Many of Shakespeare’s history plays have troubled monarchs: Lear, Henry IV, Henry VI, the two Richards, Macbeth. These may have barely made it past the censors. Henry VIII might have been a sop to the government. And perhaps there was only one copy of The Tragedy of Arthur extant because it presents Arthur as merely lucky and barely competent (based on Holinshed) rather than the legendary hero of Camelot in many other stories. (The Introduction perhaps paints King Arthur as even less royal than the play itself.)

There are also questions about the provenance of other Shakespeare plays. Dana goes through a stretch of being mad at her father for abandoning the family by going to prison and develops a list of arguments why Shakespeare did not write the plays. At first she cannot make up her mind on whether Marlowe, Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote them, but she settles on the Earl. She then imagines him having a Jewish catamite who helps him write the plays—the Earl knows politics and the Jew knows the Bible, together they nail the tales. (Technically, there were no Jews living in England between 1290 and 1656. You can look it up.)

Since there is a lot about who wrote any of the Shakespeare plays and about Mr. Phillips’ escapades…so, then, the obvious question is this: Is The Tragedy of Arthur folio a forgery?

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Have fun with that.

The last 110 pages are the purported Tragedy of Arthur by Shakespeare. It is awkward enough, no one would confuse it with Hamlet or Macbeth, or for that matter even Two Gentlemen of Verona, though it does borrow a little from that play. However, let’s face it, not every play Shakespeare wrote was a huge hit. The Tragedy of Arthur is certainly no worse than Henry VIII.

I should emphasize Phillips presents it as if it were a Shakespeare play. This is not an updated telling of a Shakespeare story like The Mayor of Casterbridge or A Thousand Acres. Nor is it a send-up like Pynchon’s “Fear and Loathing in Vienna.” The Tragedy of Arthur play is written in late sixteenth-century English iambic pentameter. It could probably pass for the era if not for Mr. Shakespeare himself.

Perhaps the most distinctive thing about this King Arthur story is that is nothing like most of them. No round table, no French knights. Indeed, the only recognizable names from most versions (Mallory, Tennyson, White, etc.) are Arthur, Mordred, and Uter (Uther). His queen’s name Guenher is close to Guinevere. Like many of Shakespeare’s historical plays, it is based on Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

At one point in his Introduction, Phillips notes that Prince Hal or Henry V could go in several directions, but ends up redeeming himself for the good of the country and crown. Arthur reminds us a little of the young Hal, only he is like the Phillips persona in the introduction, more of a womanizer. He is likely illegitimate, though Uter’s only son. He is surprised when he is made king, and he does try to do his best. So, yes, he dies fighting Mordred after killing him, which is pretty much universal in the Arthur legends.

Perhaps Phillips tries to show that anyone could write a Shakespeare-ish play. And the play is definitely more tragic than the Arthur Phillips in the Introduction. Together, the two parts do make a whole. Readers who have strong ideas about Shakespeare, positive or negative, should get a kick out of The Tragedy of Arthur.

Note
¹ I recall reading that Melville thought Shakespeare was overrated. At some point after he had already done some writing, he got a new pair of reading glasses. He had owned a set of Shakespeare plays, but it had small print. With his new spectacles, he developed a more positive view of the Bard, and used a few of his techniques in Moby-Dick. Lack of eyestrain does contribute to more enjoyable reading.

Daniel Overdorf. A Death Well Lived. Crosslink, 2020.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the son of man is?” (Matthew 16:13)

It takes a little while to get into A Death Well Lived. There are a number of characters introduced and whom we follow, but it becomes clear that the story centers around one Lucius, a Roman centurion stationed in Caesarea in the Holy Land at the time of Christ.

Much of the dynamic in the story comes from the interaction between the Jewish residents of the Holy Land and their ruthless Roman rulers. Lucius himself practically kills a Jewish demonstrator in Caesarea. The man is holding a piece of bread, but it looks like a rock to Lucius. But, hey, he is only a Jew, one of many conquered peoples the Romans look down upon.

Also figuring in the story are Lucius’ common law wife Nona (Roman soldiers could not marry); Tullus and Paulla, their two children; Septimus, Lucius’ overbearing boss; Decius, Lucius’ longtime friend and fellow soldier; and Avitus, a Roman soldier with a Syrian background who has a helpful understanding of Hebrew customs. Pontius Pilate makes an appearance, and Jewish mobs in various places around Palestine are complaining and demonstrating against some of his policies.

