Intimate insights into a devout community – review of the Gilead trilogy by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead – Deep but a bit tedious screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-08-34-41

This is a very unusual book in that it doesn’t follow any recognised structure. This makes sense when one realises it’s an old preacher man jotting down his reminiscences about significant events and minor incidents, while trying to impart wisdom to his young son in a letter he intends him to read after he has died. Continue reading “Intimate insights into a devout community – review of the Gilead trilogy by Marilynne Robinson”

Battling Prejudice

They invited me to their house-warming party, though I’d never met them. They aren’t even married.

Loud rock music greeted me before I entered the garden. Other guests clustered around beer cans. The hostess was smoking, her bare arms boasting brazen tattoos. She introduced me to her partner – equally tattooed, equally smoking. In his free time he’s a DJ at a seedy nightclub. He was offering guests Red Bulls with vodka. I helped myself to tiramisu and found a seat. At the end of the table sat a person of undefined gender, equipped with a massive German Shepherd dog. A seven-year-old girl with a coy look revealed her underwear as she pranced around and fluttered seductive eyelashes at the menfolk. Continue reading “Battling Prejudice”

Intriguing insight into Neapolitan girls’ lives and feelings but too long and too complicated – Review of My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-08-44-18This book is captivating from the start and very well written. We feel we get to know unfathomable Lila in spite of her contradictory character and also Lenù, the narrator. We feel their strife, their longings, their first attempts at love, the inevitable rivalries.

But there are too many characters to keep track of and by chapter 45 we begin to wonder where this is all taking us. It’s a big disappointment – and too much like hard work – that we are supposed to read the next three books in the series before getting any real answers.

A war story with a difference – Review of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-08-34-41This very sensitively written book brilliantly captures the character and emotional struggles of the main players through a series of parallel cameos. Through the eyes of blind but bright Marie-Laure, we feel the desperate plight of the Parisians who flee from the advancing Germans, their struggle to survive in occupied Saint-Malo, their fifth column acts of resistance. Meanwhile, technically brilliant orphan Werner and his young sister Jutta face the harsh upbringing of a nation which is beginning to realise it’s aggression is failing. They enjoy a brief but emotional encounter when American bombers liberate the town.

Questions of conscience concerning the morality of war, the maltreatment of a weak fellow student and the cold-blooded killing of resistance fighters are well developed, and recurring themes such as radio broadcasts, the Sea of Flames diamond and the intricate city models form intriguing subplots.

Marie-Laure’s life is carried forward to the time when Werner’s faithful wartime companion brings her his few remaining possessions. At the end she’s a grandmother. Her grandson is not worried about dying in his online wargame – “I can always begin again”  – and she reflects on what the characters who left their mark on her life are doing in the afterlife. A touch of spirituality. And the mysterious legend of the Sea of Flames proves true.

Poetically autobiographical – Review of ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ by Laurie Lee

screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-08-34-41A very personal, sensitively written account of a naive young Englishman’s encounters with ordinary people as he spends a year walking the length of Spain. We gain a vivid insight into the harsh realities of life in Spain in the 30s, as the author faces poor but kind natives, coupled with blatant immorality, seething unrest and fervent faith competing with hostility toward a dominant and uncaring Church. After experiencing the first life-threatening clashes of the Civil War, he is fortuitously whisked out of danger by the British navy. The language is evocative, beautiful at times, and masterfully captures the spirit and character of the places and people along the way.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-08-34-41This book is amazing in terms of its complexity and vivid action. The main characters are very well developed and the action scenes are 51UbZ8Kt7LL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_captivating, even if somewhat incredible at times. As the first of a series, it builds up a huge cast of players in multiple locations, the relationships between which become quite a challenge to unravel. And, of course, many subplots remain unfinished; actually, Continue reading “A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin”

Very moving, very realistic – Review of The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

How is it that a story, in which hardly anything happens except for Harold nursing his blisters, can be so captivating, so thought-provoking, so moving?51f6yKkUebL._SX319_BO1,204,203,200_

Rachel Joyce has an unusual knack for interweaving past incidents and memories into the current narrative, while cunningly maintaining our suspense by concealing what really happened twenty years earlier until late in the book.

The episode when the others joined Harold on his pilgrimage I found rather unrealistic and superfluous, but the mental agony Harold went through in the following weeks – alone again, confused, weak and ready to give up – was brilliantly written. The final scenes are very touching.

Does God care about nations?

Each morning, I read the Daily Moravian Bible Texts – first in German (Losungen), then in English. Both today’s Old Testament and New Testament readings refer (in German) to the Nations (Völker). This made me stop and think.

Tut kund seine Herrlichkeit unter den Nationen, unter allen Völkern seine Wunder. Psalm 96,3

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. Psalm 96:3 (NIV)

Paulus und Barnabas berichteten, was Gott alles durch sie getan und dass er allen Völkern die Tür zum Glauben aufgetan habe. Apostelgeschichte 14,27

On arriving there, Paul and Barnabas gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. Acts 14:27 (NIV) Continue reading “Does God care about nations?”

Sabre of Honor by William Simpson

Set in Napoleon’s heyday, this is a seemingly endless series of battles – often recounted in gory detail – interspersed with reckless carousing. Peter and SabreOfHonorRaoul always come out victorious and, if they do happen to get injured, they’re well again in no time. Bonaparte and his troops manage with next to no sleep, advancing from one victory to the next.

However historically accurate the account may be – and it seems there is some basis for the Polish slant as well as names of real generals, etc. – the plot and pace are quite implausible and the amount of blood and gore rather off putting.

The unsealed fate of the Grunewald sword and Peter’s ongoing affair with Caterina lead the reader to want the next book in the series.

I can’t give this book a higher rating than 2 stars. The plot may be good but I gave up one third of the way through. The French Revolution was surely a cruel period but I don’t feel the need to read all the gory details and the callous behaviour of people like Raoul Aguirre. I found the events sometimes unrealistic (e.g. the first betting scene) and the dialogue forced in places. The book could do with another round of line editing, too.

Light of Eidon by Karen Hancock – an exciting, cruel, spiritual fantasy

This is a complex adventure of political and religious rivalry, set in several nations of a fantasy world where supernatural powers intervene in human encounters. Spiritual bondage and fervour, cruel power struggles, brutal treatment of slaves and blow-for-blow accounts of battle to the death have the reader gasping with apprehension or seething with fury. But the main theme is the hero’s spiritual journey from fervent submission to what turns out to be a subtle deceiver – through selfish atheism – to final acknowledgement of the truth and kindness of the God from whom he has been fleeing.

The complex relationships between the various tribes and nations with their different religious allegiances, strange names and languages, together with mythical objects and beings, prove a challenge to the reader.

The book is well written, the plot enthralling and the pacing maintained throughout. I had reservations about what seemed to me gratuitous violence, implausible recovery from injury and the somewhat incongruous magical elements. Also, I have trouble accepting the idea that the supposedly true and good God not only condones but instrumentalises suffering and mass slaughter in order to woo a proselyte. Some apparently important characters (Saeral, Gillard, Shettai, Philip) seem to fizzle out in an unsatisfactory way but perhaps that is an intentional lead into subsequent books of the series.

I’m not sure the average reader would grasp why this is categorised as Christian Fantasy.

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