Come, Thou Long Desired Autumn

I know the official end of summer is not until — oh, what is it?  September 22 or somesuch.  But, for all practical purposes, today is our last day of summer.  Tomorrow, Sadie goes back to school, and the 9-month hamster wheel turns anew.  I took her out of town this past weekend with one of her friends from church for a girls' getaway before we're locked back into that wretched schedule (can you tell that I have not reconciled myself even now to the non-homeschooling twist my plans have taken?).  But, today is the last day of vacation.

Instead of cramming in "one-lasts" all day, we're downplaying it with hanging out at home.  Really, we are pretty worn out from the weekend.  And, my glorious, obliging Pacific Northwest came through for me with a chilly, rainy, gloomy, inside sort of day.  I am tickled to death.  I am thinking of soups and sweaters and cozy fireside reads on the couch with my favorite old, green blanket tucked in around my toesies.  Autumn, autumn, blessed autumn!

Yeah, I guess I'm ready to say "good-bye" to summer. 

Sugarless (and Probably Butterless, Too) in Seattle

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that potluck dessert offerings in conservative, Bible-belt areas are delicious — ooey-gooey and stuffed with sugar and butter and shortening and maybe even that mysterious element, lard.  What I know for sure is that such items at events in progressive, secular hubs like Seattle tend to bite the big one.  If you don't believe me, ask Sadie.  Yesterday, at her theater day camp's grand finale of play and parent-provided potluck, Sadie eagerly grabbed what looked to be a scrumptious piece of chocolate cake and an innocent-looking chocolate chip cookie.  One bite and an evocative grimace from Sadie revealed (and I confirmed by finishing the discarded balance) that the cake was instead a deceptive carob-applesauce concoction.  Fie, fie!  She then bit into the cookie and practically started to cry.  I didn't dare eat that one — I'm not a fan of chocolate chip cookies even under the best of circumstances — but I can guess by her disappointment that such things as butter substitute were probably defiling the heretofore unsuspicious baked treat.  Oh, the humanity!

Now I am starting to realize why, whenever I bake something to share at a communal event, my stuff flies out the window and I am met at every turn by ecstatic commentary muffled by the effect of hamster-like cheeks stuffed with my goodies.  These poor, deprived Puget Sound people have never before tasted real butter and real sugar.  I bake like a Bible-believer, and truly, you can taste and see that the Lord is good.

So, why are these libs obsessed with robbing childhood of the great joys of authentically ingrediented baked goods?  I'm sure part of it is bragging rights; you know, so they can say something like, "Little Saffron is on a sugar-free, gluten-free, fat-free diet.  I just love that she is eating healthy."  Dude, that's not healthy.  Someday that kid is going to get a hold of a Twinkie, and look out — next thing you know, she's flat on her back on the couch, watching The View, on the verge of a sugar-induced coma.  Think it can't happen?  I could tell you stories of my childhood friend who was raised in a vegan, sugar-free household, and who binged on candy whenever she escaped to my house.  I do not know what the other part of this deprivation is due to — maybe, like Mrs. Fidget, they just want the personal satisfaction of doing something good for their families, whether their families want it or not. 

I know kids are fat nowadays; but, they are not fat because Mom is baking homemade, delectable treats everyday.  They are fat because Mom buys Hostess products by the bushel and sets them up in front of the TV everyday.  Eliminate TV from your household and bake a real chocolate cake or Nestle Tollhouse cookies every week, and watch your kids thrive, I say.  Tree-climbing, hill-rolling, rock-flipping, snake-catching, bike-riding, book-reading kids who know the taste of real butter and sugar are happy, healthy kids, indeed.

A.W.B.F.C.

To borrow from a popular pro-life slogan:  "Some children are fatherless by chance; not one should be fatherless by choice."

Nowadays we tend to think of orphans as being children bereft of both parents.  In the biblical sense, though, an orphan needs only to have lost his father to fall under the special protection and consideration of God and those who love Him.  Widows and orphans are grouped together in the Bible so often because they were often of the same family.  We must care for the widows and orphans.  If you love the Lord and believe His word, then there are no two ways about it.

Now, one of the frustrating things about modern culture is that the majority of "widows and orphans" are husbandless and fatherless, not because of death or even imprisonment, but because of divorce, abandonment, or chosen single-motherhood.  As Christians, we are bound by faith to support and provide for these fatherless homes.  But, because the state of fatherlessness is a chosen one and a rampant one, the burden is becoming far too great on the Body, and, I believe, taking away resources, time, and attention from other vital ministries. 

