The Ultimate Bird Lover. Edited by Marty Becker et al, HCI Books, 2010.

Many readers are familiar with the Chicken Soup for the Soul or Cup of Comfort book series. These cover many topics and consist of brief sketches, essays, and anecdotes on the specific topic of the book, e.g. A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers.

HCI Books is putting out a similar series entitled The Ultimate [fill in the blank] Lover series. This one is obviously about birds. Most entries are two or three page focused anecdotes. Many are about personal observations of birds in one’s yard or neighborhood. Two or three are about birding. A majority have to do with pet birds. They are amusing and could be of interest.

The three editors contribute some key chapters at the end which give advice on choosing and caring for bird pets and on bird conservation. Dr. Becker, for example, is a avian veterinarian. He works not only with pet birds but with birds in aviaries and zoos.

As Gordon Korman “complained” in No More Dead Dogs that dogs often die at the end of popular dog stories, so here some of the birds die, others fly off. That does provide a little tenderness if one does not feel exploited.

I am not sure if this would qualify as an ultimate book on birds. I personally would probably recommend Tales of a Low Rent Birder, The Feather Quest, or even The Big Year, but especially for those who are interested in both wild and captive birds, this can be a leisurely and pleasant read. It could provide good food for thought if you are thinking of getting a pet bird.

Bud Selig with Phil Rogers. For the Good of the Game. Morrow, 2019.

Fans of Major League Baseball would certainly get something out of For the Good of the Game, both for what it tells us and what it omits. The author served as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1990 until 2015. During this time organized sports of all kinds were struggling with the use and abuse of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). This is Selig’s story from that era.

For the Good of the Game does tell us how Allan “Bud” Selig, the son of a successful Milwaukee car dealer, became involved in baseball, first with the Milwaukee Braves, then a minor league team from Milwaukee, then the Brewers, and finally as the MLB Commissioner.

There are some interesting stories about dealing with the growth of television and the division into major and minor markets. The players’ union and some of the major markets (notably the Yankees) opposed any kind of revenue sharing program at first, but as the other top sports leagues adopted some kind of mutual arrangement, eventually even George Steinbrenner of the Yankees agreed to a luxury tax concept.

Selig also records the effects of free agency and how the clubs dealt with that. Selig presents himself as a realist but also noting that the major market clubs would have a real advantage. He also deflects some blame for the strike-shortened 1994 season. Indeed, we do note that until 1995 he was the acting commissioner, but he was officially chosen for the position with the acting dropped as 1995 began.

There are many personalities here. Back when Frank Torre was playing for the Braves, Selig’s family got to take care of Frank’s younger brother Joe, then a teenager, when he was in town. Through the car business he got to know many other players. He especially speaks highly of Hank Aaron who is still a personal friend.

Later with the Brewers, he tells a lot about the two main stars from that franchise, Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. He notes that Molitor had some problems with illicit drugs early in his career but repented and cleaned up. He would contrast that with others who never acknowledged a problem and never admitted to drug use or gambling even though the evidence was obvious. He seems especially annoyed at Barry Bonds. He also explains why he saw no reason to change the league’s ban of Pete Rose. In Rose’s case especially, he does note his skill as a player and manager.

There are many little details that baseball fans might pick up with some smiles or nods. For example, he tells of having a conversation with Ted Williams where Williams told him that Molitor’s swing was the closest he had seen to his own swing. Having watched both players on television, I would have to agree. At times I even thought there was something about Molitor that I could not quite put my finger on. That may have been it.

Selig expresses his long-time frustration with dealing with the players’ union on the issue of drugs and drug testing. For two decades the union leaders refused even to bring up the subject. As the book’s title would suggest, doesn’t it seem strange that the union leaders couldn’t see that testing and sanctions were for the good of the game? Finally, when it became clear that a signficant majority of players themselves wanted testing, the union gave in.

One observation from this reader is that Selig tells us that Marvin Miller, the hard-nosed president of the players’ union, had been a union representative for the United Steelworkers’ Union before he got connected to baseball. I was born in Pittsburgh and am old enough to remember the 1960 steel strike. Nearly every father of my schoolmates was out of work, but no one would compromise for a long time. In many cases the issues for this strike were living wages and job safety. Steelworkers themselves were hard-nosed and tough.

Did Miller really treat baseball no different from the steel industry? The 1990s were not like the 1930s or even the early sixties. The public perception was that the conflict was between millionaires and billionaires. This continued with Miller’s successor, Donald Fehr. He tells of Fehr mocking Selig about MLB losing money, “but we were losing money,” Selig claims.

Selig acknowledges that MLB has some unique challenges. The National Football League plays one game a week for four months. The NBA and NHL play a little more than a third of the games that MLB plays, and with many days off. Because it is the oldest and for a long time the most widely followed of the major sports, Selig was told and believes that baseball has been held to a higher standard than the other pro sports.

Selig notes that more fans now follow the NFL and the NBA (and probably even college basketball) than MLB. While he rightly credits Pete Rozelle for marketing savvy in the NFL, he never really addresses why interest in baseball has declined.