That brings Lucius and his century (100 men) to Jerusalem. People are complaining about some of Pilate’s building projects that do not respect Jewish custom and law. More soldiers are needed to keep the peace there. Here we meet some important Jewish characters: Tobiah and Deborah, the victim of Lucius’ beating and his pregnant wife; Ephraim and Miriam, who operate a popular inn; and peripherally, the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth.

Because of the Roman perspective, the Roman-Jewish interaction, and Jesus in the background, this reader cannot help think of Ben-Hur. That is perhaps an unfair comparison, though. Ben-Hur is epic in scope. A Death Well Lived covers less than a year. While there are a couple of riots and plenty of conflict, much of the conflict in this new novel is internal. We see a gradual change in Lucius as he begins to see Jews as real people not all that different from him or anyone else.

Like Judah Ben-Hur, though, Lucius does encounter Jesus because they are both in Jerusalem during Passover. Jesus is observing the holiday and teaching his followers. Lucius is patrolling the streets to make sure that order is maintained.

Another novel that a reader might be reminded of is The Robe. The main character of that novel is a Roman soldier who wins Jesus’ robe in the dice game at the crucifixion (See Matthew 27:35, cf. Psalm 22:18). That also has much more scope than A Death Well Lived.

A Death Well Lived is not so much a sword and sandal epic as a historical novel focusing ultimately on the changes taking place in a battle-hardened Roman soldier as he witnesses the religion of the Jews and the works of Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps more so than either of those two classic novels, this confronts the reader with a very important question: Who is Jesus? What difference does it make? Or, as Jesus Himself asked, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:13)

Disclosure of Material: We received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through the BookCrash book review program, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive, review.

Randy Petersen. The Printer and the Preacher. Nelson, 2015.

We recommend The Printer and Preacher to anyone who teaches American Literature or American History. It gives us some important clues as to what even today makes the United States different from other places. The author uses two important figures from eighteenth century America to illustrate his point: Benjamin Franklin, the printer; and George Whitefield, the preacher.

Petersen makes a reasonable case that Franklin and Whitfield were the first two American celebrities. Yes, there were early colonial founders like the Winthrops, William Penn, Lord Baltimore, Roger Williams, John Smith, and so on. There were some other writers like the Mathers and Jonathan Edwards, but they and their work tended to be localized. Franklin and Whitfield were the first names widely recognized among all of the thirteen colonies.

For years I have shared with my classes what Franklin said about Whitefield in his autobiography. Franklin admired and respected him, even if he did not always agree with him. But what is written in his autobiography does not tell the full story of their relationship.

Petersen notes that their relationship was not only cordial but symbiotic. Franklin made money selling Whitfield’s sermons and reporting on his travels. Whitefield preached at evangelistic rallies in every colony from New Hampshire to Georgia. (Readers may recall that Maine was part of Massachusetts before 1818, and Florida was Spanish during most of the Colonial period.) There was probably no contemporary figure, except for the King, better known in the colonies than Whitfield. No one except for the King made the news more.

Except for, possibly, Franklin. His Poor Richard’s Almanac was a best seller, and as he began his scientific experiments and political involvement, he became more famous. Petersen reminds us, for example, it was Franklin who coined the terms positive and negative for electrical charges along with his various electrical experiments and inventions like the Franklin stove and bifocal glasses.

Whitfield also stuck up for Franklin. In the 1760s when Franklin was in London representing several colonies, he opposed the Stamp Act and was able to work out a compromise to repeal it. Many in the colonies thought he still gave up too much with the compromise, but Whitefield wrote a letter that was reprinted in many newspapers defending Franklin’s actions. Thanks largely to this letter, the controversy over Franklin’s actions blew over.

In his autobiography Franklin tells how he supported the building of a protected theater that could be used by speakers of all religions. Whitefield would use that and become a supporter. That lecture hall became the foundation of the University of Pennsylvania. Both men are included when naming its founders. Both men would correspond with each other until Whitefield’s death in 1770.

Whitefield was far and away the best-known itinerant evangelist of the Great Awakening. He was a personal friend of the Wesley brothers and corresponded with Jonathan Edwards. He was a native of England and traveled all over the British Isles, but he spent a lot of time in North America and died in 1770 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he is buried.

What distinguished him in this time period was that, though he was ordained by the Anglican Church, he did not promote a particular denomination or theology. He tried to emphasize the necessity of committing to Jesus Christ, regardless of church affiliation. That was something new and different. It would become the precursor of many evangelists and movements in America. I am reminded of a Christian men’s organization which had a song that said, “I don’t care what church you belong to, as long as at Calvary you stand.” For probably a century or so, that idea would only take root in America.

