Neal Stephenson. Zodiac. Grove P, 1988.

Neal Stephenson generally comes up with clever scenarios. His recent Seveneves, for example, asks the question, what if the moon exploded?

In Zodiac, the speculative question does not come until about halfway through the book. And in terms of style, Zodiac is more reminiscent of the so-called gonzo style of writing. The reason is simple. The first-person narrator, Sangamon Taylor, is gonzo himself.

For the uninitiated, the term gonzo journalism originally applied to subjective, excited, and often drug-influenced reporting. Hunter Thompson—famously satirized by the character of Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury cartoons—was the most prominent in this category. His most famous work is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Sometimes the early Tom Wolfe (not Thomas Wolfe) books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test fell into this category as well.

I wanted to shout: one Far Side on the door does not an interesting person make. (166)

I loitered at a McDonalds. I had one of those milkshakes that’s made from sweetened Wonder Bread dough extruded by a pneumatic machine. (253)

You get the idea.

Anyway, Mr. Taylor works for an eclectic Greenpeace-type environmental organization called GEE, Group of Environmental Extremists. Some might call them eco-terrorists, but they try to cause harm only to property and they attack things that are already illegal. “We avoid taking volunteers, since anyone who volunteers for a gig is likely to be overzealous.” (36) Their main method, at least in Boston Harbor, where much of the tale is set, is to block discharge pipes. They analyze the discharge to insure that it is illegal.

Their big challenge comes when they detect discharges of a certain chemical that is killing fish and lobsters in Boston Harbor. People who handle or eat the fish get a strange rash. GEE identifies the chemical and trace where it is coming from when all of a sudden the chemical disappears, but the fish and shellfish are still affected.

This is where the speculative science comes in. And like most of Stephenson’s work, it is not too speculative. It comes across as possibly realistic. Back in the seventies when I was in the Coast Guard, scientists were researching oil-eating bacteria to see if there were a way to manage oil spills using microbes. Considering that was forty years ago and we never hear of bacteria being used for oil spill cleanups, it appears that so far no one has been able to produce a microbe that will work efficiently doing this.

Besides the obvious scale of effort that there would have to be, another likely reason such efforts have not succeeded has to do with possible side effects. That becomes a speculation in Zodiac as well.

By the way, the title comes from the Zodiac boat, the inflatable power boat favored by spill recovery teams and disruptive demonstrators on the water. It has nothing to do with the constellations.

Zodiac has some very funny parts. Anyone who has attempted to drive in the city of Boston will appreciate the following example:

The traffic signal at Comm Ave [nobody from Boston says Commonwealth Avenue] and Chalesgate West was fried. In Boston this does not lead to heartwarming stories in the tabloids about ordinary citizens who get out of their cars to direct traffic. Instead, it gives us the excuse to drive like the Chadian army. Here we had two lanes of traffic crossing with four, and the two were losing in a big way. (4)

Humorous cynicism abounds.

“…since the beginning of time, every corporation that has ever thrown any of its [refuse] in the ocean has claimed it was going to become a habitat for marine life. It’s the [bleeped] ocean, Rebecca. That’s where all the marine life is. Of course it’s going to become a habitat for marine life.” (173)

The Charles [River] wasn’t as bad as it used to be. From here it seemed like the main street of civilization. Beacon Hill behind me, Harvard ahead, MIT on one side and Fenway Park on the other. (189)

One strategic incident takes place next to the replica of “‘the Tea Party Ship. The birthplace of the direct action campaign.'” (233)

There are a few places in the story that sound especially spaced-out because our narrator occasionally gets stoned. Mostly, though, it is a fast-paced narrative of how Taylor has to keep one step ahead of not only chemical companies but also police, fans of the heavy metal band Pöyzen Böyzen, devil worshipers, ex-girlfriends, college professors, and even a former college roommate. There are also some helpful policemen, a very helpful Native American, and an attempted “assassination” of a presidential candidate with a Nerf arrow.

In other words, typical of Stephenson, there is a lot going on here. It is a funny, fascinating, and wild ride. Besides, any book that begins with an epigraph from the song “Dirty Water” can’t be all bad.¹

Note
¹I do have one quibble with either Stephenson or the editor over this. My edition of Zodiac credits the song “Dirty Water” to the Inmates. The original 1965-1966 version of the song was written and recorded by the Standells. The Inmates’ 1979 cover is actually misquoted in the book since that version was adapted for London and “the banks of the River Thames.” Clearly the author was thinking of the original, set in Boston (“you’re my home”) and the Charles River’s dirty water.

K. J. Soze. The Message for the Last Days. K. J. Soze, 2019.

While The Message for the Last Days is subtitled Biblical and Historical Understanding of End Times, do not read this if you want to read a book like The Late Great Planet Earth or Earth’s Last Empire, the latter a book we recently reviewed here. This is not a book on end times prophecy. It does touch a little on different interpretations and reminds us that perhaps too many people have made such a subject more complicated than it is meant to be.

For one thing, this book demonstrates that in most places in the Bible when the end of the age is described that three events are “clustered.” Everywhere they appear together the passages suggest that there is little or no time between them. The three events? The second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and judgment.

Similarly, at least two thirds of The Message for the Last Days is not about biblical prophecy at all. It mainly attempts to challenge the reader to consider whether or not he would be prepared should the Lord return.

There is one slight overlap with Earth’s Last Empire, namely that Soze also emphasizes that the Abrahamic Covenant is unconditional. While Hagee writes that the land of Israel will unconditionally belong to the Jews, Soze really emphasizes what the prophets and the New Testament focus on—faith.

Abraham received God’s promise in the covenant by faith. His faith in God’s promise justified him, made him righteous in God’s eyes (see Genesis 15:6). That truth is everlasting and unconditional as well as any promise about the land. And in terms of mankind’s ultimate destiny, it is much more significant.

The author’s approach to the issue of what constitutes saving faith reminded this reviewer of Martin Luther’s most enduring theological work, The Bondage of the Will. Soze states explicitly that free will does not exist. Salvation is rooted in faith, not in works or actions. As both testaments note, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17) Man contributes nothing to his salvation, though the book does remind us that Abraham’s justifying faith in God was such that he would obediently sacrifice Isaac because he believed God could resurrect him (see Genesis 22:15-18, cf. Hebrews 11:17-19).

Philosophers and theologians of all stripes have discussed the idea of free will. Is The Message for the Last Days, then, deterministic or fatalistic? It is hard to say. Perhaps the author will clarify things, if it is even possible, in a promised volume two. Meanwhile Samuel Johnson’s observation still stands for most of us: “All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

One curious idea which the author repeats is that the soul does not outlive the body. Although a little vague on the issue—perhaps volume two will clarify this as well—it sounds as if the author believes in a “soul sleep” or a cessation of life and revivifying at the Judgment.

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.

N.B. One requirement of reviews for BookCrash is that they not exceed 500 words. This reviewer has written a longer review on this subject for anyone interested. This can be read on our blog at The Message for the End Times – Extended Revew.

John Hagee. Earth’s Last Empire. Worthy, 2018.

I have known of John Hagee for a long time, but I cannot say I was very familiar with him. I knew he had a public radio and television ministry of some kind, but that was about it. For me, this book was an introduction.

