If I had to sum up Yann Martel’s new novel in one word, it would be “grim,” which is not to deter readers but to prepare them. In scope, if not in length, Beatrice and Virgil rivals Martel’s previous novel, Life of Pi, with its necessary and answerless questions and its cast of bizarre characters.
Henry [...]
Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me by Andrée Seu arrived in my mailbox a number of weeks ago, a special delivery from my dad. I think it’s safe to say that Andrée ranks up there with Charles Spurgeon and Calvin Miller in Dad’s list of authors-who-most-tickle-his-fancy. We were introduced to her work via World magazine, for which she is a senior writer, but my current relationship to her is as a satisfied customer of the café at Westminster Theological Seminary, which she manages.
The book is a collection of 30 essays originally published in her World column, written after the sudden death of her husband. (The volume is a limited edition available only through the magazine.) With frankness and vocabulary precision, she chronicles some of her struggles and blessings as a widow with four kids, a mortgage, a supportive church, and a spare room open to needy neighbors.
Notable essays include:
The Big Snow: “Sledding is the great democratizer. On the slopes no one knows your name, IQ, or proficiency with Windows 98—and no one cares” (11).
Depth Perception: “Depth perception is the single biggest thing I miss in marriage. . . . What causes me to lumber about and walk into walls these days . . . is the forfeit of a perspective other than my own” (55).
Triangular Truth: Christian journalists, take note. “I would submit to you that knowledge has a shape and that it is triangular”—the normative, situational, and existential perspectives, but—“you will never encounter, in the wild, a ‘situational’ running around without a ‘normative’ or an ‘existential’” (59).
Seventeen Minutes: A list of thoughts of a woman driving home from the store—ordinary, everyday, depraved thoughts about “nothing in particular,” proving that we need a Savior (106).
The Next Thing: God is sovereign and God is good, so why fear the future? “Granted, I am far too weak to go on with life—but I can do a load of laundry” (119).
All that insight, plus she makes a mean tuna-cranberry wrap!
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December 6th, 2006 at 3:00 am
Wow- insight indeed! Sometimes I feel so unaware when I read musings like these. Sounds like a great read; thanks for sharing the quotes.