Franklin liked that about Whitefield. His autobiography tells us that by the age of thirty he had given up his deistic ideas, but he said he could never join a particular church because do so would seem divisive. Petersen does note also, though Franklin came to understand that God took an active part in history, he was unsure about Jesus’ divinity. Still he would promote religious freedom. By the time the United States’ Constitution was ratified, most Americans acknowledged the idea of religious liberty. We have both the printer and the preacher to thank for that.

Petersen also notes something else very distinctive about the American colonies. There was no established aristocracy. In England, the concept of a gentleman was someone who did not have to work for a living. He could live off rents, investments, and inheritances. While there were men who tried to live that way in America, Franklin showed there was perhaps a better and more honorable way: work hard. Even today, if America has an immigration problem, it is primarily because people want freedom and want a chance to succeed in life. Franklin in his writings and in his life showed how this was possible. While he did know how to relax, he was never idle for very long.

Plymouth, Massachusetts, bills itself as America’s Hometown. It has a good case for that title: early religious tolerance, no state church, and a representative form of government patterned after the Congregational churches. But if you were going to speak of colonial celebrities who both influenced and demonstrated directions that the English speaking colonies in North America would take, take a look at The Printer and the Preacher.

G. K. Chesterton. Eugenics and Other Evils. 1922. Amazon Digital, 2012.

G K. Chesterton is one of those writers who is frequently quoted but seldom read—except perhaps for fans of Father Brown mysteries. Eugenics and Other Evils still has a lot to say, even if contemporary readers might not know some of the politicians and journalists he refers to.

Eugenics and Other Evils still deserves to be quoted. Chesterton here is pointed and logical. It also might make the reader a bit wistful. This 1922 book ends on a positive note that the Allies defeated the Germans, the source of Nietzschean philosophy and the pseudo-science of eugenics. We in the Western world have learned our lesson.

Except, of course, that we didn’t. We had to fight a Second World War against enemies that took eugenics to an extreme unimagined by the Kaiser and his Prussian professors.

Today’s reader can easily note how much of Chesterton’s argument today applies to abortion. Abortion, at least in the West, is a holdover from the eugenics movement. While most abortions in the United States stem from male chauvinism—the father convinces the mother to abort because he wants to avoid responsibility—we know that many abortions come because the infant’s genes indicate some kind of abnormality or the mother is persuaded she cannot afford to raise it. Those were both arguments the eugenists used.

In Chesterton’s day, the discussion included the idea of government-sanctioned marriages and other techniques for reducing the number of lower class people having children. He points out that poverty does not necessarily mean bad genes, or even a lower class. Many people in England can point to nobility somewhere in their family trees. Not that that means superior genes, but simply that poverty or wealth of parents is not a way to predict the financial status of the children.

One of the ostensible reasons given in the Roe vs. Wade ruling which overturned abortion laws in our country was that abortion would reduce the number of poor people. It has not. Chesterton would say:

I know it is praised with high professions of idealism and benevolence, with silver-tongued rhetoric about motherhood and happier posterity. But that is only because evil is always flattered, as the Furies were called “The Gracious Ones.” (3)

Chesterton makes us chuckle as well. For example the term eugenics itself (“good or blessed birth or race”) is not an accurate term for an opponent to use. He simply notes that chivalrous is not the French for “horsy.” (The root of the word comes from the French cheval, which means “horse.”)

He also notes something that Orwell would develop in more detail in his essay “Politics and the English Language”:

Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating one into the other…

Eugenists are as passive in their statements as they are active in their experiments. Their sentences always enter tail first, and have no subject, like animals without heads. (22)

This sounds so much like Orwell; I wonder if Chesterton influenced him. It no different today when abortion promoters speak of their work.

He notes that there is a problem any time someone proposes a reform that calls for more government:

Autocrats…are those who give us generally that every modern reform will “work” all right because they will be there to see.

The problem is that most times a law “will do as a dog does” and “obey its own nature.”

Chesterton says that because eugenics disrupts the family and raises moral questions, those who propose it are at heart anarchists. He notes that historically anarchists are rare. They are not the same as rebels—even the devil expects his followers to recognize his authority. Eugenists and their pro-abortion allies recognize no authority except a vague subjectivity. I wonder what he would say about postmodernism! We are reminded of Judges 21:25.