Since the late 1960s there have been multitudes of books published claiming to interpret Bible prophecy in the light of current events. Some have missed the mark greatly. I recall one predicting Anwar Sadat was the antichrist. A Muslim Brotherhood assassin took care of that one. Some continue to be influential, notably Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, which is one of the better of the genre,

Every few years such outlooks are updated with the latest events happening around the world, particularly in the Middle East. For example, who could have imagined a few years ago that America would financially support Iran (however briefly) or that Saudi Arabia would be sending out diplomatic feelers to Israel?

For the most part what Earth’s Last Empire has done is to take the basic Hal Lindsey pre-millennial dispensational interpretation of end times and updated it for the current political situation. Hagee throws in a few of his own twists as well.

Perhaps most notably, Hagee tries to emphasize that God’s promise to Abraham about his physical descendants is eternal. In Genesis 17:6-8 God notes part of his covenant to Abraham. It is called an everlasting covenant concerning the land of Canaan.

When the Lord used the word everlasting to describe His covenant with Israel, He meant it—it stands forever! God’s land covenant with Abraham and his descendants is mentioned throughout the Bible. This foundational truth is very important for Christians to understand. The God we serve does not break covenant. (10)

He notes briefly that many of the other covenants God has made are conditional. The Mosaic covenant very clearly states “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you…” (Deuteronomy 28:1). In other words, that one is conditional. At various times in history, the nation of Israel was blessed, at other times it was conquered by hostile forces. The prophets would explain that it was based on how well the people kept God’s commandments.

Hagee emphasizes this in reaction to so-called supersessionism, the idea that all the Old Testament covenants have been superseded by the New Covenant of Jesus and that the Christians of whatever nationality have superseded any agreement God made with the Jews. Hagee notes that this became a common teaching in the church by the third century. Though not as strongly worded as Jill Shannon, he attributes this to anti-Semitism rather than a reading of certain New Testament scripture. Since I have already discussed this previously, I am not going to touch that again with this review.

Having said that, Hagee does make a strong case that throughout their history, from their slavery in Egypt to the present BDS movement we see even in America, that many people have hated the Jews. (The book was written before the recent BDS [boycott, divest, sanction] vote in the United States House of Representatives. While the measure did not pass, I think many of us were surprised at the vitriol of some of the sponsors of the bill.) Hagee does a nice job of presenting such an overview to the present.

He is an American, so he does touch on American politics quite a bit. Since part of the Abrahamic covenant says “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3), Hagee is concerned that America support Israel as much as possible to avoid God’s curse. For example, he sees American recognition of Jerusalem as its capital as something positive. Indeed, he makes a detailed case from both the Bible and history why this is so.

Like many dispensationalists, Hagee takes Revelation 12, 13, and 17 to mean that in the last days there will come a political coalition or empire centered in Rome (see Revelation 17:9 which suggests the seven hills of Rome). Lindsey and others have speculated that the European Union will become this “revived Roman Empire.”

The focus and perhaps the new idea that Hagee contributes to the discussion of Bible prophecy is reflected in the book’s title. He notes that long after Rome fell, a new coalition or empire arose in the tenth century. This was known as the Holy Roman Empire and centered mostly on German-speaking states. This lasted until 1806 when Napoleon conquered it.

The second empire in the same area began in 1871 with the formation of the nation of Germany under the leadership of Prussia. This lasted until the end of World War I when it was defeated.

The third empire, of course, was declared by Hitler in the 1930s. It expanded. Hitler saw himself as a modern Roman emperor, but his empire or Reich did not survive 1945. Hagee, then, sees the Last Empire as once again taking on the mantle of Rome, uniting many countries, and opposing both Christians and Jews.

Much of the book is devoted to Bible prophecy. It spends more time on Abraham and Genesis than we often see in such works. Of course, Daniel, Ezekiel, Revelation, and Jesus’ Olivet Discourse get a lot of treatment. Like most dispensationalists, Hagee believes in a pre-Tribulation rapture, but does not really provide much biblical support for that idea. He also believes the Temple will be rebuilt. That may be so, but you do not have to be a supersessionist to understand that the New Testament, especially Hebrews and Galatians, tells us that it is no longer necessary.

Primarily, The Last Empire emphasizes that the last empire will not even last as long as Hitler’s did, though, if anything, it will be more vicious. In other words, to paraphrase an expression used by both President Reagan and President Obama, those who oppose Christianity and the Jews are on the wrong side of history.

Mike Papantonio. Law and Addiction. Waterside, 2019.

Law and Addiction should appeal to two different audiences. The reader might be able to guess whom from the title. The first audience is those who like legal thrillers. The author uses a tried and true technique out of Grisham: A young, idealistic, newly minted lawyer is challenged by a large, experienced, ruthless law firm or law firms.

The second audience would be made up of those who are interested in the opioid crisis. Recently we reviewed Spying on the South which describes the sad desolation in the environs of West Virginia caused by the decline of the coal industry and the rise of opioid addiction. This novel is set in West Virginia, and its purpose is not just to entertain but to raise awareness.

The main thesis of Law and Addiction notes that the opioid crisis is different from similar outbreaks of drug use in the past in the United States. This time the drugs are manufactured legally. If we are to believe this book, most of the drug makers and legal drug sellers do not keep track of drug sales.

At one point in a preliminary hearing, a top salesman for one of the companies is asked specifically how she could sell so many pills in areas of West Virginia which are so sparsely populated. Her response reminded me of the refrain from the Tom Lehrer song “Wernher von Braun,” satirizing the rocket scientist’s indifference to what his missiles were intended to do:

“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department!” says Wernher von Braun.

By the way, in Love and Addiction an older lawyer quotes from another Tom Lehrer classic. Of course, the young lawyer has never heard of Lehrer.

In the course of the story, the novel maintains that some of the drug manufacturers recommended to doctors a three-month regimen to manage pain when they knew that a month is all it would take to addict someone. Once they create another addict, then they can sell more drugs.

There is a potential flaw in this system. Because these drugs kill, eventually the drug companies will lose customers. However, by then the drug companies will have made their money. “Who cares where they come down?”

Law and Addiction follows a formulaic page turner similar to Grisham’s The Firm. Jake Rutledge is about to graduate from law school in West Virginia when his twin brother, Blake, dies from an opioid overdose. His hometown in the least populated county in the state is known as Zombieland. That tells us something of the effect drugs have had there.

As hinted already, Jake begins to understand that the opioid problem is different from other drug crises. Many times we think of someone illegally making heroin or cocaine and then smuggling it to North American or European countries and then dealers selling it. The whole process from start to finish is illegal.

Not so with opioids. The government regulates these drugs, so they are legally made and legally obtainable via prescription. The problems that come with this are mainly twofold: over-prescribing and the so-called pill mills. Once a person becomes dependent on them, he or she will try to find a cooperative doctor or pharmacist willing to make some extra dollars on the side. Failing that, they will turn to street drugs like heroin as a replacement.

Jake becomes convinced as he examines statistical evidence that not only do sometimes law enforcement people turn a blind eye to the problem but so have drug companies. As Jake, thinking of his brother, contacts larger firms that he thinks might be interested in helping him, he runs into some obstacles.

In my time as a law enforcement officer in the Coast Guard, I was only involved in one case that made it to court. It was an EPA pollution case, but I was asked to testify as an expert witness. Fortunately for me, I was never called to the stand.