When I was teaching in the 1980s, students still talked about baseball more than other sports, except around playoff time. That was changing by the early nineties, especially with basketball: Larry Byrd, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and so on. I recall one summer day in the early nineties driving by a city playground. There was a baseball field and two basketball courts. There were a couple of games going on in the basketball courts and the baseball field was empty.

When I was kid in Pittsburgh, we lived near a similar playground. For us, the baseball field was far more active. I actually do not recall anyone every playing basketball on the basketball court. Sometimes we might play horse, but we mostly rode our bikes on it. What had happened in thirty years?

I still see that the biggest problem baseball has is attracting younger fans. Where did they miss it? Yes, owners and the players’ union were often at odds. Team owners themselves often were, too. Selig suggests that in 1990 MLB came close to falling apart. Frankly, though, kids do not pay a whole lot of attention to those things.

When I was a boy about half the games were still in the daytime. The World Series were day games. We would listen to games on the radio and discuss what was happening. On weekends there might be an afternoon game on television to watch. I have noticed this year that there are more day games because of the influenza restrictions. Of course, there are no fans in the parks, but maybe MLB should consider more day games in a season.

Yes, games also last longer nowadays. I recently watched a recording of game 7 of the 1960 World Series. The score was 10-9, there was a lot of action, a lot of runners on base, numerous pitching changes. The game lasted two hours and twenty minutes. Nowadays, no-hitters last longer than that. Rule 5.07(c) could be enforced.¹

I was disappointed that Selig never addressed any of these issues. However, for interesting details about the rising baseball salaries which led to the major vs. minor markets, and especially the steroids problem in the sport, For the Good of the Game is worth reading.

Although the book is presented as an autobiography and is Selig’s personal account of his experiences in baseball, because there are so many names and events recorded in the book, one could treat it more like a history book. For that reason, For the Good of the Game could use a good index, or at the very least titles and dates for the chapter headings.

Note
¹ Rule 5.07(c): When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call “Ball.” (35-36)
Official Baseball Rules. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, 2019.

Jerry B. Jenkins with James S. MacDonald. I, Saul. Worthy, 2013.

Jerry Jenkins is a prolific author who struck it big with the Left Behind series. These novels were fun at first but soon became repetitive and formulaic. I, Saul has some of the same formulae, but it is original enough to move the reader.

The title suggests the Robert Graves classic I, Claudius, the novel presented as a memoir of the Roman emperor Claudius, a contemporary of St. Paul. Indeed, part of I, Saul consists of a cleverly imagined backstory to the apostle. I was expecting something like Sholem Asch’s The Apostle, a novelization of Paul’s life that would be hard to top. I, Saul, though, is really like neither one of those books.

The memoir of Saul of Tarsus (a.k.a. St. Paul) is interspersed with the the story of his final days in a prison in Rome. Inspired by II Timothy 4:11, we see Dr. Luke the evangelist (Lucanus in Latin) tending to the aging and infirm Paul. Although a Christian during Nero’s persecution, he is given permission to help Paul because he is a licensed physician and has also been ministering to the injured and sick victims of the great fire of Nero.

Every other chapter takes place in modern times. The modern portion is the more formulaic part of the novel. A struggling seminary teacher in Texas has a friend in Italy who has partnered with a man who has discovered the manuscript of Paul’s memoir. He sends brief text messages telling the young professor that he needs his help.

Professor Augustine “Augie” Knox is dealing with his emotionally distant father in hospice and trying to maintain a long-distance relationship with Sophia, a Greek woman whose family runs an antiquities business. She is a Christian believer and one who also knows something about ancient artifacts.

Roger, Augie’s friend, received a cryptic note from a friend who apparently had the manuscript. Before Roger can follow through, someone murders his friend. When Sophia’s antiquities dealer father gets wind of this, he notes that such a manuscript could bring the finder millions, if not billions, of Euros.

A finder could not practically sell such a manuscript. One would probably break it up, as is often done with old Bibles, and sell the pages individually. Of course, Italian antiquities law states that any such find on Italian soil would not be sold at all but becomes property of the state for all to study.

At times the interludes with Augie, Roger, and Sophia seem like intrusions. Just as the Left Behind books had people traveling back and forth across Chicago ad infinitum, so it seems our modern protagonists are doing the same in Rome. As their story develops, however, we begin to get more interested in what is going on with them. The real meat of the story, though, is the Pauline memoir.

Some readers might recall the film Paul, Apostle of Christ that came out a couple of years ago. This has some similar sequences in the prison with Luke, though I have found nothing that says there was any connection between that film and this book.

This book is by Jerry Jenkins; therefore, there is a sequel [smile]. The memoir portion of I, Saul ends shortly after his conversion. We get a sense of the character of this intense and strict Pharisee who was also a Roman citizen. Jenkins handles this quite believably. Clearly, there is more of the memoir to follow.

While I, Saul works as a standalone novel, the epilogue concerning the modern characters opens the door for more action. Now, Jenkins milked the popularity of the Left Behind books to a repetitious extreme. Originally something like four to six books were planned. There ended up being sixteen plus at least another dozen or so spinoffs. Hopefully, in this case the sequel will end the series.