Unfortunately, this sense of anarchy has taken root in the West even without the extremes of death camps, forced sterilization, and government-sanctioned marriages. Chesterton notes that this could lead to a problem in sexual relations. It has. As I write, many people maintain that sex is not something someone is born with but is based on subjective feelings and behavior. Among other things, it results in a lack of self-control, something we seem to read about every day in the news.

Anarchy…is the loss of self-control which can return to normal. It is not anarchy when men are permitted to begin uproar, extravagance, experiment, peril. It is anarchy when people cannot end these things. (11, emphasis in original)

“The modern world is insane, not so much because it admits the abnormal as because it cannot recover the normal.” (11) As I write this, a lawsuit in my state is trying to get boys who identify as girls to not compete against girls in high school sports. The local newspaper puts “biologically male” in quotation marks whenever it uses that term, as if to say alleged or so-called biological males. Anarchy, indeed.

Just as the newspaper editors ask “what is maleness?” so Chesterton says that the anarchist will ask “what is liberty?”

It leaves the question free to disregard any liberty, in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. (65)

When Pontius Pilate shrugged off his sentence upon Jesus of Nazareth, he said something very similar: “What is truth?” No matter, he could do what he wanted.

Chesterton notes that “The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science.” He calls Science “the creed that is really levying tithes and capturing schools.” (34)

If it means the imposition of by the police of a widely disputed theory, incapable of final proof—then our priests are not prosecuting, but our doctors are. (34)

When we have Science trying to shape politics, we not only get eugenics, we get Socialism. Neither eugenics nor Socialism “destroy inequality.” They destroy security. “The ideal of liberty is lost, and the ideal of Socialism is changed, till it is a mere excuse for the oppression of the poor.” (72)

In spite of our historical record of fighting against the National Socialists in World War II and the subsequent obvious shortcomings and problems with other socialist societies, it seems like many in the West have not recognized that Socialism does not work in the long run. And the poor suffer the most under it.

There is much more. Chesterton reminds us that the poor and disabled are as human as anyone else. That argument still stands. May our liberty stand as well.

Anne Elmer. Transported by the Lion of Judah. Elijah List, 2003.

This little book was recommended by friend. It is worth the relatively small amount of time to take to read it. The author’s focus is a series of visions she had of Jesus showing her various places around the world.

The format of Transported by the Lion of Judah reminded me of the framework of Pilgrim’s Progress. The reader may recall that John Bunyan, its author, said the story came from a dream he had while he was in prison. (Bunyan spent over twelve years in prison for his faith.)

Here the author tells us that she was laid up in the hospital with a gall bladder infection for three weeks with few visitors and a roommate who was sleeping or unconscious much of the time. On a number of occasions the Lord appeared to her since she was virtually alone most of the time.

Most of the time Jesus appeared to her as a lion, hence the title. He took her to a few places where miracles were taking place. Whenever she saw miracles, she would see spirals in the air. She said these resembled DNA—that the Lord was creating new things “out of the air” by the power of his word.

Once she was told to pray for the woman she was sharing her hospital room with. The woman told her that she saw her son with her while they were praying. At the time, her son was in another part of the country. She must have seen Jesus, too.

Shortly before the woman died, she was talking to some relatives who were not physically present. The author assumes that the woman was hallucinating. While that might have been the case, after reading Death is But a Dream, I might re-think that hypothesis. The woman may have been preparing to die and resolving some things in her heart. One of the things that that Lord was concerned about was that woman’s relationship with Him.

As mentioned before, the real focus of the visions is what the Lord showed her around the world. Besides the miracle services, she observed various other Christian meetings and gatherings as well as two gatherings of other religions.

One other striking thing in her visions was that most of the Christian believers she saw were faceless. A common emphasis about current and future revivals is that they will be nameless and faceless. The age of the Christian superstars, whether Billy Graham or Mother Teresa, is past. The few faces that had discernible features were motivated by pride. They wanted to have themselves noticed. The lion had his own way of taking care of them. They soon lost whatever position that they had.

There was a twenty-four hour a day underground church in a non-Christian country. Seekers and worshipers would enter one way and exit another.

Twice the lion roared. Once was in a church in a Buddhist-majority country where a group of believers were worshiping in what had once been a Buddhist building.