There is a young mother at our church.  She has a two-year-old daughter and is pregnant.  She and her husband were separated, reconciled temporarily (hence her burgeoning belly), and then he flat out abandoned her.  Left.  Flew the coop.  Refuses to provide for his wife or their progeny.  Now, as her church family, it is a pleasure and a privilege to step up and support her in this horrible, difficult time.  But, when I told my own wonderful husband her story, he had another — possibly inspired — idea of how best to support her.

"You want me to get a bunch of guys together to hunt this bastard down?  I wish you'd let me keep that beating stick I found on the hike at Barnabas.  Shove that in his face and he'd hustle back and take responsibility, boy howdy."

OK, my first reaction was to laugh heartily and say, "Yep, that's a Christian reaction."  But, on further reflection, why shouldn't Christian men band together to go after other supposedly Christian men and hold their feet to the fire?  Part of the reason that community is so important in the life of a Christ follower is that, by ourselves, on our own watch, we simply cannot hold ourselves accountable.  It is pretty easy to make excuses for our own bad behavior — heck, it is one of our specialties!  Calling out others can get murky — what with that whole speck and plank thing; but, when a person's behavior actively hurts the Body of Christ — such as choosing to create by his actions a widow and orphans — he or she ought to be made to answer for it.  There used to be "shotgun weddings" — and maybe we need to reinvigorate and expand that tradition.      

I think that my husband's gut reaction was, in his own very special way, a compassionate one.  It is not compassionate to look about at the state of the American family and exhibit only tolerance for bad choices that devastate children and rip apart the fabric of society.  Tolerance is not love; tolerance is a passive virtue, and love is active.  And, while waving a stout beating stick under the nose of a wayward husband might not be the most seemly of convincers, it is probably an effective one.  I suggest that a league be formed within every congregation called the A.W.B.F.C, which stands for — you've guessed it! — the Ass-Whupping Brothers for Christ. 

The Troughs

What makes a classic work of literature, well, classic?  Some may argue that broad appeal over many generations is the primary criterion.  Some might aver that a certain sense of pushing conventional boundaries or being revolutionary in scope or style are the marks of classics.  Still others might put forward that a work cannot achieve "classic" status unless it has been put under the scholarly microscope, subjected to reams of literary criticism.  I would like to offer up something I find increasingly:  a classic is a work which stands up to multiple readings, offering something new or unexpected with each.  Under my definition (as well as the others), The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is truly a classic.

I just finished my third reading of it. I'm pretty sure my own personal demon has read it, too, because I think I fall prey to just about every diabolical trick delineated in this book aimed to drive me away from Father, time and time again.  It's a squirmy, wormy feeling to read about "the Patient" and find that the patient is you.  And, while I could relate to every temptation presented to Wormwood's patient, what really caught my attention in this most recent reading was the letter about peaks and troughs, not so much because that is my own particular struggle right now (though, isn't it always at least a shadow struggle that threatens to solidify?), but because my dear friend is mired in a bit of a trough, and I have been relentlessly praying for her.

In Letter VIII, Screwtape schools his nephew, Wormwood, in what he calls the Law of Undulation.  We humans, you see, are amphibious — existing as half spirit, half animal.  Being as such — this "revolting hybrid" — we can only achieve a state approximating constancy between our spiritual selves (which can be sited on eternal objects) and our natural selves (always subject to temporal changes) through "undulation — the repeated return to a level from which [we] repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks."

We had a guest pastor at our church this past weekend while our senior pastor is on an extended vacation.  While, overall, it was a good sermon on 1 Samuel 15 and the progression of sin, I did have one disagreement.  The speaker said something like, "Dry seasons in your walk are not blessed times nor times of growth; if you are running spiritually dry, it is a sign of unresolved sin in your life."  Not only is this discouraging and disheartening, I do not think it is true — certainly not always true.  The presence of Father can at times be clouded to our senses by our sin; but, there are times when, for reasons only He knows, His palpable presence is simply not revealed to us.  And these are the times, C.S. Lewis surmises through the voice of Screwtape, when we grow in obedience.

God wants us to desire a relationship with Him; He wants, as Screwtape notes with disgust, "servants who can finally become sons."  But, because He desires that we desire Him, He has given us free will, making "the Irresistible and the Indisputable . . . two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. . . . He cannot ravish.  He can only woo."  When the Holy Spirit first washes over our lives, bringing repentance, reverence, and reconciliation, we live on the peak of what Carolyn Arends calls the "overflow of perichoresis" — that is, in the abundance of the love and life that exists and has always existed in the presence and fellowship of the Trinity.  But, then we wake up a day or a month or a year or a decade later and find that we are still half-animals.  Make no mistake, eventually you will hit a trough.  And why?