One interesting note. Augie Knox teaches at a small and struggling (fictional) seminary in Arlington, Texas. This is near both the largest Southern Baptist seminary which is in Fort Worth and a very influential dispensationalist seminary in Dallas. Jenkins himself worked for years for Moody Press in Illinois. Christianity Today would write of the powerful “Dallas-Moody Axis” and its influence on American theology and publishing. Jenkins seems to have a little fun with that idea. Arlington Seminary manages to barely survive, overshadowed by its two monstrous neighbors who are at one of the hubs of that axis.

Len Joy. Everyone Dies Famous. BQB, 2020.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
                                       John Donne, Meditation 17

Everyone Dies Famous gets its title from an observation by one of its characters:

“This is a small town, Dancer. Everyone dies famous here.” (37)

So, yes, the story is basically a sketch of one day in the life of Maple Springs, Missouri, a small town in the foothills of the Ozarks. No one apparently dies in the story, but many of the characters are dealing with the deaths of people in the past. (I have to write “apparently” because of the element of possible magical realism symbolizing dying.)

Dancer Stonemason, 70, is still grieving over the death of his son Clayton. It is not entirely clear how Clayton died, but he was actually giving his father a new lease on life by getting him to help with his business of restoring and selling old jukeboxes. Now his other son, Jim, is selling Clayton’s property and seems to want to sell the business, too. Dancer, who wasted too much of his life seems to be losing the positive gains he has recently made.

Jim in his own way is also trying to come to terms with his brother’s death. But Jim has other concerns at the moment. His daughter and only child is getting married tomorrow, so everyone is planning for the big day. Jim operates a successful car dealership, and his best salesperson is his daughter Kayla. He has plans for opening a new dealership in town with Kayla as manager. But so many talented people leave town for better opportunities elsewhere. Will she stay?

We note that the dealership he wants to start is a Saturn dealer. Saturn cars were an interesting experiment on the part of General Motors, but we all know by 2020 that Saturns never caught on with most people.

Dancer himself almost made it to the major leagues. He is remembered in town for pitching a perfect game for the local minor league team. But after he found out about his wife’s affair (more on that later), it all went south.

We meet Wayne Mesirow, recently returned from a National Guard tour in Iraq. He also is dealing with loss. His wife, Anita, is divorcing him. He thinks her friend Trudy is behind it, but Anita has been going out with Ted Landis, much older but probably the richest man in town. He has already developed a shopping mall and is looking to turn Maple Springs into a casino resort.

Wayne, though, is also dealing with the loss of the guy who became his best friend in the service, Sonny Patel. Sonny’s father runs the local electronics store and is known as Madman Patel in his advertisements. Sonny did not die in combat but in a freak drowning accident in the Tigris River.

In the background on this day, July 18, 2003, are storm warnings. This becomes symbolic because it seems like everyone is headed into some kind of storm. There are the two free spirited ladies who refuse to sell their property to developer Landis. Landis himself is planning a big party on his casino steamboat featuring the Confederate Pirates, rock band that Wayne was on the verge of joining when he was called up by the Guard.

There is Madame Zelda, a young woman who is a tattoo artist and fortune teller. Jim’s wife Paula, a nurse, works for a doctor who is trying to get Jim to lose weight. Ted Landis has memories of his first wife who had an affair with Dancer’s wife, Dede. Dede would return, more or less, to Dancer, but Ted’s wife left Maple Springs for New Mexico and was never heard from again. Oh, and Anita’s friend Trudy had been engaged at one point to Clayton.

And we cannot forget Russell and Ozzie, the dogs.

Everyone Dies Famous is both tender and harsh. It also shows how perhaps times have changed. For example, Wayne discovers from Sonny’s family that Sonny was gay. Wayne had no idea. Now he begins to wonder whether he is gay because he was friends with a gay man in spite of being married and a father to two children. Back in the seventies if something similar happened, a seventies Wayne would have probably accepted who Sonny was, but would not have been tempted to think himself as being gay.

It seems like the reader almost needs to keep a family tree. Still, with affairs and drama in the past and big events and a tornado on the horizon, there is a lot of action. The small town drama and people looking for second chances reminded this reader of Empire Falls. The man vs. nature conflict from the storm had echoes of Sometimes a Great Notion. Dancer’s courage in a storm for what seems trivial reason suggests the climax of Giants in the Earth.

But the overall theme, emphasized in the final image of the story (which may or may not be magical realism) is John Donne’s famous observation: “No man is an island.” Oh, how we all affect so many people, even if all we are doing is taking a dog for a walk.

N.B. This is a novel with adult situations and some profane language. While not in the least pornographic, it would be rated R if it were a film.

Barbara Ross. Clammed Up. Kensington, 2013.

This mystery is set on the Maine coast, where, yes, shellfish, especially clams and lobsters, are harvested. Our narrator, Julia Snowden, is a native of the town of Busman’s Harbor. She worked for a number of years on Wall Street, but has returned home at the age of thirty to help the family’s struggling business, the Snowden Family Clambake.