In another country, he took her to a Buddhist shrine with an enormous idol. Obviously, no one there was worshiping Jesus, but He said that He had the right to be there. Over the years Christian visitors and tourists had prayed for the people there and He would be answering their prayers. Recently, I received a prayer request asking for millions of souls from the same region. It was hard to imagine, but we see here that prayer does make a difference. It helps “break up the fallow ground” for God’s salvation to come. (See Hosea 10:12) Perhaps we should be praying for billions!

The author also noted a church, perhaps symbolically in a frozen and wintry setting, where the people were worshiping and were happy to be there. However, they were not aware of the Lord’s presence. They were enjoying one another’s company and the activity of the service, but they had not yet reached the point where they were seeking his presence. Still, Jesus was confident that they would be seeking Him later on and the church there would prosper.

There was a good deal more, but overall it gave the impression—if there were any doubt—that God knows what is going on in the world and who really has a heart after Him, to use the biblical terminology (See Acts 13:22 cf. I Samuel 13:14). It is also a reminder of how important prayer is and how important it is to cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus.

I am familiar with the Elijah List. It is an email record of supernatural stories from around the world. I was not aware that it has a publishing arm, but the people who put the Elijah List together have a challenging job to discern what it real. I would suggest to readers who are skeptical of the supernatural element (people in the West are culturally materialists) that they would read Transported by the Lion of Judah as they would Pilgrim’s Progress. Yes, it is a story of supernatural activity, but it is at the very least an intense teaching allegory that gives us insight into the spiritual realm. For anyone of any persuasion, it emphasizes the truth of the Scripture that

Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed…(Revelation 5:5 NKJV)

Or, as C. S. Lewis put it, “Aslan is not a tame lion.”

Julie Klassen. The Bridge to Belle Island. Bethany House, 2019.

This book was recommended to me by someone who knows I like an entertaining mystery. However, I was reluctant at first to read it because the cover makes it look like historical chick lit. The cover has a woman in a Regency outfit with a sizeable mansion in the background. Yeah, the cover looked like Jane Austen or the Brontës, but the Bridge to Belle Island really was more like Agatha Christie. The romance comes quickly at the end like a Shakespeare play.

The murder happens almost immediately. There are clues and red herrings. Much of the action takes place on Belle Island, a small island in the Thames River. The attorney Benjamin Booker is sent there by his law firm to do a few things—investigate the murder and determine who gets trusteeship of the family inheritance.

You see, it is a senior partner of Booker’s firm who has been murdered. Not only that, but he was assigned to be trustee of the family estate of Belle Island because the two heirs were both minor females at the time of their father and uncle’s demise. Now Isabelle lives on the estate, running it well as a family business. Her niece Rose is getting married. Even though this is only about 1815, there is no legal reason why they cannot manage their inheritance themselves now.

Isabelle Wilder is in danger of becoming a spinster. She is thirty, and because of a fear of a family curse, she has not left the island for any reason in ten years. She is also a prime suspect in the murder of her “uncle” who was the trustee and is the murder victim. She says she had a dream of his murder the night it happened. Of course, she was on the island while the victim was killed miles away in London. But how could she have known the details? Maybe there is some spooky supernatural thing going on. So, yes, there is a touch of the Gothic.

We discover, as is often the case in such stories of murders, that nobody really liked Uncle Percival. There are a whole cast of characters who had reasons to see him out of the way: the two heiresses, Rose’s fiancé, the doctor suitor whom Percival turned away, another suitor whom Percival got to join the army in time to fight Napoleon, several of the employees of his law firm who did not like working for him, and then some criminals who think he had double-crossed them. We discover that even Isabelle’s maid had had some unfortunate dealing with the man. To make things more complicated, one of the employees who is a suspect dies in the same manner Percival did.

The novel provides many curious details. We learn a lot about the medicine and pharmaceuticals of the period from the local physician Dr. Grant and from Mr. Booker’s father, who is a pharmacist. Having witnessed a few floods in my lifetime and having worked for the Coast Guard, I can assure any reader that the descriptions of flooding—adding some natural hazards to the story along with the deadly humanity—are spot on.

It is no spoiler to say that the ending reminded this reader of a Shakespeare comedy. Not the mystery of the killer—the revelation will be a surprise to most readers, I suspect, though the evidence is there. The end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has three couples getting married; the end of As You Like It has four.

The only difference is that because his were plays, Shakespeare has his couples get married together on stage. Since The Bridge to Belle Island is a novel, the author does not have to stage the drama that way, but there are three couples getting married at the end. Novels may have several subplots, after all. So, yes, there is the romance element in the tale, but the mystery and the action keep the story going. And, yes, it was not chick lit. The main character is Mr. Booker and his challenge is to solve the murder and figure out the complicated legal tangle of the Wilder estate. Well done.