However, one government witness who testified was a young man of twenty-four who had done some statistical analysis for the government agency he worked for. When the defense attorney cross-examined him, he began by asking in a drawn out, disdainful tone, “How old are you?”

The young man was completely rattled and never regained his composure. The prosecution did not stand a chance with that witness.

Law and Addiction reminded me of that. Jake is treated condescendingly by other lawyers until he comes across a partner in a fairly large firm in Huntington—an Ohio River port city—who takes him under his wing. Paul Vogel then contacts a nationally-known Florida Gulf Coast law firm and Nicholas “Deke” Deketomis takes over. It seems that, at least in novels, there are a number of high-rolling law firms from the Gulf Coast, whether Florida, Alabama, or Mississippi.

Judging from the author biography in the book, Deke Deketomis sounds like he may be based on the author himself or a composite from his law firm.

Besides some honorable and less honorable lawyers, the cast of characters includes law enforcement officers and elected officials, some of whom are on the take. The book introduces us to the so-called Hillbilly Mafia, an organization that began with moonshining and has survived by expanding into drugs, gambling, and other criminal activities in the Midwest. It now extends to a number of rust belt cities, but membership is based nearly solely on family ties.

What I have observed from different counties in the rural South, everyone knows which families are the moonshiners. It is almost always a family business, and there is trust and a certain honor among them. Even in this novel we see that people who are not “blood” are expendable.

Jake may be getting in over his head himself. Though his family has lived in the Mountain State for four generations, some locals see him as a troublemaker. Brother Blake’s onetime prom date, Anna, has herself become addicted, and Jake tries to help her as well. (It is far more complicated than that, but that is the abridged version).

As the discovery and investigation begins to implicate not only officers in some of the top pharmaceutical firms but government officials connected with the Hillbilly Mafia, Jake’s position becomes precarious. Without going into too much detail, the only thing keeping him alive is the conscience of a “good ol’ boy” who is Hillbilly Mafia.

Yes, this is an entertaining story, but there is a message behind it as well. It illustrates how the current drug crisis differs significantly from those in the past. After all, what can you do when at least the manufacture and some parts of the distribution chain are legal?

S. C. Gwynne. Hymns of the Republic. Scribner, 2019.

Subtitled The Final Year of the American Civil War, Hymns of the Republic delivers terrific storytelling of a terrific story.

The story begins with the standoff between Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. Ulysses Grant is about to be put in charge of not only the Army of the Potomac but of all the armies of the United States. He will be on the third American Lieutenant General (three stars) in history, the others being George Washington and Mexican War leader Winfield Scott.

We read about some of the most brutal fighting ever seen in the country in such battles as the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. We are reminded how General Benjamin Butler was likely less than a day away from taking the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but, as so often happened with Union generals, he hesitated.

While the book focuses on the Virginia campaigns, we get a lot of what was happening in the West and South as well. We follow Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman in Tennessee and Georgia. There is a chapter on John Mosby.

Gwynne especially notes certain things which changed the way the war was waged. Both sides were concerned about their supply lines. Indeed, Lee finally surrendered after the Union army cut off the last railroad line he could use for supplies and reinforcements.

But both Sherman and Sheridan did something different. They were given orders to forage. They realized that if they could keep on challenging their opponents, they could worry less about what was going on behind the lines.

In the Virginia theater of the war in its last year, there were two signs that things were going to be different. After the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864, the Army of the Potomac did not retreat. They headed south around Lee’s lines till the next battle. For once, then, the soldiers had hope. Grant, their new commander, was going to fight.

Both sides were learning in this last year that frontal attacks were usually failures because the defending side had learned to dig in. We are talking about elaborate fortifications, not mere foxholes. This was really the beginning of trench warfare.

The second sign, then, came almost a year after the first. Outside of Appomattox in April 1865, some Union troops were ordered to make a frontal assault against some rebel earthworks. Based on past experience, the soldiers thought this was going to be a suicide mission. This time, though, it was different. There were hardly any Southern soldiers left. In spite of the elaborate defense construction, they were easily routed. The Northern soldiers realized that the fighting must be coming to an end. It was.

A major factor throughout the year 1864 was the presidential election in the North. Gwynne does a good job of describing the political ins and outs. Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary, really did not like Lincoln. There was a movement to nominate him in Lincoln’s place. Gwynne tells how that fell through. Lincoln’s Democratic opponent in the general election, General George McClelland, might have succeeded if he had not already alienated so many people.

Hymns of the Republic notes what the author calls the “Lee Paradox: the more the Confederate army prolonged the war, the more the Confederacy was destroyed.” (252) Once Lee surrendered, nearly all the Confederate army leaders who remained on the loose saw that continuing the fight would be futile. That is, all but one Mexican War veteran and West Point grad.

According to Gwynne, Confederate President Jefferson Davis remained remarkably stubborn. Even when his government was reduced to a few boxcars on an escaping train, he refused any settlement that did not include two countries. In spite of ultimate Northern leniency, like many other ex-Confderates Davis would be unapologetic till the day he died.

Gwynne is especially moving as he describes Lincoln in April 1865. After Lee surrendered and Joe Johnston was seeking peace terms, even Nathan B. Forrest was losing battles. Lincoln for the first time time in years appeared happy or, at the very least, relieved. Then he is shot and killed by a disgruntled racist.

One personality Gwynne gives a lot of credit to is Clara Barton. She used her political connections to make the army hospitals more sanitary and more conducive to helping soldiers recover. We are reminded that, as the war was ending, she was instrumental in obtaining and organizing records of those missing and determining who died in military prison camps, notably Andersonville.

Hymns of the Republic attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of John S. Mosby, a Virginia guerilla fighter often lumped in with outlaw renegades like William Quantrill. It notes that unlike some of the others, Mosby held an army commission and generally adhered to the rules of war. His irregulars were quick to surprise, and they disappeared just as quickly. But once Sheridan began his concentrated efforts to slow down the agricultural and industrial output of the Shenandoah Valley, even Mosby was limited.

Gwynne suspects that the oft-told story of the Union soldiers under Joshua Chamberlain saluting rebel soldiers turning in their weapons did not really happen. While he admits that both Chamberlain and Confederate General Gibbons tell the story in their memoirs, both men, he believes, were prone to exaggeration, and there is no other corroboration.

The stories contained in Hymns of the Republic have to some extent been told before. Clearly, April 1865: The Month that Saved America goes into more detail about Lincoln’s assassination and political maneuverings. As noted, Gwynne discusses the role of Clara Barton more than most works that are not biographies of the Red Cross founder. Still, this book most nearly parallels the well-known works of Bruce Catton. Gwynne writes well. He is at least as good of a storyteller as Catton. Catton focuses more on the military situations, while Gwynne brings in the politics and personalities more. Which is better? One could do little better than to read both.

Thomas Wolfe. Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe: The Complete Works. 1929. Pandora’s Box, 2018.

I had never read Look Homeward, Angel though I could quote a little from it. Somewhere I came across the following—which gives a sense of the style and scope of the novel.

O sea! (he thought) I am the hill-born, the prison-pent, the ghost, the stranger, and I walk here by your side. O sea, I am lonely like you, I am strange and far like you, I am sorrowful like you; my brain, my heart, my life, like yours, have touched strange shores…And you will bring me to the happy land, you will wash me to glory in bright ships.

Florid or beautiful?

Somehow I missed reading Thomas Wolfe even though I was an English major at Harvard. Fifty years before I was there, Wolfe had attended a master’s program in play writing there, the same program Eugene O’Neill had attended a few years earlier.

