I read the entirety of this book while my wife drove to and from Arizona from our house. Danae suggested that I read this after she had read and had become impressed by it. She was rightfully impressed, and I'm so glad that she suggested it.
Li Cunxin was chosen by Mao's "people" to represent the great socialistic society of Moa through dance. This story begins with Li's childhood and follows him as he becomes somewhat famous.
I'm touched at Li's story. He not only took on the challenge of the kind of responsibility in one's own country to represent the country's philosophy, but he effectively writes about how he used the events in his life to determine that this philosophy was not only manipulative but fully abusive.
I don't want to give anything away. Go read this book. Then watch the movie. The book, as is standard, is much better than the movie, but the movie is good. That means that the book is great!
9/10
Monday, July 18, 2016
Sunday, May 15, 2016
The Faith of Christopher Hitchins
About three years ago I finished teaching one of my Delta Pre-Algebra classes early. I sat in my car and decided that instead of going home that I'd enjoy a Youtube video and a time of relaxation. After having taught, once again, a rather simple lesson on signed integers and variables, I wanted to stimulate my mind with something challenging, so I entered something like, "great debates." That's when I found Christopher Hitchens. And I've been hooked, ever since.
Jennifer bought the book, "The Faith of Christopher Hitchens" for me for our anniversary about two weeks ago. It couldn't have come at a better time. Without having kept count, my only guess is that I have watched somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 Hitchins debates since my introduction to the man. I've become entranced with his style and wit, but most importantly, I've become obsessed with the idea of trying to understand him. When I found out that he was a friend of Francis Collins ('The Language of God' and 'The Human Genome Project'), I was completely engulfed in finding out more.
This book is written from the perspective of a Christian who spent lots of time with Hitchins, not only on a personal level, but also debating him both personally and publicly. The author does an amazing job of quickly reporting the early life and times of Hitchins, then he delves deeply into Hitchins's family and personal life.
I half-expected a kind of preachy tone with this book, but it does not come off nearly as preachy as I had expected.
Read this. It's good stuff.
Jennifer bought the book, "The Faith of Christopher Hitchens" for me for our anniversary about two weeks ago. It couldn't have come at a better time. Without having kept count, my only guess is that I have watched somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 Hitchins debates since my introduction to the man. I've become entranced with his style and wit, but most importantly, I've become obsessed with the idea of trying to understand him. When I found out that he was a friend of Francis Collins ('The Language of God' and 'The Human Genome Project'), I was completely engulfed in finding out more.
This book is written from the perspective of a Christian who spent lots of time with Hitchins, not only on a personal level, but also debating him both personally and publicly. The author does an amazing job of quickly reporting the early life and times of Hitchins, then he delves deeply into Hitchins's family and personal life.
I half-expected a kind of preachy tone with this book, but it does not come off nearly as preachy as I had expected.
Read this. It's good stuff.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The Language of God, by Francis Collins
I don't recall ever having been so enlightened by a book as I was as I read through The Language of God. I've been listening to and watching videos of the late Christopher Hitchins, a brilliant writer and columnist who just happens to also be an atheist. In a presentation to a group of high school students, he challenged them to become familiar with the writings of his good friend and Christian, Francis Collins. Coming from Christopher Collins, I HAD to look the guy up. This turned out to be a very good thing.
After having taught middle school Science for the past fourteen years, I have become pretty familiar with the basics of evolution and the survival of the fittest theory. Charles Darwin struggled with what he believed to be the truth regarding the age of Earth, the changes that occur as organisms struggle to survive, and the conflict that he knew that he would experience if he stuck to his guns about what he believed to be the truth. But he did stick to his guns, and indeed, he did experience a great deal of conflict with the church, but his findings have influenced billions since then, and in fact, through technological advances, we are finding more and more evidence of the accuracy of his theories.
Collins is a Christian who believes in evolution. He believes that there is much that we don't understand but claim that we do. He presents ideas like these, including the following quote about doubt and the believer:
Doubt is an unavoidable part of belief. In the words of Paul Tillich, "Doubt isn't the
opposite of faith; If the case in favor of belief in God were utterly airtight, then the
world would be full of confident practitioners of a single faith. But imagine such a
world, where the opportunity to make a free choice about belief was taken away by
the certainty of the evidence. How interesting would that be?