Michael McAuliffe. No Truth Left to Tell. Greenleaf, 2020.

No Truth Left to Tell on the surface is a legal potboiler, but it is different from nearly all of them. The author says that the story is based on real events. But it is not the usual legal thriller about huge lawsuits or organized crime. The main character in No Truth Left to Tell is an attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

Adrien Rush is called in with FBI Special Agent Lee Mercer to Lynnwood, Louisiana, to investigate five cross burnings that happened one night in that town. The readers know that the local Ku Klux Klan leader wants to start a race war. While there are plenty of witnesses to the cross burnings, there is little evidence to prosecute anyone.

As is often true in cases like this, the local police get a lucky break. Without going into too much detail (I try to avoid spoilers), a relatively routine traffic stop of the Klan leader reveals a box with a Klan costume in the back seat. Frank Daniels soon admits his involvement. He does not implicate anyone else, but he is arrested and brought to trial.

There is a lot of local color. The writer, a former prosecuting attorney, knows his people well. We get some very moving backstories in the course of the tale, including a simultaneously moving and repulsive story about how Rush became interested in Civil Rights.

When I teach Jane Eyre, for example, that story seems to be playing out as a somewhat formulaic romance. Rochester proposes to Jane, Jane accepts. End of story? Well, I point out to the students that there are nearly 200 pages left in the book. Things are not all what they seem.

Ditto with No Truth Left to Tell. The court case wraps up, the jury convicts Daniels, and Adrien Rush even falls in love. But there are over a hundred pages left.

It gets complicated. To say much more would spoil it.

This becomes not only complicated, but fascinating, with many shades of gray.

We also learn some things about the victims of the five crosses. Some were predictable. The Federal Courthouse is one venue. Two others are a synagogue and a mosque. The building that houses the offices of the NAACP is another. The fifth is a house chosen randomly because it is located in a black neighborhood.

The sole tenant of the house is a septuagenarian widow named Nettie Wynn. Her parents built the house, and she has lived there most of her life. The night of the cross burning, part of her house catches fire and she suffers a heart attack. Because it was the only dwelling, she was the only human victim present at the burnings. The other four places had no one present at night except for the night watchmen at the courthouse.

We mostly see Nettie Wynn from Rush’s perspective. He hears about her and her family not only from her own lips but also from her granddaughter, Nicole Dubose, a staffer on The New Yorker magazine. Nettie becomes for the reader one of the noblest characters in any work of fiction.

Yeah, sure, we can admire heroes of other books for their skills, their intelligence, their courage, their strength. Nettie Wynn is different. She is wise. Clearly, McAuliffe wants the reader to realize that there can be real wisdom with age. No Truth Left to Tell is worth reading not only for the intriguing legal tangle, but in order to meet Nettie Wynn.

Yes, Atticus Finch was also an honorable character, but we know that he was based on Harper Lee’s lawyer father. I am sure Nettie Wynn is based on someone or perhaps a composite of someone McAuliffe knew. The world is better place for people like her as much as it is for motivated upholders of the law like Adrien Rush. Sure, read the book for the legal thriller and the dangers posed by lawless people. Learn about the Holocaust survivor who brings some understanding to young people after the cross burns at her synagogue. But savor No Truth Left to Tell for the nobility of Nettie Wynn.

Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes. 1912. Amazon Digital Services, 2012.
———. The Return of Tarzan. 1913. Amazon Digital Services, 2012.

Somehow I missed Tarzan books when I was a boy. I did Hardy Boys and Tom Swift but missed Tarzan. These are the first two of the many Tarzan stories Burroughs wrote. They are a very good introduction to the Tarzan mythos.

I had a friend who had read many of them. I can see why. They are a lot of fun. Tarzan really is a kind of superhero. In these first two books of the series, he kills at least five lions single-handed. He does it a little different each time, too.

Even the way the books describes Tarzan’s feelings about Jane are a lot like the way a boy might feel when he first discovers that he is attracted to a certain girl.

But mostly the books are about the action. There is a new conflict in every chapter, whether it is Tarzan being raised by his defensive ape foster mother Kala or conflict with carnivorous beasts or murderous people or Russian spies. The stories are really pretty wild. Today they would probably be categorized as science fiction.