We heard stories about Wolfe even fifty years later. Perhaps they came from his stories, perhaps they came from campus oral tradition. I think if I had read Look Homeward, Angel when I was in college, I would have probably responded differently than I do now, but I am not sure how.

Look Homeward, Angel is an American Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Now, I had read that novel in high school and found it very moving. The story inspired this reader to the art of writing and telling stories. Yes, I said to myself, I want to write poetry, too.

I reread Portrait of the Artist about ten years ago. It was not the same book. I did not recall any of the business with the prostitute or the pages of discussion of Catholic doctrine. Probably when I read it, there were reasons I overlooked those things. One, I was pretty naive about things, and probably I was clueless about the stuff with the prostitute. (Hey, I thought The Scarlet Letter was a setup, and Dimmesdale really did not have an affair with Hester!) And I was a Protestant confirmad, so all that stuff about confession and church doctrine just meant that Stephen Dedalus belonged to the wrong church anyhow.

Look Homeward, Angel is similar. It is a coming of age story—very impressionistic, almost stream of consciousness. Our protagonist is Eugene Gant, and the story is terribly autobiographical. With some slight details altered or exaggerated, it is Wolfe’s story from before he was born to when he graduated from college.

Readers will either love or hate his style of writing. It is sweeping, turgid, intense. The intensity never stops regardless of who or what is happening or what he is describing. And there is lots of description. Nearly two hundred people are at least briefly described. Except for the main players, they are mostly caricatures, like the minor characters in a film. No movie did it better than Casablanca’s cast of customers and refugees at Rick’s Café Américain. The same thing happens in Look Homeward, Angel but on a larger scale.

There is so much to this story, it is hard to sum it all up. Even though it is mostly set in the small city of Asheville, North Carolina—Altamont in the novel—it touches on so many observations about life. Every person is unique. Family relationships are important.

Like many other novels set in rural America or in the South, the family characteristics rule. Is Eugene more like the Gant side of his family or like the Pentlands, his mother’s clan? The youngest of eight, all his older siblings have already been categorized. Who is he? Which crazy uncle does he take after?

Even though the story is narrated in the third person, we know virtually everything that Eugene is thinking. And when he cannot think, he still emotes. His father is an alcoholic. His mother becomes a businesswoman. Her main business, though, is maintaining a boarding house called Dixieland. Eugene learns much about humanity just by observing and interacting with the various boarders.

Eugene is smart. Some readers who read a lot could probably identify with him. He sees school examinations as exciting challenges to be overcome. We learn about the books he reads. When he is about thirteen, “Eugene thought The Cloister and the Hearth the best story he had ever read.” I read it about the same age and loved it, too.

One older brother joins the Navy during World War I, another brother is turned down for medical reasons. That rejection foreshadows the climax of the story. The war ends just a couple of months before Eugene would be old enough to join. Still, he spends a desperate summer in the Norfolk-Newport News area working in shipyards.

We see him grow from a toddler to a schoolboy, to a high schooler, and to a collegian. In some ways he does not fit in. He is very tall for his age and, like anyone with a distinctive physical characteristic, he gets tired of people pointing this out.

Part of his coming of age concerns sexual curiosity and exploration. His family is just nominally religious, so he does not have the crisis that Stephen Dedalus does in Portrait of the Artist, but Eugene still feels physically unclean somehow when he steps over accepted bounds in his relationships with the opposite sex.

She did not know that every boy, caged in from confession by his fear, is to himself a monster.

One could make a fascinating study on the way the different family members handle Mr. Gant’s drunkenness. Today we would call some of them enablers, but what are we supposed to do? Our father loves us—at least some of the time. How can we ignore him, even if we try? He is, after all, a husband and father.

In spite of the somewhat narrow setting, the story has scope. Mr. Gant starts out in Pennsylvania and has been married twice before marrying Eugene’s mother. He had no children in either of the first two marriages, but he treats late wife number one as a kind of saint that no one can measure up to.

While some of the characters in town were alive during the Civil War and still talk about it, Eugene does not buy the tales of the Lost Cause. He is rather sarcastic about that.

No, sir, and by heaven, so long as one true Southern heart is left alive to remember Appomattox, Reconstruction, and the Black parliaments, we will defend with our dearest blood our menaced, but sacred, traditions.

More than anything else, though, Eugene is searching for the meaning of life. His brother Ben cries out, “Where do we come from? Where do we go to? What the hell is it all about?”

In some ways, Ben becomes the focus of the tale. Part of coming of age may be learning about relationships, but also part of it is coming to terms with death. Although Wolfe’s father actually was a tombstone carver and his mother did run a boarding house, these things become symbols in the story.

Mr. Gant’s occupation is a kind of memento mori. He frequently reminds his family, especially when on a bender, that he supports them financially. This reminds us that he makes a living as people die.

The boarding house with its variety of people passing through reminds us that we all are just here on earth for a short while. It becomes like Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity,” or Hebrews, “we are pilgrims and sojourners.” We are all just strangers passing through.

He understood that men were forever strangers to one another, that no one ever comes really to know any one, that imprisoned in the dark womb of our mother, we come to life without having seen her face, that we are given to her arms a stranger, and that, caught in that insoluble prison of being, we escape it never, no matter what arms may clasp us, what mouth may kiss us, what heart may warm us. Never, never, never, never, never.

That last sentence is an allusion to Shakespeare. There are hundreds of allusions in this story. They add a richness and depth to the story telling and to the emotional and intellectual content. That repetitive pentameter “Never” is from King Lear’s dying speech. In it Lear expresses the ultimate vanity and purposelessness of life. It is beyond tragic because nothing matters. The context in Look Homeward, Angel suggests something similar.

And that is just one allusion. I suspect one could write a thesis paper just on the allusions to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom Wolfe calls “the chief prince of moon and magic.” Anyone who loves Coleridge cannot be all bad. Shakespeare, Keats, Milton, the Greeks, they all get their due.

This is one rich book.

Wolfe, or Eugene Gant, at the end of the novel is still trying to answer the question. He would like to believe but cannot. Things seem too random, too disconnected. Still Look Homeward, Angel has probably the most detailed death scene in literature. It may not be as moving as, say, King Lear’s or Othello’s or any number of death scenes written by Dickens, but none is more detailed. (Eugene himself is moved by the death of “Alcestis—noblest and loveliest of all the myths of Love and Death.”) We get nearly every minute of brother Ben’s last day.

Even more than the family conflict and the way everyone seems to engage in some kind of self-deception as the brother dies, what stays with the reader is Eugene’s observation on his brother’s passing:

We can believe in the nothingness of life, we can believe in the nothingness of death and of life after death—but who can believe in the nothingness of Ben?

Wolfe is getting at something here. We are not nothing. His beloved, if flawed, brother was not nothing. Personality matters. What does this mean? Is there something after all?

All Wolfe or Eugene can say is “We shall never come back again. But over us all, over us all, over us all is—something.” As Ecclesiastes 3:11 asserts and so many things in life demonstrate, God “has put eternity into man’s heart.”

Look Homeward, Angel is not florid. Like humanity itself, it may be flawed, but it is beautiful.

N.B. While the novel is not pornographic at all, some people may be put off by the sexual experiences in the story. Because it is set in the American South of a hundred years ago, some characters use language that would be considered racist today, though it is clear the author himself does not share that sentiment.