A clambake, for the uninitiated, is a cookout, usually in a single large pot, of various shellfish, corn cobs, potatoes, spices, and eggs. Julia’s mother’s family owned a small offshore island with a large mansion, so the Snowden Family Clambakes not only have a meal, but a boat trip to a private island as well. Due in part to a slow economy and in part to mismanagement by Julia’s brother-in-law Sonny, the bank is on the verge of making the family sell off everything, including the family island.

For the very first clambake of the season in June, the Snowden Family Clambake is hosting a wedding party. The bride is a casual acquaintance of Julia’s from New York. During the picnic, Julia and one of her customers discover the body of the best man hanging inside the main entrance of the family mansion. No one has lived in the house for years, but they have kept up the place enough for the ambience. Julia even upgraded some electrical wiring in the spring so parties could have a place to spruce up before an event like a wedding.

That is the mystery. At first it appears that best man Ray Wilson got drunk and simply missed the boat to the island. The question becomes, then, not only who killed him (it is clearly not suicide as his shirt is blood-spattered) but how did he get to the island?

There is a deadline of sorts because the usurious banker who keeps texting Julia reminds her that the business plan calls for five off days all season. That would be the average for bad weather days. But before the week is out, they already had to close the island for four days because it was a crime scene. It is open for one day, but then the porch to the mansion burns, making it a crime scene once again, this time for arson.

There are a whole list of characters involved. Though the victim and the bridegroom were best friends from kindergarten, Ray was not especially popular. He had become an alcoholic, and it was pretty clear he had been drinking hard the night before the wedding.

One of the bridesmaids claims that the bride really loved Ray more than her fiancé. The local taxi driver, a guy that Julia has had a crush on since the seventh grade, took Ray back to his hotel, but Ray never returned to his hotel room. Julia’s sister Livvy (Sonny’s wife) has a good friend Sarah, a single mother schoolteacher who also seems to have a connection of some kind with Ray.

The caretakers on the island, a couple Julia has known all her life, claim that they heard or saw nothing the night before the murder. There is a small beach apart from the boat dock. It is feasible that someone could have brought Ray ashore from there. But why kill him and then hang him? Was it to send a message to someone?

As is so often the case with such mysteries, nearly everyone is a suspect, and things are not at all as they first seemed to Julia. Although Julia does become our crime solver, the police here are doing a good job in their investigation. Indeed, one of the policemen has carried the torch for Julia for years just as she carried one for the taxi driver.

And it is a small enough town that everyone knows everyone else—except for maybe Quentin, the scion of a prominent family who has done his best to be anonymous but manages to drop some hints to Julia about what is really going on. Gus, the proprietor of a popular eatery for locals, also overhears a lot.

Clammed Up is a complicated mystery that will keep the reader guessing. It might not be a bad idea to keep a list of characters. It is fun.

The main character is a single woman around thirty, so this has a potential for being chick lit, but it is not—at least not until the very last page.

Clammed Up also has a few distinctive recipes. The clam chowder is authentic. The rhubarb coffee cake sounds like it is worth trying. I had to chuckle over the variety of names that New Englanders give to a certain blueberry dessert similar to an apple crisp: blueberry duff, blueberry grunt, blueberry slump, blueberry crunch, blueberry crisp, or blueberry dump. My Vermont mother called it blueberry buckle, but it basically the same dessert.

Ernest Hemingway. A Moveable Feast. Scribner’s, 1964.

A Moveable Feast tells in vignettes about Hemingway’s life in Paris and France (mostly) from 1921 to 1926 when he lived among and associated with English and American expatriates. He focuses on his interactions with other writers and artists, but we also learn a lot about him and his work.

It sounds like he and his first wife Hadley were really in love, and for the most part describes this time as a happy time in his life in spite of some of the financial pressures. In his case, it may have been better for him to be away from the United States because of various family problems including his father’s suicide.

He describes Gertrude Stein in humorous and respectful detail. They were friends, and Hemingway apparently helped her get some things published and did some proofreading for her. Though she was known even at the time for her female lovers, she complained that most homosexuals were perverts. She and Hemingway had some frank discussions about this. He credits her, as others have, for coining the term une génération perdue (a lost generation) for the aimless postwar artists.

Hemingway admired Ezra Pound. He called Pound a saint. He was selfless in helping people financially and in their artistic and literary careers. Now Hemingway finished writing this in 1960, so there is an undertone that Pound should have been more respected by other writers and even the U. S. government. Hemingway spends virtually no time on anyone’s political views, except a bit on one Austrian fascist. Pound’s views were a non-issue in the twenties.

Ezra was the most generous writer I have ever known and the most disinterested. He helped poets, painters, sculptors, and prose writers that he believed in and would help anyone whether he believed in them or not if they were in trouble. (110)

For example, Hemingway describes an effort led by Pound to subsidize T. S. Eliot so he could quit his banking job and write full time.

He speaks of meeting Ford Madox Ford, who for some unclear reason made Hemingway uncomfortable. It may have been his disdain for Americans. Hemingway speaks highly of James Joyce (he influenced everyone), but other than casually mentioning seeing him in restaurants and taverns, he does not provide any detailed observations though other sources say they would sometimes go drinking together.