He also deals with the question of the harm done throughout history in the name of religion. He also deals with how it is that a loving God can allow suffering in the world. He also deals with the issue of miracles.
Then, in chapter three, Collins discusses the the origins of the universe. The Big Bang is a very big topic, and lots has been written about it, but Collins does a superb job of covering it in a dozen or so pages.
More to come...
After having taught middle school Science for the past fourteen years, I have become pretty familiar with the basics of evolution and the survival of the fittest theory. Charles Darwin struggled with what he believed to be the truth regarding the age of Earth, the changes that occur as organisms struggle to survive, and the conflict that he knew that he would experience if he stuck to his guns about what he believed to be the truth. But he did stick to his guns, and indeed, he did experience a great deal of conflict with the church, but his findings have influenced billions since then, and in fact, through technological advances, we are finding more and more evidence of the accuracy of his theories.
Collins is a Christian who believes in evolution. He believes that there is much that we don't understand but claim that we do. He presents ideas like these, including the following quote about doubt and the believer:
Doubt is an unavoidable part of belief. In the words of Paul Tillich, "Doubt isn't the
opposite of faith; If the case in favor of belief in God were utterly airtight, then the
world would be full of confident practitioners of a single faith. But imagine such a
world, where the opportunity to make a free choice about belief was taken away by
the certainty of the evidence. How interesting would that be?
He also deals with the question of the harm done throughout history in the name of religion. He also deals with how it is that a loving God can allow suffering in the world. He also deals with the issue of miracles.
Then, in chapter three, Collins discusses the the origins of the universe. The Big Bang is a very big topic, and lots has been written about it, but Collins does a superb job of covering it in a dozen or so pages.
More to come...
Thursday, January 19, 2012
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Stephen King is truly a prolific writer. Any author who can take one
event in history and effectively make it the theme and core of
surrounding fictional events is a genius!
The events of that fateful day in 1963 are, no doubt, welded into the minds of all Americans, or the world, for that matter, who were born during the decade. It was a time of change in America, when people were trying to make sense of things like race relations and war. And the amazing thing about all of this is that only a handful of individuals drove the events of that time period.
King does a fairly decent job of portraying the main players during this time period of Kennedy and Viet Nam and MLK and so many other historical events.
While I enjoyed this book, I can't say that it comes near to my King favorites, like The Green Mile and most of all, On Writing. He tends to meander a bit in this, like he's writing and deciding where to go with it, all at once.
Consider it, but my opinion...move on to something else.
7/10
The events of that fateful day in 1963 are, no doubt, welded into the minds of all Americans, or the world, for that matter, who were born during the decade. It was a time of change in America, when people were trying to make sense of things like race relations and war. And the amazing thing about all of this is that only a handful of individuals drove the events of that time period.
King does a fairly decent job of portraying the main players during this time period of Kennedy and Viet Nam and MLK and so many other historical events.
While I enjoyed this book, I can't say that it comes near to my King favorites, like The Green Mile and most of all, On Writing. He tends to meander a bit in this, like he's writing and deciding where to go with it, all at once.
Consider it, but my opinion...move on to something else.
7/10
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Pat Conroy: My Reading Life
My wife and daughter and I made a special trip to Borders in Elk Grove since it will be closing its doors forever in the next few weeks. I browsed fiction for a few minutes and began to think about how much I've enjoyed reading Stephen King's "On Writing." Yes, I thought, I might want to try to find another book by another author on writing. I happened upon Pat Conroy's book, and at first look wondered if something with a cover this atrocious could be all that good. It was all that good and more.