Anne Elisabeth Stengl. Heartless. Bethany House, 2010.

Sometimes I am a sucker for fantasy or science fiction books that turn out to disappoint. I usually do not bother to review them here. I was not sure about Heartless—partly because the cover and publisher made it appear to be chick lit. I was profoundly surprised. This was a sharp and delightful story. It was very well written. For fantasy fans, this is a winner.

The prologue made me think of the Elizabethan classic The Faerie Queene. The main character’s name in the novel is Una. She was accompanied by a younger brother. This reminds the reader of Una in Spenser’s epic whose servant was a dwarf. But that was only in the prologue.

There were a few things that reminded me of the Narnia stories and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and maybe even a bit of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. In other words, Heartless is its own story. As I went on, the novel began to remind me more and more of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a profound fantasy story itself. (One can make a case that it was actually its author Samuel Taylor Coleridge who defined the term fantasy for us.)

While the story is not exactly an allegory, its names are significant. Some are obvious like the land of Farthestshore or the Southland. Una means “one” in many languages. In The Faerie Queene, Una represents truth, her name coming from the exclusivity of truth. Here Una is “the one.” She is King Fidel’s (meaning “faithful”) only daughter who is coming of age and beginning to have suitors. She is not the only teenage girl in history to look at men superficially, but as she gains understanding about relationships, we see something deeper going on.

A Brigadoon-like “Twelve Year Market” suddenly appears on the outskirts of their land of Parumvir (“man is small”). It has actually been centuries since the last one, but the legends survive. For a few days, sellers of all kinds peddle their magical objects—things like seven-league boots and automatons. As is usually the case, magic requires a price. Caught up in the excitement, Una will discover the price.

Shortly after the market disappears, the suitors arrive. She rejects a few. To one she promises to remain faithful while he, a prince, returns to his kingdom to restore things after a dragon’s depredations. This makes Una “heartless”—not in the sense that she is cruel, but that she has given her heart away, and the one who has it may not return for a long time. As the good book says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23 KJV) What happens if we don’t keep, or guard, our hearts?

In this fantasy realm, the things that issue forth can be serious. At one point Una asks a jester a question:

“Have you ever dreamed of one thing for so long, wanted nothing more than to have that dream fulfilled, only to find out maybe it wasn’t what you actually wanted all along?”

He juggled four stones lightly. “I believe that is called growing up.” (145)

We will see how both Una and juggler “grow up.” The things that flow can be serious.

Among the serious issues of life in the story is the question of free will. Like a lot of fantasy, this story focuses on royalty—kings, princes, and princesses. Laertes in Hamlet believes that a prince is not always free to choose:

His greatness weigh’d; his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth;
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself… (1.2.17-20)

Yes, he may be constrained by politics, but what if the political dilemma is a moral one?

We begin to realize the tragedy of one of the princes (and maybe his whole kingdom) when he asks rhetorically, “I did what I had to do…What other choice could I make?…What other choice was there?” (282) Is “having no choice” really a valid excuse? Or are we all merely subject to fate? How predetermined are our lives? Does free will even exist?

It appears that our own Western culture is becoming more and more deterministic. What will it look like if it continues in that direction?

Of course, part of the plot does have something to do with the various suitors. Why do men want to marry princesses anyhow? (Or women, princes?) Money? Status? Political alliances? Power? As the cynical disco song once said, what does love have to do with it?

These are serious, and frankly, deep questions. How these are woven into a fantasy that includes dragons, monsters, fairies, knights, blind seers, and magical markets makes Heartless a well-told tale. Have fun.

Jill Shannon. A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel. Destiny Image, 2009.

I almost quit reading this book after making it through the first two chapters. In the long run, I am glad I did not. The author is a Jew who believes in Jesus (Hebrew – Yeshua; the common European name Jesus comes from the Greek transliteration). For nearly ten years I often fellowshipped with two ministries each led by a Jewish Christian. Both leaders had powerful testimonies and a heart for God that seemed almost inborn. The first part of A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel was not like that.

I understand that many Jewish people are mistrustful of non-Jews, often for good reason. I had a friend who grew up in Chicago and said that from time to time the Irish boys in his neighborhood would beat him up, calling him a Christ-killer. I had a Jewish classmate once tell me that his father, a medical doctor with patients of many backgrounds, would never say the word goy (Hebrew for gentile, or non-Jew) without hissing and practically spitting. It is too bad he felt that way, but I get it.

As a gentile Christian, I felt like I was being hissed at when I finished the first chapter. The best I can say about chapter one of A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel is that it is overstated. As early as the fifteen chapter of Acts, circa A.D. 51, the early church—which was, of course, primarily Jewish—tried to emphasize that gentile converts were not obligated to observe Jewish ceremonial laws. (Acts 15:23-30) There are also admonitions in the Epistles to avoid controversies about sabbaths and holidays. (Colossians 2:16 or I Corinthians 7:18) Yet, this book was saying that the church did not observe Jewish holidays out of antisemitism.

It is true that by the fourth century A.D. Jews and Christians had gone their separate ways and the majority of Christians were gentiles. However, until Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Toleration in A.D. 311, Christians were persecuted as much by the Romans as Jews, sometimes even more. It should come as no surprise, though, that in the fourth century when the Council of Nicaea decided on the day to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, that it would use the widespread solar-based Roman calendar to set the date rather than the lunar-based Jewish calendar.

In most years, the Council’s calculation for Easter occurred during the same week Jews observe Passover. The years when they vary have to do with the differences between the lunar and solar calendar. Both dates could be considered accurate, it just depends on whose calendar you are using.

The author writes that the Roman Empire “declared the resurrection to be on a particular Sunday, pertaining to the vernal equinox.” (28) Well, the Jewish month of Nisan is also based on the vernal equinox, and Passover is the fifteenth of Nisan, or night of the full moon. Because the phases of the moon vary year to year in the same month, some years Passover falls on different days from Good Friday or Easter, but both are honest interpretations of the dates, just based on two different ways of marking the days and months of the years.

The author states that by the second century A.D. Christians often denied Judaism out of fear of the Romans. This makes it sound like Christians were deliberately anti-Semitic to curry favor with Rome. It is much less black and white than that.

For one thing, at the time of the Jewish Wars (A.D. 66-73), many Jews did not support the zealots’ opposition to Rome, most notably the historian and Levite Josephus. At the same time, Christians, still mostly Jews at this point, saw the wars as fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies, the Temple destroyed, and that believers should flee when they see gentile armies surrounding the city. See, for example, Luke 21:6 and 21:20-22.

The author suspects or blames some of the intolerance of the Jewish practices because of Hellenism and “the Greek mindset.” This is no doubt true, and even obvious, at least to a point. After all, the New Testament as we have it was written in Greek. Yes, certain Christian teachers and leaders used a more classical approach when faced with a Greek or Roman audience. A simple example is found in Acts 17 when the Apostle Paul does this. Speaking to an Athenian audience that knows nothing of Judaism, he cites Athenian religious practice and quotes two Greek poets to get them thinking about the idea of a supreme deity and the need for forgiveness. This makes sense and is not at all a rejection of Jesus’ Jewish origins. Paul himself notes that “I am become all things to all men.” (I Corinthians 9:18 cf. 10:38) For more on this see https://langblog.englishplus.com/?p=1195.