Hemingway’s account of F. Scott Fitzgerald is very moving. He could observe even back then Fitzgerald’s tendency toward alcoholism. He first read The Great Gatsby when Fitzgerald told him it had been published. He called it a work of genius. He said that Fitzgerald had written four novels, two of which were really good. Besides Gatsby, we are left to guess what the other one was. (This reviewer prefers The Beautiful and Damned.) He believes The Last Tycoon would have been great if Fitzgerald had been able to complete it.

He disagreed with Fitzgerald about writing short stories. Fitzgerald told him that often he would write a story and then revise it the way that The Saturday Evening Post or another magazine that paid well would like it. Hemingway called this a sellout (he used a stronger term), but he understood Fitzgerald’s need for money. He mentions that he did like his story “The Rich Boy.” That is the story by “Julian” in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” that says “the rich are different.”

In “Snows of Kilimanjaro” we are told that Julian’s admiration of the rich was one of the things that “wrecked” him. In A Moveable Feast Hemingway believes that a certain rich woman, namely Scott’s wife Zelda, helped to wreck him. She taunted him about various things, and Hemingway believed she was jealous of his success.

Hemingway noted after he first became friendly with Fitzgerald:

He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew. But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. (176)

He noted that she would smile when Scott was drunk or distracted because then he would not be able to write. He shared with Hemingway one of Zelda’s most pointed and cruel insults to him. Hemingway tried to convince him it was not true. “You’re perfectly fine,” he told him.

“But why would she say it?” [Fitzgerald asked]
“To put you out of business. That is the oldest way in the world to put you out of business.” (190)

We noted in a review of a book about the Fitzgeralds that one of Scott’s friends wrote that all Scott’s women are based on Zelda. Fitzgerald himself noted that at least one of his female characters was inspired by Keats’ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”—the beautiful lady without pity. Hemingway makes it sound like Zelda falls into that category.

Zelda told Hemingway that she really liked Henry James. James wrote of the upper classes, e.g. the Sloper family in Washington Square. She could probably identify with his books because of who they were about. Of course, we could say the same thing about most of Fitzgerald’s work as well, though his perspective would be a little different from James’.

While the book is set nearly entirely in Paris and other parts of France, the last chapter takes place in Austria. Hemingway describes two winters he, his wife, and son spent skiing there. He tells us that he met some former ski troopers from the war and would play poker once or twice a week. This is echoed in one of the flashbacks in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”

In A Moveable Feast we learn of Hemingway’s interest in various sports besides the bull fighting, hunting, and fishing that he frequently wrote about. He learned some of the tricks about betting on horses and became a fan, and apologized for only writing one good story about that, “My Old Man.” He apologized for never writing about cycling, though he picked up an interest in that while in France.

We know from a couple stories that Hemingway liked boxing. He tells us that Pound insisted Hemingway teach him how to box. They practiced a number of times, but Hemingway said he did not learn too well. Once when he was sparring with Pound, Wyndham Lewis showed up. Hemingway had to pull some punches so that Pound did not look too bad.

As can be seen even from the quotations in this review, Hemingway’s style did not change much when he was writing nonfiction. A Moveable Feast gives us a distinctive and inside view of the Lost Generation in Europe in the twenties. It certainly gives us a sense of the tragedy of the Fitzgeralds and maybe even a hint of what would tear Europe apart again in less than twenty years.

Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ. Translated by William Benham, Project Gutenberg, Feb. 1999.

The Imitation of Christ is one of those classics that I finally got around to reading. Because of its provenance in the fifteenth century and its popularity among Catholics, it is sometimes said to be the second most widely read book in history next to the Bible. I have also read the same claim about Pilgrim’s Progress and Don Quixote. At any rate, it is up there.

Kempis was a monk, so there is a meditative flavor to the book, but I have known of many Protestants who have read it with blessing. Nearly all of what the book has to say applies to all Christ followers regardless of church affiliation.

The theme of The Imitation of Christ could be summed up in the following verses from the Bible:

Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. (I Peter 5:5-9)

Most of the book is dedicated to a single idea: humility. Much of it has to do with self-examination. How sinful are we? How undeserving of God’s salvation?

Much of it is a warning about what the verse in Peter above calls “the world.” Resist temptation. Alas, many times we do not. This ties in with the humility because things we see and experience in this present world and present age do not last. As we say today, you can’t take it with you.

A number of years ago, we reviewed The Good Soldier. At one level it was a comparison and contrast between Protestantism and Catholicism. The main Protestant character suffered from heart problems, the main Catholic from mental health. What Ford in the novel was noting was simply that Protestants tend to look at their faith intellectually. If there is problem with them, it is a “heart problem”; they do not feel or experience the love of God. Catholics’ “mental illness,” is that they tend to look at faith emotionally and do not think about it as much.

The Imitation of Christ in that respect is very emotional. How do you feel? Don’t you feel guilty? Aren’t you humbled? Why are you attracted to things that are not going to last? In that sense, this book is a real gut check.

The format is something like a devotional book. Each chapter, perhaps each paragraph, could be read as a daily devotion to meditate upon. Its style is similar to that of one of the Biblical wisdom books such as Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. However, it is less practical or pragmatic than many of the Proverbs, because it turns the reader inward.