Though I'd heard of a couple of his titles, I'd never read anything by Conroy. 'The Prince of Tides' has apparently been made into a movie along with one or two more, but I hadn't seen any of the movies, either. Now I've read what has to be one of the best books in this genre that I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
Conroy uses chapter titles as clues to his experiences as a reader. In the first two chapters, he writes about his youth, focusing particularly on his mother who had such a huge and unique impact on his life. His father also impacted him immensely, but in the opposite way. He was a fighter pilot during the Korean War, and his heroism in all things military was counterbalanced by his utter failure to communicate love to anyone of family. Conroy's first book, The Great Santini, was his experiment in understanding his father, primarily, and other members of his immediate and extended family. I lost myself in a world of Pat Conroy the child as I read with complete mesmerizing excitement and found by chapter three that my commitment to reading and writing would cement itself in my psyche by the time I'd finished this work of art.
Conroy gives the reader three chapters entitled, the teacher, the librarian, and the book rep. In these he discusses his experiences in learning from individuals who believed in him. What's nice is that even as a young person, Conroy believed in his abilities to write and believed that he would one day be a successful writer, this thanks to his mother and his sheer obsession and lustful devouring of literature of all kinds. These individuals supported his love of literature in many ways. Conroy describes, for example, his Beaufort High School English teacher as "...the exceptional and scrupulous man I had been searching for my whole life." Mr. Norris (the teacher) was exceptional, indeed! His influence on Conroy lasted for decades, and not just in the heart of the would-be writer, but in life. Conroy and Norris developed a friendship that would last until the day Norris died, and Conroy's account of the experiences that changed him as a person and a reader and writer were moving. One can only hope that the influence of such a human being will gift him or her in life.
In the chapters, "The Old New York Book Shop" and "My First Writers Conference," Conroy effectively tells of one of the first places for writing that became his haven as he worked on and completed one of his first novels. His relationship with the bookstore owner is revealed in only the wonderful way that Conroy could reveal it. And I was pleasantly surprised at his reaction to the first writers conference that he attended. Let's just say that it wasn't exactly what he'd expected. But that's what Conroy does in this book. He writes the truth. The reader can feel it coming through the words, the sentences that flow so freely and like poetry. It's as if you are there with him as he walks through the crowds of writers; like you have been invited to the event and have been given the privilege of hearing his thoughts.
Conroy writes about authors at length. I found myself keeping notes and ordering books as a result. Three that I'll start with are Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzaki, Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, and The Great Santini by Pat Conroy. In one of his chapters, Conroy writes of Thomas Wolfe and the effect of his works on his life. After I read this chapter, I sat and looked out at the sky, trying to fixate my glance on nothing so as to take in the words that I'd just read. It's as if Conroy wants his reader to find an author that has this kind of effect upon them. He wants the reader to indulge him or herself in something greater that mere words, for as Conroy states, perfection and eveything from a book are to be expected.
I could go on, but suffice it to say, this book is a must read for readers, and as close to a necessity for writers that I can imagine. As I stated to my wife and daughter, and many times to myself as I read, "How does a person do this; write this well!" I'll be reading this book again and again, and each time I'll enjoy it more. Please read this. Please do.
10/10
Oh, the joy,
Steve
Though I'd heard of a couple of his titles, I'd never read anything by Conroy. 'The Prince of Tides' has apparently been made into a movie along with one or two more, but I hadn't seen any of the movies, either. Now I've read what has to be one of the best books in this genre that I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
Conroy uses chapter titles as clues to his experiences as a reader. In the first two chapters, he writes about his youth, focusing particularly on his mother who had such a huge and unique impact on his life. His father also impacted him immensely, but in the opposite way. He was a fighter pilot during the Korean War, and his heroism in all things military was counterbalanced by his utter failure to communicate love to anyone of family. Conroy's first book, The Great Santini, was his experiment in understanding his father, primarily, and other members of his immediate and extended family. I lost myself in a world of Pat Conroy the child as I read with complete mesmerizing excitement and found by chapter three that my commitment to reading and writing would cement itself in my psyche by the time I'd finished this work of art.