The book overstates the effects of Constantine’s Edict of Toleration, that somehow because the church was no longer persecuted it would adopt pagan elements at the expense of its Jewish background. In reality, Christianity did not become the state church for another two generations. The syncretism and idolatry did not really appear in the church until some time later after the fall of the Empire during a period when most Romans, including most Christian leaders, were illiterate and could not read the Bible. For a detailed look at how and why this really happened, see M. A. Smith’s The Church Under Siege.

Later in the book, when discussing the Sabbath, the author suggests that the Christian adoption of Sunday as the day of rest was also influenced by paganism. That also sounds doubtful. Not only is there the exhortation cited already about not quibbling over sabbaths, but the New Testament at least suggests that Christians may have already been meeting on the first day of the week. See, for example, Acts 20:7 and I Corinthians 16:1-2. Why? Not because of antisemitism but because that was the day Jesus rose from the grave. (Mark 16:9, John 20:1)

While the author blames the widening rift between the early church and the Jewish religion on gentile antisemitism, she makes one very glaring omission. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, there was a greater separation between Jew and Christian for reasons explained above. Sixty years later, though, this division became nearly insuperable, and it had nothing to do with Roman prejudice against Jews. After all, Christians were persecuted, too, regardless of their nationality.

In A.D. 132 a Jewish rebel going by the name of Simon bar Kochba started another Jewish rebellion against Rome. This rebellion, too, was crushed. Bar Kochba and many Jewish leaders, notably the Rabbi Akiva, considered him the Messiah, coming to restore Judah as an independent state. Christians naturally did not recognize this because they asserted that Messiah had already come and that his Kingdom was “not of this world.” (See John 18:36) From then on, Christians tended to see Jews as heretics for supporting a false messiah. The Jews saw Christians as disloyal or even traitors for not supporting this rebellion. Historically, this is when even the Christian Jews would say with Paul and Barnabas, “We are going to the gentiles.” (Acts 13:46; Isaiah 42:6)

Then in chapter two of this book, there is a more glaring inaccuracy. Here the book says that the name of the holiday Easter came from the Semitic goddess Ishtar and is another sign of antisemitism. The words may sound similar, but English is a very different language from the Semitic languages of the Middle East. The only thing we know about the word Easter was that in Old English it was the name of the month that corresponded to the April in the Roman calendar. According to the Old English historian Bede, the month was named after a pre-Christian Germanic goddess, but its root is the word east. The goddess was likely associated with the dawn. As the English adopted the Roman names for months, the word Easter became associated with the holiday in the season, not the actual month.

This is not anti-Semitic. Indeed, English and some of the other Germanic languages are the only ones that have this word for the holiday. Virtually every other international language uses some form of Pesach—the Hebrew word for Passover!—and where we get our adjective for the holiday, Paschal. The New Testament Greek uses Pascha; in French it is Pâques; Spanish, Pascua; Portuguese, Pascoa; and so on.

I should note that English has done the same kind of thing in labeling other holidays as well. For example, in Old English the word for the season spring was lent. Sometime in the Middle Ages, Lent became associated with the penitential forty days before Easter observed in many churches. Most languages call it by a name whose root means “forty” (e.g., Latin Quadragesima or Spanish Cuaresma) or self-denial (e.g., German Fastenzeit “fasting time”). That the word Easter is used in English simply illustrates the idiom of the language and is not meant as anything anti-Semitic.

Indeed, Hebrew has done the same kind of thing. As I write, many Jews have just observed a fast day, the 17th of Tammuz. Tammuz is a month in the Jewish calendar, but it is named after a Babylonian god. Does this mean the Jews accepted the Babylonian religion? No, they merely adopted the commonly used name. The heroes of the Feast of Purim are Esther and Mordecai. The name Esther truly is a Hebraism of the name Ishtar and Mordecai’s name comes from the Babylonian god Marduk. No one would say their names reflect a belief in those gods. Let’s be realistic about these things and not suggest a conspiracy where there is none. (See Isaiah 8:12).

Though perhaps not a settled, the book also makes a case that Jesus was not born on December 25. Most people would not argue with this, but the choice of the date was not completely random. It is likely that the early church fathers had access to sources that have since been lost. We do know, for example, the likeliest candidate for the “star” the Magi saw “come to rest” (Matthew 2:9), i.e. changed from retrograde to normal motion in the sky, did so on December 25, 2 B.C. This may have been as close as anyone could come to a birth date, though the Scripture seems to indicate that the wise men arrived some time after Jesus was born since they visited him in a house, not a stable. (See Matthew 3:11, cf. Luke 2:7, 2:12) For more on the December 25 date, see www.bethlehemstar.com

This does mean that it may be possible, though inconclusive, that Jesus may have been born during the Feast of Tabernacles two or three months earlier as the book suggests. The book makes a calculation based on when Zechariah’s (a.k.a. Zacharias, father of John the Baptist) course or division would have been serving in the Temple to that effect. I have seen another writing also based on when Zechariah’s division would have served that came to a different conclusion. Alas, I do not recall where, but it may have been more accurate because A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel makes it sound like the course served the same time every year, but with the lunar calendar used by the Jews for their service, it would vary widely over the years when compared to the solar calendar.

Having tried to deal with what this review considers exaggerations, inaccuracies, and omissions in the beginning of the book, I almost quit. Does this author even know what she is talking about?

Well, once past the first half of chapter two, yes, she does.

Someone brought up in the Jewish religion and observing the Jewish holidays has an organic connection to the New Testament that gentile converts do not have. Once past chapter one, the author has something special to share. And she would like others to share what she has.

After the introductory material, A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel devotes a chapter to each holiday: the four spring holidays (Passover, First Fruits, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost), the three fall holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles), the two non-Mosaic holidays (Purim, Hanukah), and the pre-Mosaic holiday (Sabbath).

As these feasts are examined, we get many prophetic insights into them. The book observes, for example:

Leavened bread will spoil quickly, but unleavened bread will remain uncorrupted. Since the Lord’s body did not undergo decay in the grave [see Psalm 16:8-11 and Acts 2:25-31], his incorruptibility was a picture of pure and unleavened bread without any of the yeast of sin in His life. (38)

The Lord warned Pharaoh, “Israel is my firstborn son” (Exod. 4:22-23). Pharaoh would pay with his own son’s life for not allowing God’s firstborn son to go free…the Father has many adopted sons from the nations, but Israel is His firstborn son. Harming Israel is costly to the nations—more costly than they can bear. (42)

The secret sin of Joseph’s brothers was reaped in future oppression upon their generations, and innocent Hebrews suffered. (42)

The book notes that the Last Days will be like the Passover. As Jesus noted, “Two men will be standing in a field; one will be taken while the other is left to face upheaval and wrath.” (45) This is very similar to Passover when the blood covered the Hebrews and their allies while the rest of Egypt suffered. “There will be no protection or provision apart from the covering blood of the sinless one.” (45)

Notice that in all of these, she examines the prophetic significance of the Jewish feasts. This is not a calendar of prophecies, the popular type that outlines a sequence of events that are supposed to happen during the end times. No, this in this the book is more of a prophetic exhortation.

One exhortation throughout the book is that Christians ought to celebrate the Jewish feasts. The author notes that Jews have been celebrating Passover for 3,500 years, “even when their belief faltered.” The author calls it a “perpetual chain.” I understand. I have an acquaintance with Jewish ancestry who is completely secular. She still joins her family for Passover, though. She told me once, “I don’t know why I do it.” She still does.