There are a few caveats. One of the rediscoveries of the Reformation was the righteousness of God. The Bible tells us that the believer is righteous, not because of his behavior but because of the work of Christ on the Cross and God’s free gift of salvation.

For he [God] hath made him [Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (II Corinthians 5:21, cf. Romans 4:3 and Genesis 15:6)

If we look at The Imitation of Christ on the emotional level, there appears to be a lack of relief. Jesus saves! We do not have to struggle for our salvation.

On the other hand, The Imitation of Christ nails it in another sense: The walk with Christ can be difficult. Kempis not only warns about different “worldly” temptations that most people understand are sinful and transient, but notes another serious temptation. Many times we are tempted to be silent about Jesus or to deny him. There are pressures in the world that look down on serious believers and try to get them off track and even persecute them. Even from the safety of his monastery, Kempis recognizes these things. He notes that not everyone has a calling to a religious ministry, for example.

Kempis speaks of “the uses of adversity.” Hard times can draw us closer to God. Shakespeare echoed this sentiment in As You Like It: “Sweet are the uses of adversity” (2.1.12). Similarly, like Shakespeare’s Duke quoted here, Pilgrim’s Progress echoes Kempis when it describes the Flatterer, “Grant me prudently to avoid the flatterer…for thus we go prudently on the way we have begun” (2.27.5).

This reviewer was struck by the number of times the author’s reminds us of his conversion. He assumes if the reader is interested in imitating Christ, he has had a conversion also. This sounds very evangelical and not sacramental at all. But if the translator’s preface is correct and Kempis was an Augustinian monk, that makes sense. Augustine, a saint in the Catholic Church, wrote his Confessions, which focus on his conversion to Christianity. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Luther was also an Augustinian. As Jesus said, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).

The last few sections focus on Communion. Here not only do we read about the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood, but meditations on Communion itself. As is even today a Catholic distinctive, the book elevates the Sacrament above the Bible (4.11.3). However, in another place he places them equally (4.11.5). Historically, the early reformer Wycliffe got in hot water because he taught that the priest’s job of teaching the Word was more important than sharing the sacraments.

At times I was reading this, I was asking myself, “How many different ways can a person be humble?” But other times I was inspired. Yes, we should draw close to God. We should seek Him. Even meditating on Jesus’ work on the Cross makes Communion more meaningful. Jill Shannon believes that Jesus is present at the Passover celebration even if the celebrants do not recognize Him. Perhaps, then, He is present in Communion as well, whether or not transubstantiation is involved.

That verse from Peter quoted earlier says “humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.” James 4:10 tells us. “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” If we really put ourselves in the sight of God, we see Him as He is (at least a little bit) and that is very humbling. To paraphrase The Lion King, He is God and we’re not. The Imitation of Christ helps us put things in that perspective.

N.B. This free version from Gutenberg is an older translation. It seems to be deliberately done to imitate the King James or Douay Bibles. It is not difficult, but get used to the -th rather than -s at the end of verbs. There probably are more modern translations available.

Henry James. Washington Square. 1881, Edited by David Price et al, Project Gutenberg, 13 Jan. 2015.

When I introduce the concept of realism to my American Literature students, I tell them that Henry James is the anti-Jane Austen. Washington Square illustrates that. The novel is set among the upper classes of New York City in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Young Catherine Sloper, daughter of a highly esteemed medical doctor, lives in a nice house with her father and widowed aunt. In the story, her father and aunt are working at cross purposes.

The handsome but perhaps careless Morris Townsend has expressed an interest in Catherine. He is really her first suitor. She tends to be quiet and does not have the quality of charm that young men find appealing. The aunt, Mrs. Penniman, really likes Mr. Townsend. She sees herself as a kind of go-between or duenna—not unlike the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

Dr. Sloper, on the other hand, mistrusts Townsend. He does some informal background checking and is persuaded that Morris Townsend is only interested in Catherine’s money. The courtship lasts for a few years: Neither Catherine nor Morris give up and Dr. Sloper does not give in. Is this going to be a romantic comedy?

If Jane Austen were writing it, Catherine would either discover some sordid truth about Morris and find a more suitable young man. Or, if Morris is sincere, then Dr. Sloper would eventually see the error of his ways.

Is Aunt Penniman a petty meddler or sincerely working on behalf of her niece? Or is she simply a superannuated romantic in an age of realism?

If Jane Austen were writing this, the aunt might be humorously mistaken as Emma was, a klutz when it comes to matchmaking but still aware enough to either change her mind or convert her brother the doctor.

None of these things happen. Henry James, not Jane Austen, wrote Washington Square. But this short novel is no tragedy, either. James has a comic streak, but it is rooted in irony. The reader sees this right from the beginning.

The first chapter is dedicated to a background sketch of Dr. Sloper. He sounds like a very competent physician. We have to admit, though, that such doctors sometimes think their scientific knowledge means that they are superior to others.

While he is portrayed as a caring doctor, popular with his patients, there is no question that he identifies with the upper classes. This introduction tells us that he finds himself in a situation like the doctor in the Tom Lehrer sketch who specializes in the diseases of the rich.

