The Daughter's Walk

This was my March book club read. From the beginning I was prejudiced against it: the plot sounded unbelievable, so I didn't vote for it. Yet alas it was chosen, so read it I did. Here is the unbelievable plot, which is yet true since this is historical fiction: a Norwegian-American, Helga, accepts a wager from the fashion industry to walk from Spokane, WA to New York City in the span of seven months. If she succeeds she will be given $10,000 and be able to save her family farm which is otherwise threatened with foreclosure. She takes her daughter, Clara, with her. Oh, and all this takes place in 1897. After an account of the walk the book goes on to follow Clara as she becomes estranged from her family, searches for her own family, and seeks ever more financial security.

                                                                

Things I liked about the book:
1. The setting of the late 1800s and early 1900s is described quite well.
2. I learned about pompadours and the "reform dress".
3. I came to appreciate my right to vote.
4. Clara is an intriguing character, always on the brink.


Pompadour!

Things I did not like:
1. The story is still unbelievable. I don't care if it's true.
2. Ah! So agonizing!
3. People keep dying.
4. There's something lacking in terms of plot, such as, well, a plot.

I recommend this story only because of the bizarreness of the main plot point, but I would say, feel free to just read until the end of the journey. Nothing resolves itself the way you want it to. And no climax really occurs. It was fun to discuss at book club though. So if you read it, make someone else read it with you.

Joshua

Good ole Joshua. Famous for leading the Israelites into the promised land after Moses dies on Mount Nebo and for leading that march around Jericho. Yet this book contains more than just that and if you reads carefully and critically one will likely to be not a little disturbed.

I find the new year to be a time of rejuvenated energy toward making new goals and habits. This year I am endeavoring to read two books of the Bible each month. Seemed doable. For January I read Genesis and 1 Corinthians, for February I started to read Joshua and Matthew. I just finished Joshua a week or so ago and am now trying to finish Matthew so that I can start on my March books before this month hits its end.

Since college I have been aware that there is genocide in the Bible, but it hadn't hit me quite so hard as when I read great portions of Joshua all at once. It's one thing always to be encouraging his people to "be strong and courageous" and to trust in God, but it's another to slaughter entire towns and cities, men, women, children, and animals included. The book does admit that not every Canaanite and Hittite and Jebusite was slaughtered for the Gibeonites trick the Israelites into a treaty, thus saving their lives, even if relegated to "hewers of wood and drawers of water." (9:27) Also some Anakim remained "only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod." (11:22) So the program of extermination was not totally successful. Still, it is more than a mite troubling that this program of extermination was ordained by God in the first place.



That brings me to a pivotal question: since Joshua is in the canon do we take it as reflecting something of God's character? How does this jibe with the God who became incarnate to reconcile THE WORLD to himself? Why slaughter all but the Israelites one minute and then die for everyone (remaining Anakim and Gibeonites included) the next? And what do we as Christians do with this book? What do I do with it when portions of Joshua appear in the lectionary? I don't want simply to avoid talking about the unsavory parts of the Bible, but nor do I endorse genocide, of anyone, for any reason.

If this were a true review of Joshua I would not give it a high rating, for the following reasons:

1. Genocide
2. Long boring lists of town allotments
3. Repetition
4. Complete lack of self-critique on the part of Joshua and the Israelites
5. What appears to be a completely biased and unmerciful God



What I do like about it is

1. Rahab - you go girl!
2. Shofar!
3. The messengers from God say that God is neither on Josh's side nor against
4. God does the major fighting and the Israelites just clean up, so it is clear where real power lies
5. The sun stands still



So I have mixed feelings about this book and I can't guarantee that when I preach about it I won't talk about the horror of finding this in our Bible. Maybe having it here is a reminder that we have done atrocious things in our past and that we have used God to justify it.

Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen

The other day Scott opened a box that arrived in the mail (this is a regular occurrence for us. Usually the box contains something like a knife or shoe wax or jeans or a gardening book) and only held up the contents, sheepishly, when I insisted: several comic books. A few days ago while I was sitting listlessly on the couch bemoaning my fate (also a regular occurrence) Scott flung one at me and commanded me to "read!" That was Trillium. I'll review that later. The next day he did the same thing with Starlight.


Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen came out as a series of 6 comics either this year or last year. The star of the comic is, you guessed it, Duke McQueen, who is sort of a has-been super hero (Birdman anyone?). When we meet him he is mourning the loss of his wife and encountering a general lack of support from his children. He also has the teeny little problem of no one on earth believing that he saved an entire alien planet forty years prior when his airplane entered a space-time warp or something. So here we have a man dealing with very relatable issues: grief, aging, identity, not being believed when he claims he met aliens (this has happened to you, right?).

Reasons I enjoyed this read:

1. Imaginative artwork
2. Duke McQueen kicks some serious alien ass
3. Deals with real human issues: identity, grief, etc.
4. There's a precocious kid whose name I don't remember because Duke McQueen keeps calling him "space-boy"
5. There's an alien obsessed with American culture who looks like the Fonz.

Yet there are a few things I did not like about this comic:

1. Most portrayals of women show them scantily clad (or not at all clad)

Well, I guess that was the only thing I didn't like about it. Overall, I am enjoying my foray into the comic world. Next up: a review of Trillium!

The Dark is Rising

This was a re-read for me. I first read The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper while in college. My friend, Ali (I have a lot of friends named Ali) recommended it to me and I was on a "read books recommended by others" kick. What I remembered about it when I embarked on this re-read was that it starred a young boy of 11 or 12 years old in England who on his birthday wanders outside into the snow and finds himself in a different century. He then encounters a blacksmith and a guy on a horse. His quest becomes fighting a menacing force called "the dark" which as the title tells us is rising. When I re-read this book (technically, I first-listened to it as I took it in via audiobook) these details remained true, but were only a very tiny part of the narrative. The very beginning, in fact. Will Stanton (the aforementioned boy) goes on to encounter various characters: the walker, the rider, the hunter, Merriman, the lady, etc. and as he meets them he learns more about his new identity as an old one which he assumed upon reaching his 11th birthday shortly before Christmas. As he continues his journey many fantastical things happen. The main premise is that Will has become the sign seeker and must find and collect all six signs in the fight of the light against the dark. Each sign is a circle quartered by a cross.

There are many things I like about this book:
1. It features a young boy so there is a lot of imagination and precociousness.
2. It takes place in England.
3. It has fantasy elements.
4. It involves an epic fight of good against evil.
5. There's snow. I love snow. I don't even care that it's menacing. I like it.

But for some reason this time around there were a lot of things I did not like about this book:
1. There are lengthy scenes that involve delving into fantastical elements in detail. Like when Will is reading the book of grammary. Or when he notices a twig. Or basically any time time stands still. This seemed tedious to me.
2. The characters felt sort of flat. The rider, for instance, apparently has a back story that Will learned about from reading grammary, but the reader doesn't get to hear it. Everyone is either fully good or fully bad. Not so very interesting.
3. The fantastic happens a little too often. Makes it seem even less likely. And I'm inclined to like fantasy stories.

Not long ago I listened to Over Sea, Under Stone on audiobook (the first book in The Dark is Rising series) and I rather enjoyed it. There's some simplistic elements to it, but it follows four children and allows for more interesting interactions between characters. Plus Merriman isn't as harsh a character and is therefore more likable. It is for the sake of that book that I finished The Dark is Rising even though it did not grip me in the same way. And for the sake of that book I will finish the series. All in all I give it an Eh rating.

Note: this book was made into a movie in 2007, which did not do well. I started to watch it while flying somewhere sometime and I couldn't watch past the first ten minutes. Watch at your own peril.