Scott Freeman

What I’ve Read: Things Fall Apart and The Sea

Totally unrelated: I hate using the phone. I especially despise cell phones. But since the theme to the greatest sitcom on TV today, “The Office,” is now my ring-tone, I don’t mind. Go ahead, call me on my cell. It’s cool.

This week I read two novels and quit two others after 30 pages.

First up, was John Banville’s The Sea. This was the 2005 winner of the Mann Booker Prize for Fiction. Banville has an uncanny mastery of the english language. His prose is flawless and flows with a mellifluent beauty. If you like stories where the quality of writing overshadows the story then
this is your cup of tea. There isn’t much story. Max Morden returns to the seaside village where his family summered as a child. There he confronts the past while ruminating over the transcience of life. Beautifully written and there were times where I had to reach for my dictionary, which is a rarity. The story is purely a secondary character here.

Next, I tried Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre. It too won the Mann Booker prize back in 2003. Vernon Little becomes the scapegoat of his small Texas town when his closest friend wages a Columbine-style shooting at their school. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for a black comedy, but it didn’t click. I scuttled it.

I then got ahold of Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart, and this title lived up to the hype. Achebe’s work, and I’m dying to read the sequels, are an insightful commentary on Imperialism and Missions that resonate even today. Evangelism and acculturation are not synonymous, and there are grave dangers whenever we conflate the two. Paul in Acts 17 did not insult the Athenians, he talked to them with love, understanding and based upon their own belief system. He did not insult them (despite the horrible KJV translation in Acts 17:22). I kept thinking of the T-shirt that reads “Jesus loves you, but I’m His favorite.” If you haven’t read this work, by all means pick it up. This has the Official Scott Freeman Seal of Approval (patent pending).

I then took a stab at Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Verge of Time. It looks promising but I am too anxious to get into the books I bought at my local library sale this past weekend. I may return to it.

At the aforementioned library sale, I stocked up on classics. Here is what my inbox will look like over the next few weeks:

Cat’s Cradle and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. I’m 50 pages into Cradle and hooked. Read Slaughterhouse Five (OSFSOA), today.)
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I know I have to read this. Just can’t get juiced about it.)
Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton
The History of Torture by Daniel P. Mannix
Disappointment With God by Philip Yancey (I’ve read this. I just keep loaning it out and never getting it back.)
In the Beginning and Davita’s Harp by Chaim Potok (Matt, I thought of you)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, The Final Years: 1944-1969
1984 by George Orwell (I want to read this one, again. It’s been 22 years)
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Fall by Albert Camus
Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

Most of these titles are relatively short, so I hope to rip through them. As always I’m interested in your thoughts on these titles and the ones above that I read this week. Thoughts?