Subtle, perhaps sardonic. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but ironic. I would truly tell my students that Washington Square is very, very realistic—both in the literary sense and in the literal sense. One could say that it is like the lives of most people, not comic, not tragic, not heroic. It just is—because that is the way life is.

P.S. As I have done many times in the past, I read Washington Square because an excerpt from this short novel appeared for one of the questions in this year’s English Literature Advanced Placement exam. I bit. It was worth it.

David Platt. Counter Culture. Revised edition, Tyndale, 2017.

The book Counter Culture‘s subtitle reads Following Christ in an Anti-Christian Age. The subtitle reflects a not uncommon theme in Christian writing going back to at least Francis Schaeffer, who called the era in the West beginning in the sixties as a post-Christian era. This book, though, is meant for right now. Indeed, the first chapter contains one of the best expositions of the Gospel for the contemporary culture that I have read. Platt gets it.

In the fifties and early sixties Billy Graham and others could simply say, “You are a sinner,” and everyone knew what that meant. By the seventies, sin was no longer an issue, but there was still a sense of authority. Dylan could sing back then, “You’ve got to serve somebody.” When someone said, “Jesus is Lord,” everyone knew what that meant, although Tom Wolfe was noting that the seventies was becoming the Me Decade.

How does one present the Gospel in a culture where anything goes, there is not even a sense of sin, and personal autonomy is the ideal? Platt sums it this way for today:

…the most offensive claim in Christianity is that God is the Creator, Owner, and Judge of every person on the planet. (16)

Platt envisions three types of readers of this book.

1. Those who for any number of reasons do not profess to be a Christian.
2. Those who call themselves Christian but do not believe the Gospel.
3. Those who believe the Gospel.

He challenges all three types.

He notes that even for the third type there are “popular” issues in which the Christian stand is clear such as poverty and slavery. There are also “unpopular” issues which Christians take a stand contrary to the culture such as sexuality and abortion. But the Gospel calls for taking a stand on all the issues.

The same heart of God that moves us to counter sex trafficking moves us to counter sexual immorality, and the same gospel that compels us to combat poverty compels us to defend marriage. (18)

Even though it is unpopular to say so, if people were all sexually moral, there would be no sex trafficking. If all children were born into a stable, monogamous marriage, there would be far less poverty.

Counter Culture presents a lot of wisdom. Platt brings each of these cultural topics into a perspective from the Gospel. We have to understand that we live in a fallen world. That God has established the way He wants people to live. That He has sent His Son Jesus to redeem the world. When we deal with virtually every cultural issue there is a question of—yes—sin. But also there is a way, sometimes numerous ways, that God directs people to counter the sin and redeem the situation.

As noted already, Platt sees that many people, especially political and cultural elites, have more often than not found Jesus offensive. Still, God’s way is true, and redemption is possible. There are nine chapters each dedicated to a different current issue. All reflect the nature of God and the nature of man. God and man are often at odds, but Platt points out how redemption is possible—not by a political movement or legal decree but by the Lord changing hearts and directing His people to serve in different ways.

“The Gospel and Poverty” chapter gives practical advice to churches in ministering their communities as well as ways to help on an international scale.

“The Gospel and Abortion” effectively presents arguments for saving babies’ lives and examples of practical action.

“Orphans and Widows” stresses adoption, fostering, as well as finding older people who are truly in need.

Perhaps the most moving chapter is “The Gospel and Sex Slavery.” This describes recruiters for urban brothels and shrine prostitutes in Asia, but it also tells of rescuing American women who have been trapped into prostitution. In this topic as well as abortion and sexual immorality, Platt makes an appeal to women.

Just as it was in His own day, Jesus’ way is the true way for freedom for women. Platt does admit that he does not know much about sex slavery involving boys, but we know that this is an issue as well. American pimps recruit both boys and girls from Latin America. My first personal encounter with the concept of sex trafficking was from a gay man in Boston who spoke about hiring boys from Central America.

Three of those issues also apply to the next two chapters, “The Gospel and Marriage” and “The Gospel and Sexual Immorality.” Things like abortion and sex trafficking would be non-issues if there were respect for marriage and sexual self-control. In all of these instances, Platt does not preach. Yes, he uses the Bible, but he mostly tells stories.

He has stories from people in each of these areas. In some cases it is his own experience, but in many cases it is the experience of others. For example, a young friend of his was taking a “bucket list” hiking trip in Nepal. On his trek, he came across a man who was hiking in the opposite direction with a group of nine and ten year old girls. This appeared unusual, but the man freely explained he was taking the girls to work as shrine prostitutes after paying the girls’ families for their services. It was a common form of slave trading in his part of the world. That encounter changed the course of Platt’s friend’s life. He had a cause.

Two related chapters are “The Gospel and Ethnicity” and “The Gospel and Refugees.” As I write this, two major topics in American news are racism and immigration. Platt asks, “What does the Gospel say about these things?” As always, Platt has some practical answers along with some ideas for helping us with our perspectives. I am forever grateful to a family of a different race that took care of me when I was going through a trial. They were one of the first witnesses I encountered who spoke of Jesus in a personal way.

