Challenge Accepted! -February Books

The Reading Challenge continues!!

With 50 books to check off (52 actually, since one category is a trilogy), I need to read approximately four and a half books a month to complete the challenge.  With some books being longer or more difficult than others, I'm doing my best to check off as many books as month as possible.

This month I read seven.

Silence by Shusaku Endo (A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit)
I've been wanting to re-read this book for a while now. I first read it a few years ago when I was in the throes of spiritual uncertainty, and it literally changed my life. Now that I have moved on from there, I wanted to read it again to see how it would affect me now. Here is the comprehensive review I wrote about the book when I finished it the second time.

I was able to tick off a box in the reading challenge because Japan is a place I have always wanted to visit. From obento to kokeshi, I've had a long-standing fascination with Japanese trends. One day we will visit. Until then, I'll read books.


 Love Wins by Rob Bell (A book with bad reviews)
In my Christian days, I loved me some Rob Bell. We watched all the Nooma videos at Bible studies, and some of them blew my mind. His way of explaining the Bible intellectually and putting Biblical stories into their proper historical context were enlightening to me. (And those videos - Can't we all remember that moment when the car pulled out of the airport parking lot? We all do.) He is educated and insightful and - to sheepishly borrow a Christian buzzword - relevant. So I have an immense amount of respect for Rob Bell.

Then suddenly, with the release of Love Wins, everyone's favorite hipster pastor "fell from grace". Suddenly he was the Church's greatest insider enemy. Mainstream evangelicals shunned him. They hated this book. So, of course, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I ordered the book.

Love Wins proposes an alternate concept of hell from the usual lake of fire/ separation from God/ eternal punishment and torture bit. Bell goes back to Scriptural mentions of hell - which is pretty sparce; Sheol, Hades and Gehenna are actually not appropriately translated into the Heaven's Gates Hell's Flames version of the everlasting fiery torment we think of today. Bell then proposes a different idea of what might befall the ungodly - but I'll let you read the book to see what that is.

I really liked the book. However, I had two complaints. The first is Bell's assumption that you are either a loving, good, at-peace person with Jesus or you are a discontent, lonely, depressed (and then of course, possibly downright bad) person without Jesus. While he admits there are very good people who do not follow Jesus (and that there are some very bad people who do), he seems to assume those good people are still wandering around aimlessly, looking for that ultimate fulfillment that will give their lives meaning. I beg to differ.

The second complaint, though, is that while he used a lot of Scripture - and the very modern, mainstream concept of a loving God - to back up his points, he seemed to gloss over all the not very loving aspects of God all through Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament. If I were still a mainstream evangelical, I'd have thought of it more as glossing over "the wrath of God", the part of God that wants to punish all the people who didn't follow him. As a Calvinist, I'd have laughed the whole book right off. However, IF God is the God of Love Bell describes in the book, then his book would be pretty close to the mark. IF there is a God and IF he is all-loving, then Bell's assessment that eternal torture is not compatible with His nature would have to be pretty near spot on.

If the subject of hell bothers you, I'd recommend picking up this book. It's an easy read, despite the heavy subject matter, written in a very "bloggy" style. And Bell is just so darn charming. I'm glad he's still out there, despite all the backlash, being relevant in the Christian world.

 Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind(A play)
The day I was finishing Love Wins, my copy of Spring Awakening arrived in the mail. Even though it was about 11:30 at night when I finished Love Wins, I was eager to read this little play, so I dove straight into it and read it in one sitting. It was about 2am before I got to bed that night.

A little personal background. I first heard of Spring Awakening as a rock musical. When I was doing Footloose, my first return to amateur dramatics in Scotland, another local drama group was holding adutions for SA. I didn't audition, because I was already in a musical, but also because I knew nothing about it. Curious, though, I bought the soundtrack and went to see my new friends perform it when the time came. Turns out, the musical (based on this German play from 1891) was shockingly controversial. I actually found myself cringing horribly at some parts. The music is great though and the subject matter important. I found it hard to believe that this was actually based on a play from the 19th century, so for a while I'd been wanting to get my hands on the original.

Surprisingly, shockingly even, the original play is even more gritty.

Basically, the rock musical deals with homosexuality, teen sexuality and pregnancy, suicide, sexual abuse, masturbation and abortion. The play deals with all of those topics PLUS masochism, sadism, and child prostitution, all thrown in with a dash of dark humor. Ouch. Even the modern rock musical doesn't try to be funny about it. Even the modern musical softens Wendla Bergman's taste for masochism and Melchior Gabor's blatant rape scene (which is performed as not rape in the musical). The musical ages the characters too; the original play has the children ranging from eleven to fourteen.

I'll just say this book was disturbing but intriguing. It's almost impossible to imagine a 19th century writer with the cajones to shamelessly write about gay romps in the grass and circle jerking with such bluntness, and particularly for the stage! Not to mention the unsettling mental health issues so many of the child characters display. And then to do it all with a twisted dark humor...