One of the most meaningful religious experiences I have had was celebrating Passover with one of my oldest friends and his family. I happened to be in the area where they were living during the season. They were just doing it. There was no attempt to demonstrate or explain anything. It was just what they did.

Besides their own children, my daughter and me, there were two other Jewish people they had invited, a college student far from his Asian home and a bachelor friend from their synagogue. They are reformed Jews. They do not take everything Moses wrote literally. But they were Jews and this family celebration is simply part of who they are. It was such a blessing to be included. I know what Jill Shannon means when she writes:

[O]nce you have participated in Passover, and not just heard about it, you understand the Lord’s sacrificial death, atonement, and prophetic purposes in a far deeper way. (292)

As if the Lord Jesus (Yeshua) Himself is speaking, Shannon puts it this way:

I am standing in their midst in this celebration, which is Mine, and it is the door of their hearts I AM knocking on. This is the door I must open. (338, capitalization in the original)

Perhaps that was part of my experience. The Lord was there, even if the hosts were not aware of who He is.

There is an appendix that includes a Passover Haggadah (script or liturgy) for a Christian family or gathering. It emphasizes the preparation and is similar to what I recall from my friends’ Haggadah. However, her Haggadah did leave one thing out.

One tradition—and it is traditional, not biblical, it may even reflect a Hellenistic view of the four humors—is not merely that the children at the meal are to ask different questions, but that each child is to ask a different question according to the personality of the child (or, for the more orthodox, the son). There is a question for the wise child, the rebellious child, the simple child, and the quiet child. It so happened that my friends had four kids, and even though the youngest had just turned 21, they all knew which character trait typified each one. It added some humor and lightheartedness to the tone of the evening. It worked well in this family setting, but might be more of a problem with a larger group where people are not as comfortable with one another.

Just as the New Testament calls Christ “our Passover sacrificed for us” (I Corinthians 5:7-8), so the four spring festivals are largely seen as being fulfilled in the life of Christ and the early church.

The three fall festivals, however, are still awaiting prophetic fulfillment according to Shannon. We see this occasionally when people predict the Second Coming whether October 1844, September 1988, or the recent “Blood Moon” predictions. To this book, the fall feasts “create a stunning, three-fold revelation of Yeshua’s return.” (137)

The book emphasizes what Jesus did in His own end-times prophecies, especially in Matthew 24 and 25. The feasts are like future rehearsals, but when he comes, “The finality and irrevocability of His appearance in the skies cannot be overemphasized. It will be too late to rehearse for this play when opening night is upon us” (138, italics in original).

Rosh Hashanah, the first fall feast, is not a biblical term. It just means “head of the year.” The month of Tishri is the first month in the Jewish secular calendar but the seventh month in the Mosaic or Jewish biblical calendar (perhaps another reason why gentile Christians could not “get into” the Jewish lunar dating). It is usually translated Feast of Trumpets in the Bible. The author emphasizes the active verb in the Hebrew and calls it the Memorial of Blasting (i.e., trumpet blasts). There is a king and coronation coming.

In the New Testament apocalyptic writings (Matthew 24, I Corinthians 15, I Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, and Revelation) trumpets appear. Little is said in either Testament of this feast except as a preparation for the two feasts later in the month—the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).

We are reminded that the Day of the Lord will be rough, even for his people. Honestly, many people having seen great evil in their day have asked why the Lord delays. But this book reminds us that Amos reminds us:

Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,
as if a man fled from a lion,
and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
and a serpent bit him.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it? (5:18-20)

Zephaniah 1:15-16 and Joel 2:11-12 say virtually the same thing.

A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel reminds us:

[W]e may be misunderstanding the terror and severity of that day of reckoning, on which the Lord Himself sounds the shofar…It will not only be dreadful for the unprepared, but I believe it will also be a dark and frightening day for the righteous. (147)

Imagine, she says, how Noah and his family may have felt to think of all their friends and relatives who perished in the flood.

This book also shares some things I had never read before about the Holocaust under Hitler. People often ask, “Where was God during the Holocaust?” The book attempts to answer that question in a very interesting way. It may not be enough to satisfy everyone, but it certainly gives some food for thought with a clear Old Testament connection.

So the ten days before Yom Kippur are meant to be a time of reflection, perhaps not unlike the season of Lent in some churches, but it is to insure that we are ready. The book notes that this is also a time of intercession—praying for your country (the author is American and notes various sins and injustices in that country), for family and friends, but also to insure that your own relationship to God is honest and genuine. She writes, “The holiday is a fire drill.” (156)

For Yom Kippur, the author notes well not just what Moses writes but what is written in the Book of Hebrews. Since the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, there is only one biblical injunction for the holiday that can be observed: “deny yourselves.” Traditionally, that has meant fasting. As she puts it, “our flesh comes into alignment with our spirit, rather than the other way around.” (161)

As has been noted by many other commentators, the Feast of Tabernacles (Tents) not only is a reminder of the forty years the Israelites spent in the desert, but a prophetic indication of what will happen after the Day of the Lord.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4, cf. Isaiah 54:5, 25:8, 35:10)

There is so much more. This is a rich book. Sid Roth wrote a preface to it, one reason why it got my attention, and has been endorsed by a variety of well-known Christian leaders. Her vision? An end-times unity between Christian and Jew. Recognizing the holidays, she writes, can promote this.

My own experience has been that most Jews I know who have become Christians continue to observe the Jewish holidays. These festivals have more depth for them now. That is clearly the case with the author. Now she wants to share this with the church at large. Apart from the rough beginning, A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel has accomplished that and more.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Paco Chierici. Lions of the Sky. Braveship Books, 2018.

Fans of action adventure novels like those of Tom Clancy or Brad Thor might get a kick out of Lions of the Sky. Former military people would likely identify with some parts of it, and anyone interested in an intense alpha culture would get insights.

Lions of the Sky, as noted, is a work of fiction, but it recreates the world of Navy fighter pilots in more detail and more accurately than the popular film Top Gun. Fortunately, this novel does not allude to that film or even use the expression “top gun.”

We follow a class of U. S. Navy pilots taking the nine-month class to fly the newest and fastest jet fighter in the fleet, the FA-18E Super Hornet, nicknamed the Rhino. The story focuses on two of the instructors—Slammer and JT—and two female pilot trainees—Dusty and Quick.

Typical of the navy fighter fraternity, we get to know them by their nicknames. Indeed, part of their initiation is that they somehow earn their nicknames. In many cases they echo or hint at their actual names. For example, Slammer’s first name is Samuel, but the nickname also captures his intensity. (We liked that name because it suggested to us our once and future grammar program Grammar Slammer.) We can also see how the nicknames of the two women pilots go with their last names: Dusty Rhodes and Quick Silvers. One of the trainees calls another one a bonehead; his handle becomes HOB, head of bone.

The Rhinos have a crew of two, the pilot and the Weapons System Operator (WSO) who sits behind the pilot sharing weapon and navigational information with the pilot. For much of their careers, JT has been Slammer’s WSO. They communicate well and understand each other. There is complete trust and mutual respect. They are best friends. They even scored a hit during an encounter in Iraq.