The last topic has become an interesting one even with some political reactions to Covid-19: “The Gospel and Religious Liberty.” You see, right from the beginning in Eden, God gave people the freedom to choose Him or not. In all the other ways apart from Him, there is a catch. Man can choose his own way apart from God’s, but there are consequences.

Why is it that in some sixty countries Christian practice is either restricted or outlawed? Why? How can something so moral and, at the least, harmless if not beneficial be outlawed? It has to do with our own nature. As the quotation near the beginning of this review reminds us, the Gospel is offensive.

God’s way is to allow people the freedom to choose. That is just. So we should be tolerant, too.

Tolerance implies disagreement. I have to disagree with you to tolerate you. We can then be free to contemplate how to treat one another with the greatest dignity in view of our differences. (219)

I do recommend this book for all three types of people Platt describes. For the person who is skeptical about God or the God of the Bible, see what this book has to say. For the person who is a cultural Christian, this could be the challenge to really understand God’s call. And for the believer, especially the younger audience Platt has in mind, perhaps it is time to grow up.

Platt tells us that “the most deadly spiritual force” is not sexual sin, slavery, religious intolerance, adultery, or any of the other specific behaviors listed in the chapters. It is “the assumption that God’s Words is subject to human judgment.” (171) The first words a human being heard the devil say were, “Did God really say…” (See Genesis 3:1) That has been a struggle in the human heart and mind ever since.

So pray to God, participate with God, and proclaim the Gospel. And do these things not because you have a low-grade sense of guilt that you ought to act, but do them because you have a high-grade sense of grace that makes you want to act. (228)

Read this book.

P.S. Platt mentions in passing the following article which turns some assumptions about Christianity on its ear: http://cmm.world/about/the-surprising-discovery-about-those-colonialist-proselytizing-missionaries/. This is worth a look as well.

Jay Milbrandt. They Came for Freedom. Nelson, 2017.

Subtitled The Forgotten Epic Adventure of the Pilgrims, the reader might be tempted to ask, “Another book about the Plymouth Pilgrims?” We visit Plymouth, Massachusetts, nearly every year on a school field trip, and we know that the folks in Plymouth were looking forward to a big year this year—the 400th anniversary of the settlement—but the virus problem has certainly hurt some of their plans.

What makes this book different? Almost like a novel, it tells the story of note only how but why the Scrooby, England, Separatists ended up in New England. We also get probably the most detailed story of Squanto, how he ended up in England and learned English. Although Milbrandt does not make a big deal of it, the Pilgrims settled in a spot that the Indians feared because of a plague three years before. The land itself would not be contested, nor would it have to be purchased. And then the one surviving member of the Indian village that was wiped out had spent approximately fifteen years in England or among English sailors and knew the language and customs.

We learn how Squanto three times sailed to England from North America, the first time in 1605. His is really quite a tale. First he was kidnapped but was treated fairly well in England and learned a trade. The native Americans of New England had their own caste or class system, and the orphaned Squanto (Tisquantum) was of the lowest class. He was generally treated with respect, especially by sailors, tradesmen, and fishermen who wanted to learn more about the land and peoples of northeastern North America.

On his second voyage to England, his ship was captured by a Spanish vessel. The crew was taken to Spain where Squanto and some of the crew spent two years in prison and at least one year in a monastery before they were able to return to England.

We not only learn about Squanto’s adventures but also about the background of the religious group that sailed to North America. We learn about the martyrs—there is no other word—Barrow and Greenwood, early English believers who could not in good conscience worship at or serve the state church. Even Queen Elizabeth was appalled when she heard of their executions. Of all people, she wanted no repeat of her late sister, Queen “Bloody” Mary.

It does appear that Archbishops Whitgift and Laud, among others, were more concerned about their own control rather than the consciences of Christian believers. In 1607, the first attempt to move to more tolerant Holland was thwarted. Most of the men, including seventeen year old William Bradford, spent a year in prison.

Milbrandt tells us in some detail about the experiences the expatriate English had in the Netherlands, and how they spent ten years in Leiden. Interestingly, the congregation’s elder, William Brewster, Jr., started a printing press. He produced at least fifteen different books and tracts in English and imported them to England. Some came to the attention of King James who was upset not only at some of the content but that the printer was beyond the reach of British censors.

This detail is significant. The Plymouth Colony legally observed both religious freedom—including non-establishment, i.e. no state church—and freedom of the press. Of course, there were no presses in the early colony, but there was no censorship. These are the foundational liberties for all the other liberties which would be declared as a result of the American Revolution.

As with Bradford’s own On Plymouth Plantation, there is a tragic sense. The Plymouth Pilgrims never quite re-caught the vision for their free churches. The Massachusetts Bay Colony with its own state church absorbed Plymouth eventually, but the vision did not die.

Today most of the vigorous churches in the United States are free associations. While there may be many “politically correct” challenges for some of them, most Americans strive not only for freedom of conscience but freedom of expression, too. The challenges are different today, but the goals have not changed for most of us—a nation under God with liberty and justice for all.