It was a good play.

(And the musical is good too.)

God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by Bart Ehrman (A book you own but have never read)
Originally, I was going to check off "A book a friend recommended" but when I told that friend I'd read it, he said he had actually recommended a different book. Oops.

I own a lot of Bart Ehrman books. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I first heard of him on NPR discussing his most recent book How Jesus Became God with Terry Gross on Fresh Air. I subsequently ordered that book and read it, followed by several others of his. Ehrman is an agnostic, who left evangelical Christianity after attending three religious colleges and universities. He alludes to his reasons for leaving Christianity in his other books but said that the full story is fleshed out in God's Problem in which he discusses the problem of suffering. I've had this book on my shelf for about a year now and finally decided to read it.

This book is a very, very thorough review of the Biblical answers to why we suffer. He moves through Old and New Testament authors and demonstrates their understanding of why we suffer. The answers are all very different from one another and actually very comprehensive, even while being contradictory. From believing suffering comes from God as punishment for sin to coming from the forces of Satan to being a matter of free will to being a result of living in a fallen world to being a means of bringing us closer to God to having literally no meaning whatsoever, the Bible seems to have covered basically every reason we can think of for why there is suffering in the world.

The problem Ehrman has, and that I share with him, is that none of these explanations are compatible with an all powerful, all loving God. And none of these explanations - with the exception perhaps of Ecclesiastes which basically says suffering just happens and it totally sucks - are satisfactory. Some are even appalling. It was this problem with suffering that led Ehrman to eventually leave the faith altogether. It also resonates deeply with me, being a problem I wrestled with often: How can an all-powerful, all-loving God allow so many African children to starve daily, allow tsunamis and earthquakes to kill millions of innocent people yearly, allow so much unbearable, senseless pain and suffering without lifting a finger to do anything about it? The "answers" are all there in the Bible, but none of them are good enough. None of them really cut to the chase.

In fact, this book echos back the problem of God's silence in Endo's book too. From Silence to Love Wins to God's Problem, there was a definite trend going on in my February reading - can God truly be a loving God if he remains silent during suffering or punishes millions upon millions of people for eternity just for getting the details wrong?

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (A book that became a movie)
After four rather emotionally exhausting books, I decided it was time for some fluff. My friend Elizabeth loaned me Fight Club. After reading a fan site claiming that Marla is not real, Scott and I went back and watched the movie again. Then I read the book. (For the record, I'm still on the fence about Marla. Mebbe, mebbe not.) It was a good book, but of course, having seen the movie already a dozen times, there were no surprises. I'd have liked to have read this book before ever seeing the movie, then allowing the movie to amaze me even further. Regardless, it's one of those books I'm pleased to say I've now read. Makes me feel more movie-literate, if that's even a thing. I can't really discuss much about the book (or the movie) without spoilers, but then seriously, if you haven't already seen it, I have to wonder if you've been living in a cave.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (A book with nonhuman characters)
Following Book Club, where this book came up, another friend Tosha dropped her copy off in my mailbox for me to read. She was sure I'd love it, having lived Britishly myself for several years. (She too is married to a Scotsman.) This is one of Scott's favorite books, so it was high time I read it anyway. It was, however, one of those books that has been so built up for me that I was afraid reading it would be a disappointment.

After literally LOLing three times in the first chapter, though, I figured that wasn't much of a concern.

This book is funny. It is absurd. It is modern day, sci-fi Candide. I read through it quickly and immediately started in on the second book of the series Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The story of human Arthur Dent saved from the obliteration of Earth in the process of creating a galactic bypass (plans of which had already been scrapped, oops) as he hitchhikes through the galaxy with humanoid alien Ford Prefect, ex-Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox and fellow human Trillian is unpredictable, improbable and hilarious. The Britishness of the humor makes me feel warmly back in Scotland in turtleneck jumper drinking a perfect cup of tea. I'm eager to read the rest of the series, which may or may not tick off any more boxes of the Reading Challenge but will certainly be worth my time! So fluffily, funnily delightful!

Four by Veronica Roth (A book with a one-word title)
I'm not one to read two books at once, but I saw Four at the library, and even though I'm currently in the middle of Restaurant at the End of the Universe, I checked it out and read it in two days. Like the rest of the Divergent series, it's an energetic, fast-paced story that keeps you turning pages until you are through. This book gives some prequel story lines about the character Four that we meet in the earlier books. Four is a really interesting character, so I'm sure I speak for all fans when I say I'm glad she wrote this book, telling us more about him.

My only complaint - and it was one of my complaints about Allegian too - is that Four doesn't have his own voice. He speaks and thinks just like Tris, using the same imagery and descriptions. That's not a character fault, though, it's an author's. I can't blame Four for it. (I kind of love him.) Regardless, it was easy to push that little bit of literary snobbery aside and just enjoy the plot line.