There is a lot of adrenaline and a lot of testosterone in this novel. A major portion of the conflict comes from the fact that Dusty and Quick are the first two females ever assigned to fly Rhinos. There is nothing feminist about this book, but, let’s face it, the women have to prove their mettle.

Slammer’s past further complicates things because earlier in his career before flying Rhinos, he had a female pilot friend Robin who crashed. This means not only is he unsure about female pilots, partly because he seems to blame himself for Robin’s death, but he is very careful not to become friendly with them. This in spite of the fact that he finds one of them very attractive, and JT finds the other one so.

We also see Dusty and Quick taking slightly different approaches to their training. Dusty is more of a political animal, to use Aristotle’s expression. She comes from the New York upper class and has connections. She seems to know a lot of people. We wonder if she even got the assignment because of who she knows rather than what she knows.

Quick likes speed. We first meet her driving a yellow Corvette near Virginia Beach where the pilot training will shortly begin. The question for her is simple: She can fly, but can she fight? They are called fighter jets for a reason.

Much of the story tells how the candidates survive or do not survive this specialized flight school. It also brings out some operational difficulties because political correctness mandates the women succeed even if perhaps they really should not. Even among the male candidates, a few in every class drop out.

The author lifts the veil on some of the specialized traditions and games of Navy pilots, for example, certain initiations or the rowdy drinking game known as Crud. This is entertaining. Anyone with military experience can probably identify their own initiations and traditions in whatever branch or specialty they were a part of. We learn that a few of these traditions have had to change with the introduction of women into the various specialties. These are mostly shared in good humor. Indeed, the military in time of war is very serious, so there must be ways they can lighten up or release tensions.

Even Air Force fighter pilots will acknowledge that the Navy pilots have a greater challenge for one reason. They have to be able to take off and land on an aircraft carrier. There is very little room for error even with tailhooks and catapults. Part of the training is learning how to land a Rhino on a carrier deck night or day.

Every fourth or fifth chapter there is a short chapter dealing with a Chinese commando, or Biédòngduì (Mandarin for commando). Under the orders of his general, he singlehandedly creates some incidents in the South China Sea. Anyone following the news knows that several nations have laid claims to part or all of this region because of its potential oil reserves. Readers can guess that eventually the Chinese general’s plans and the newly deployed fighter pilots’ lives will intersect.

The author is a former navy fighter pilot. I suspect that Paco was his Navy nickname. Hemingway described Paco in his short story “The Capital of the World” as the commonest Spanish nickname for boys. Clearly, he knows what flying a 20-ton fighter jet at near twice the speed of sound in up to 7Gs is like. He communicates that very effectively.

In a kind of “In Memoriam” at the end, Chierici names pilots and WSOs that he knew who died in action. Most of these crashes were stateside, so we know they were not combat deaths, but that list emphasizes the risks that military pilots take. The danger adds to the “rush.” Indeed, some readers may think the book overuses the word adrenaline.

This made me reflect on my own Coast Guard experience which was during peacetime, after Vietnam and before the First Gulf War. Of my graduating officer class, to the best of my knowledge only one person died on duty, and he was a pilot whose helicopter went down over the Calumet River in Chicago on a winter day. Guys on cutters and lifeboats nowadays normally survive. It has been a long time since the Lifesaving Service rowed out to the rescue. Flying is not natural for man, but it can be very exciting precisely for that reason and because it is inherently dangerous.

One word of caution to some readers: Virtually all the characters are sailors, and they use salty language.

Peter Hitchens. The Rage Against God. Zondervan, 2010.

Peter Hitchens is the Christian brother of outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens. Peter here does delve into his background somewhat. He notes that at a younger age he and his brother believed similarly, but Peter eventually converted to Christianity.

Hitchens was born in 1951, so he describes growing up in the counterculture years, the radical politics, sexual revolution, and so on. He also notes that his native England had a kind of civic religion, not exactly “God is an Englishman,” but a civic pride that substituted for religion. There was still an element of patriotism, something that is pretty much lacking in England today, and, at best, is controversial in the United States.

But the main part of the book is different. The Rage Against God focuses on why atheism is bad for people.

Hitchens is a career journalist and has spent quite a bit of time in Eastern Europe, especially the former Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. His accounts are firsthand. His generation is getting older. Many younger people, certainly in America, find socialism, communism, and other utopian schemes attractive. Read this book to see how it worked out for the Russians. (I think we can see how it is working for Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba right now.)

Hitchens tells us explicitly that he wants to explain why atheistic arguments fail. He cites three arguments:

Namely, that conflicts fought in the name of religion are always about religion; that it is ultimately possible to know with confidence what is right and wrong without acknowledging the existence of God; and that atheist states are not actually atheist. (2)

Hitchens also notes that an atheist “is his own chief opponent.” (3) If people can convince themselves of anything, they cannot be persuaded otherwise.

Hitchens not only examines historical Communism, but also his own Western culture. After all, hadn’t science and modern government made miracles and even charity irrelevant? He also notes that what in the nineteenth century Schleiermacher called the “cultured despisers” of Christianity are nothing new. A quotation from Virginia Woolf is telling:

I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot [poet T. S. Eliot], who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there’s something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God. (12)

Whew! Shameful, distressing, dead to us, shocking, even obscene! On the same page Hitchens tells us “Unlike Christians, atheists have a high opinion of their own virtue.”

I love some of Woolf’s writings, but her end makes one wonder if her lack of faith was an asset or a liability.

This is one of those books that, instead of using a highlighter, should just be dipped in yellow ink. There are so many great quotations. And Hitchens has seen things from both sides. He understood Woolf well. With one exception he did not know any religious people when he began working as a reporter.

He also notes that the education system is not what it once was. He states that while he is “extremely well educated by the standards of 2010,” his grandfather would have considered him “hopelessly ill-equipped” (27).

His description of the Soviet Union, where he lived in the eighties and nineties, borders on nightmare. He says of the Russians, “It was not that they were coarse and mannerless themselves. It was that they lived in coarse and mannerless world, against which it was futile for the lone individual to fight.” (66) He began to realize that “my own civilization was infinitely precious and utterly vulnerable…” (71).

In effect, atheism makes us vulnerable—not just to eternal punishment but to a miserable and elitist existence in this present age.

He also does express some concern that the Church of England—he is English and does identify with this church—has watered down some of its practices and core beliefs. In doing so, he notes, the church may have tried to make itself more compatible with certain modern notions but its effect is to bring about indifference. People can believe those things without a religion, too.

His observations of the decline of the church in general in the West are worth considering as well.

He also notes that in the West, the animus is not so much against religious belief in general but specifically against Christianity, and by extension, Judaism. Without going into detail here, he notes the great curiosity that the Western Left like the Communists sympathize with and even support Islamism partly because it is “the enemy of their Christian monoculture” (95).

Hitchens is far from the first to note that “God is the leftists’ chief rival” (98). We see similar themes in the fiction and nonfiction of C. S. Lewis and the historical analyses of Eric Voegelin. By the end of the book we see how the title makes sense. A generation ago most atheists I knew (except for a couple of dedicated Communists) were indifferent to religion. Now they are more likely to “rage.”

Hitchens is an excellent writer and a careful observer. No reader would say Hitchens is making things up or does not know what he is talking about. He has been there. Does that mean all readers will agree? Well, his brother has not, but it sounds like they still respected each other up to the time his brother died. That is worth a lot these days.