Tarzan is raised by apes in Africa that are bigger than chimps but smaller than gorillas. They have a rudimentary language, which at one point is described as the original language. There are also other ape-men that are further along the evolutionary path than Tarzan’s apes but not as far along as the humans.

From the first book, one gets the idea that Burroughs bought into the Darwinian idea that black Africans were the missing link between apes and men, but that becomes a little muddled in book two, The Return of Tarzan. Anyhow, do not look for science here.

Tarzan of the Apes is the origin story. His marooned parents die in West Africa; baby Tarzan is raised by the apes. He is very muscular and intelligent. By observing native Africans, whom he does not trust because the apes don’t, he learns about spears, knives, and bows and arrows. He even learns to read—he cannot pronounce the words but he sees books with pictures and learns that many of the letters symbolize objects. It does not explain how he learned to spell his own name, though.

Not only is there a lot of conflict, a lot of the conflict is fun. To the natives at first he is like some kind of god. To white people he is a mysterious and handsome savage. He saves the lives of numerous people. Everywhere he goes, people are in his debt for saving their lives. One of the men he saves is a French Captain D’Arnot, who is independently wealthy, so Tarzan lacks for nothing when he enters civilization.

When he is first civilized, he is kind of a curiosity not only because he was a wild jungle ape man (he is called the ape man throughout both books) but also because he could read English but spoke French. Eventually he learns English, one or two African languages, and Arabic. Indeed, one of his deadliest encounters was probably taken from the pages of the news at the time the books were written. He and some villagers defend themselves against Arab slave and ivory traders and their lackeys.

I review the books together because The Return of Tarzan is a true sequel. Tarzan of the Apes ends with some serious unresolved conflicts which are resolved, more or less, in the sequel. I thought I was just going to read one book to get a flavor for the tales, but I had to read the second one to find out what happens.

To give an idea of his adventures just in these two books, Tarzan visits numerous countries. He is apparently raised in the Congo and then goes to French West Africa with D’Arnot, then to Paris, then England, then the United States in both Baltimore and Wisconsin. He gets recruited into French espionage and goes to Morocco and saves the lives of some people there. He ends up back “home” in Africa, becomes a tribal leader there, and then discovers the hidden city of Opar—possibly equated with the Biblical Ophir (see, for example I Kings 10:11). Whew!

Tarzan is not just a solo act, either. He organizes a true guerrilla battle with his tribal allies to fight the Arab slave traders. This is something out of Heart of Darkness. It is almost certain Burroughs was familiar with some of the stories out of the Congo detailing the abuse of the Belgian colonials and the Arab slavers such as Twain’s King Leopold’s Soliloquy if not the Conrad novel.

Burroughs portrays Tarzan sympathetically. We really do care about what happens to him and to Jane and some of Tarzan’s other friends. Tarzan is a good guy. He seems to instinctively know right from wrong and true from false. The suggestion is that it is combination of nature (son of truly noble English nobility) and nurture (extreme survival and learning what is important).

It is pretty evident that Burroughs wants the reader to understand that civilized people can be just as brutish and savage as wild animals and tribal people. There are some real villains here, especially the Russian spy Rokoff. If we are reminded of a leopard or gorilla that Tarzan faced earlier, it is no coincidence.

Christopher Kerr and Carine Mardorossian. Death is But a Dream. Avery, 2020.

Most readers can see in the title of Death is But a Dream a play on the chorus of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” There also might be an echo of the famous line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is alluded to in this book:

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Over the years I have read various books about near death experiences and other works on death and dying. Death is But a Dream is different. Dr. Kerr has worked for many years as physician in a hospice. He job is ministering to the dying. Over the years he has seen a pattern in the experiences of many of his terminal patients. Many have what he calls lucid dreams or visions as they approach death.

The author does not honestly know what to make of many of these experiences. He does not try. He describes them and to a great degree leaves the interpretation to the reader. He notes that about four fifths of these experiences are positive and bring some kind of closure to the individual. He notes that in many cases the patients insist that they were not dreaming—they often use the term vision. Early in the book we see the word vision or visions in quotation marks, as if to say “the so-called visions.” By the end of the book, the punctuation marks are dropped.

Most of the book tells stories. They are moving stories from many of his hospice patients. Kerr quotes another doctor who says:

“Today healing is replaced with treating, caring is supplanted by managing, and the art of listening is taken over by technological procedures.” (22)

There is always a temptation to make medical science more mechanistic or materialistic. This concern goes back to Hippocrates and is echoed in Chaucer’s corrupt physician in The Canterbury Tales and in the persona of The Scarlet Letter‘s Roger Chillingworth. It is clear that the author struggles with this, too, but he has seen and shared enough to make it clear there is more to life than meets the eye.