Conroy gives the reader three chapters entitled, the teacher, the librarian, and the book rep. In these he discusses his experiences in learning from individuals who believed in him. What's nice is that even as a young person, Conroy believed in his abilities to write and believed that he would one day be a successful writer, this thanks to his mother and his sheer obsession and lustful devouring of literature of all kinds. These individuals supported his love of literature in many ways. Conroy describes, for example, his Beaufort High School English teacher as "...the exceptional and scrupulous man I had been searching for my whole life." Mr. Norris (the teacher) was exceptional, indeed! His influence on Conroy lasted for decades, and not just in the heart of the would-be writer, but in life. Conroy and Norris developed a friendship that would last until the day Norris died, and Conroy's account of the experiences that changed him as a person and a reader and writer were moving. One can only hope that the influence of such a human being will gift him or her in life.
In the chapters, "The Old New York Book Shop" and "My First Writers Conference," Conroy effectively tells of one of the first places for writing that became his haven as he worked on and completed one of his first novels. His relationship with the bookstore owner is revealed in only the wonderful way that Conroy could reveal it. And I was pleasantly surprised at his reaction to the first writers conference that he attended. Let's just say that it wasn't exactly what he'd expected. But that's what Conroy does in this book. He writes the truth. The reader can feel it coming through the words, the sentences that flow so freely and like poetry. It's as if you are there with him as he walks through the crowds of writers; like you have been invited to the event and have been given the privilege of hearing his thoughts.
Conroy writes about authors at length. I found myself keeping notes and ordering books as a result. Three that I'll start with are Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzaki, Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, and The Great Santini by Pat Conroy. In one of his chapters, Conroy writes of Thomas Wolfe and the effect of his works on his life. After I read this chapter, I sat and looked out at the sky, trying to fixate my glance on nothing so as to take in the words that I'd just read. It's as if Conroy wants his reader to find an author that has this kind of effect upon them. He wants the reader to indulge him or herself in something greater that mere words, for as Conroy states, perfection and eveything from a book are to be expected.
I could go on, but suffice it to say, this book is a must read for readers, and as close to a necessity for writers that I can imagine. As I stated to my wife and daughter, and many times to myself as I read, "How does a person do this; write this well!" I'll be reading this book again and again, and each time I'll enjoy it more. Please read this. Please do.
10/10
Oh, the joy,
Steve
Saturday, July 16, 2011
The Gathering by Anne Enright
I don't think I'll be reading another Enright novel anytime too soon. Oh, not that I didn't enjoy this one. It was, in fact, quite good. That is, it was engrossing. I found myself re-reading at least a sentence per paragraph so that I might fully grasp the meaning.
In this, Enright uses much of her Irish nuances throughout, but not so much that the reader languishes in confusion. It's just that it takes a bit of thought to put two contiguous sentences together when one is thinking in American'ese.'
Enright's main character, Veronica, finds herself writing much about her own mother and grandmother, all the while realizing that most of what she writes is conjecture and could be thoroughly fictional.
Veronica has eight siblings. She tells of all of them, their shortcomings and all, but mostly of her closest brother, Liam. And in doing so, she admits that the most dreadful of occurrences regarding Liam may indeed have not occurred at all as she sees in her memory.
Has this got you wondering? If so, read the book. But be forewarned; it has much to be desired for most readers, including myself. Though I was drawn in by the language of the author, I found myself wondering what exactly the main character was trying to communicate. There is no question that she hated men, and one finds out why as they read, but I found myself confused about the family members and the place of each in the story.
6/10
Hmmm....
Steve
In this, Enright uses much of her Irish nuances throughout, but not so much that the reader languishes in confusion. It's just that it takes a bit of thought to put two contiguous sentences together when one is thinking in American'ese.'
Enright's main character, Veronica, finds herself writing much about her own mother and grandmother, all the while realizing that most of what she writes is conjecture and could be thoroughly fictional.
Veronica has eight siblings. She tells of all of them, their shortcomings and all, but mostly of her closest brother, Liam. And in doing so, she admits that the most dreadful of occurrences regarding Liam may indeed have not occurred at all as she sees in her memory.
Has this got you wondering? If so, read the book. But be forewarned; it has much to be desired for most readers, including myself. Though I was drawn in by the language of the author, I found myself wondering what exactly the main character was trying to communicate. There is no question that she hated men, and one finds out why as they read, but I found myself confused about the family members and the place of each in the story.
6/10
Hmmm....
Steve
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