(Okay listen. If we were playing Truth or Dare, and you asked me who my fictional crush is, I'd have to say Four. There. The truth is out.)



So the Reading Challenge continues. 13 books down, 39 to go! Anyone else willing to jump in?

To see what else I have read this year:
January

The Most Depressing Film I've Ever Watched... But First, Pancakes

Yesterday we made pumpkin pancakes for brunch. They were pretty tasty, especially drenched in maple syrup. I used this recipe from Allrecipes.com. Everyone liked them, and Lolly even claimed they were the best pancakes ever. However, she says that about every pancake she's ever eaten, and I'm pretty sure Scott still holds the Pancake King title in this household.

I'm liking finding new ways to use pumpkin, but it's definitely meant eating a LOT more baked goods and carb-loaded foods than we are used to. We haven't been on a strict keto diet for a while, but we've developed primarily low-carb eating habits over the year. Between the Halloween candy and the Pumpkinpalooza, the good habits we have formed are quickly falling away. I'm still going to finish my pumpkin challenge, but I'm going to cut back on all the rest of the unhealthy food we've gotten back into eating. If a pumpkin recipe a day is the only carbs we eat, that ought to be all right.

Now, speaking of unhealthy foods, we watched Food Inc last night. It was horrendous. I'd been putting off watching it, because I knew it would upset me. I mean, I already knew our food was bad and our practices are inhumane, but I didn't really want it confirmed. I didn't want to actually face it or see it. It's easier to stay in denial.  We decided to watch it last night, though, and both Scott and I were utterly horrified. We have decided the entire human race is awful.  Agent Smith was absolutely right:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague.

The way we treat animals, other human beings and the environment is atrocious. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the cars we drive, the petrol we run those cars on, the housing materials we build our homes with - everything is made by exploiting fellow human beings, killing off and abusing animals and destroying the earth and its atmosphere. It was the most depressing film I've ever watched, and that's saying something.

We aren't rich and we live on a budget, but Scott and I decided last night we have to do something, even if it's just a little tiny thing that barely makes any difference. We're going to start with buying grass-fed, free-range chicken and eggs, and seriously cutting back on our corn product consumption for our kids. (Scott and I don't eat cereals and grains very often, but our kids still do.)  One of the farmers on the film commented that people balk at paying $3 for a dozen free-range eggs, while drinking a 75¢ can of Coke. It won't make even a dent in the global problem, but it will hopefully make a small difference somewhere, even if only to our little family.

If you haven't watched this movie, I suggest you put away all junk food and sit down to make yourself watch this. It's on Netflix, if you have Netflix. We have managed to get warning labels put on packs of cigarettes (going up against tobacco giants), and now we must do something about inhumane food practices.

(Yet even saying that is depressing, because I know we won't. The collective "we". Society. We'd all rather save a buck than think about the illegal workers who are hired and brought over by US companies on the agreement with the government that they can then arrest a certain number of those individuals if they turn a blind eye to what the companies are actually doing. We'd all rather save a buck than think about the farmers whose hands are tied into treating their animals inhumanely, because they will lose everything if they don't. A dollar saved is worth more to us than the men, women and children being oppressed behind that dollar. Unbelievably depressing.)

The Real Scotland - In Film

We just watched a Scottish movie directed by Ken Loach called The Angels' Share. I've seen a few of his movies, namely Sweet Sixteen and Ae Fond Kiss, and I like them for how realistic their portrayal of life in the West of Scotland is. Sweet Sixteen was even filmed in Greenock!

I find it amusing that when people picture Scotland, they imagine the beautiful mountains, green grass, a light misting rain, and people in kilts eating porridge. They see Braveheart and Brave and Highlander; if they are a little more canny, they might see Trainspotting. But in reality, it's a lot of Sweet Sixteen, Ae Fond Kiss and The Angels' Share. Neds and drugs, drink and thugs. Sectarianism and fitba, track suits and chibs.


It's also beautiful mountains, green grass and misting rain. It's also fine whiskys, Robert Burns and masterful cutting banter. There are a lot of amazing things about Scotland, right along side all the rubbish.  (I really miss Scotland.)

If you want to know what every day Scottish life is really like, and you are over 18, you should check out one of these films. The Angels' Share is about a ned who develops a taste for whiskys and uses it to find a way out of his troubled life for the sake of his girlfriend and new son. Sweet Sixteen is about a kid with a tough background waiting until his mum gets out of prison so they can start a new life, who needs to raise some cash - and does it the only way he knows how. Ae Fond Kiss is about a Pakistani man who falls in love with a Scottish woman and all the problems it presents with his family.

Next on my Ken Loach watch list is Kes. It's an old one, and I don't know why I've not seen it yet.