These are not near death experiences (NDE) like that of Dr. Eben Alexander, but what the book calls pre-death experiences. Still, one cannot help think of Alexander’s experience, too. Both doctors came to recognize what many physicians are reluctant to admit—that the mind is not the same as the brain.

Alexander’s description as well as his medical condition during his NDE make it clear that what happened to him was something external, something apart from his own mind and body. Kerr is ambiguous. He speaks of the way the mind works as though these experiences are all internal and subjective. At the same time, he recognizes that many of these experiences sound as if someone—whether human, divine, or angelic—appeared from the outside. In some cases the patient sees people that no one else in the room can see.

The stories Kerr tells are quite moving. The bulk of the book contains these stories, and they will keep the reader reading. Many involve a departed friend or relative appearing and telling them that they will be all right. Many involve resolving or reconciling a conflict or problem that seriously affected their lives.

One of the most significant stories in that regard involved a man in his later forties who had been a drug addict since his teens. His mother had been one and still was one. He had a daughter in her twenties whom he had tender feelings for but whom he had neglected. Through some of his dreams/visions he spoke about his daughter. The hospice was able to locate her, and she was eager to see him. In the last few months of the man’s life, they were not only able to reconcile but to develop mutual respect.

We begin to see a pattern, and even the exceptions seem to prove the pattern. One woman had lucid dreams of flying. Later in her life she had come to believe in God and said that even if you had the faith the size of a mustard seed, you could fly (see Matthew 17:20). She also admitted that she did not know how to love. Gradually, they learned that she had an abusive father and a helpless mother, became a ward of the state in foster care at an early age, and as an adult was involved in abusive relationships. In effect for her, then, there was no “loved one” other than God.

The chapter on pre-death experiences of children also demonstrated something similar. One thirteen year old girl with terminal cancer saw a pet dog that had died a few years earlier, and for her it had been a member of the family all her life. She later had a conversation with her mother’s best friend who had died at the age of thirty-five when the girl was eight. They were probably the only deaths she had personally known in her short life.

Not only do these pre-death experiences prepare the patient for dying, but, as we saw with the drug addict and his daughter, they also provide healing. Some war veterans, for example, were taken back to traumatic battle experiences to find healing as they saw them from a different perspective. This reminded me of primal integration or inner healing therapies that can effectively bring psychological healing. The difference is that there is no psychiatrist or counselor leading the patient, simply the patient’s own experience and, perhaps, the hand of God.

I give the author credit for sharing the experiences largely without commentary. Many works on the subject of dying will bring in a particular interpretation, and because of the subject matter, some of those interpretations are weirder than the experiences they describe. Death is But a Dream is not like that at all. It tells the story and leaves the interpretation, if any, up to the reader.

Death is But a Dream can bring understanding an maybe some healing to those of us who are not medical professionals or who do not counsel the dying. I wish I could have read this book or something like it ten years ago. (But no, I do not think there is anything like it, certainly not for the layperson.)

My father passed away nine years ago. The last week of his life he was in hospice. The last time I saw him alive, he was telling me how he had been talking with one of his old friends. I assumed he was hallucinating because of medications. I was upset. My father had been a strong-willed, self-controlled person, and I did not want to see him not in his right mind.

I see now that maybe he was weak but still sharing a genuine experience. This meeting with his old friend, whether it was real or imagined, whether it was from an internal or external source, I suspect may have ministered some mental or spiritual healing to Dad.

So the book ministered to me, to let me know that my father was probably not out of his mind, but really preparing or being prepared for his death. Now I know. I think I can understand his story better and even achieve some closure myself.

I realize that the Bible warns against necromancy, (see Deuteronomy 18:10-11) something the polytheists of Bible times were notorious for. (Read The Aeneid, for example.) But that is specifically seeking and consulting the dead. None of the stories indicate that any of the patients were looking for dead people (or angels or pets) but that they just appeared, whether from their own imaginations or from outside.

Although I have read other books from time to time on the subject of dying and near-death experiences like Dr. Alexander’s, I never read or even heard about a study like this. This is different. Certainly I recommend it to medical professionals of all kinds to remind them of the humanity of even their most degraded patients. But I recommend it to anyone, as I would to Dr. Alexander’s book, to let us know that

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

If word gets out, this could be a bestseller.