It's worth it to offer up as explanation this lengthy quote from the incomparable Jack Lewis:  "Sooner or later [God] withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives.  He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs — to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.  It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.  Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. . . . He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice.  He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles."  If this is true, and I suspect it is, then God must love the Psalms — that handbook for the broken-hearted, filled with David's (and others') prayers from the trough.  Think for a moment of Psalm 27: "Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!  Have mercy also upon me and answer me.  When You said, 'Seek My face,' my heart said to You, 'Your face, Lord, I will seek.' Do not hide Your face from me; do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not leave me or forsake me, O God of my salvation. . . . I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."  David, with all his sin and his dry seasons, was a man after God's own heart.

There are a lot of Christian songs about rain.  I tend to like them, because I really like rain (being a web-footed Pacific Northwest girl), and also, I think, because I like the analogy that, after the dry seasons, the rain travels down to the resting seeds and nourishes what was already there; the next season brings fruit.  The Lord provides this cyclical journey, because we need that sort of peak and trough rotation for equilibrium.  The key is not to despair during the dry or barren seasons, but to recognize them and still follow the "sweet will of God."  Here is the end of Chapter VIII which gave me chills when I came across it last week:  "Our cause [i.e. the cause of drawing souls away from God into fodder for demonic sustenance] is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." [Emphasis mine.]

I am praying for you, dear friend, without ceasing.  And I know you will see again the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Stream of Semi-Consciousness

You know how it is when your alarm is set for 6:30 AM and at 6:20 AM there is a tap-tap-tapping sound of someone hammering outside and you really hear it because your husband opened the window last night before he went to sleep and the tap-tap-tapping noise doesn't wake him at all — oh no — so you have to get out of bed and close the damn thing and what's the point anyway because now it's 6:22 and you're awake and you might be able to go back to bed for that extra 8 minutes, but what's the point? so you get up and stumble down the hall to the kitchen to brew some coffee and no one remembered to filter enough water to make a pot so you fill the Brita system and have to wait for it to drip-drip-drip down; and while you're waiting you look out your window into the back yard and see that the deer have marauded through your garden last night you know your garden that has been thriving and looking gorgeous and you thought maybe you'd get a secondary strawberry harvest this year but now it's gone gone gone gone so you run out the front door to see if the deer made it there and they did of course munched up your giant tomato plant that you thought you could hide from them by putting it right next to the front door but of course these deer have no sense of shame and they marched right up and ate branches and leaves but you look down at the pavement and they were kind enough to have spit out the green tomatoes all over the ground and you want to call up your deer hunting brother-in-law and see if he'd like an easy neighborhood gig but by now the water is filtered and you might as well shove your rage down into your gullet and make the coffee but by now you're thinking that Alexander was right — and it is a terrible, horrible no-good, very bad day and you consider moving to Australia.  You know how it is.

Update:  Still bitter about those stolen 10 minutes.  Who hammers at 6:20 AM?

Book Review: Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
(Among others) Barnes & Noble Books (New York), 2004

Because at Adorable Trivialities we pride ourselves on being on the cutting edge of culture, here for your entertainment is a review of Emily Brontë's 19th century mega-hit, Wuthering Heights.

What is a confirmed Austenite to do with the Brontës?  For those of us who appreciate the sanity and moral clarity and balanced worldview of our keen-eyed genius, the Brontës are simply fetid waters — teeming with diseased and damaged characters, implausible plot twists, and a dark murkiness that oppresses and fatigues.  That is not to say that they are not interesting.  They surely are.  But, so is Pompeii.  Would you wish to have dwelt in the shadow of Vesuvius on August 24, 79?

I thoroughly enjoyed Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre as a teenager.  Much like Ayn Rand's novels, it is the sort of book that will always draw in the young and inexperienced.  I have not revisited it in years, but, I suspect, that I would find the same sort of disappointment that I found in 2005 when I tried to re-read The Fountainhead.  I remember briefly attempting Villette in college; other than that, until last week, Jane Eyre was the only Brontë exposure my literary life had experienced.

So, now I have read Wuthering Heights. 

Oy.

Let me digress for a moment to note that I read The Turn of the Screw recently, after Jane's Fame by Claire Harman assured me that Henry James was Jane Austen's literary heir.  Oh God, how I hated that book!  I went through the slim volume gnashing my teeth and wailing to Jason that I loathed the governess heroine beyond reason, and I wished upon her all manner of suffering and despair at the hands of her demonic charges. 

Well, I hated Catherine and Heathcliff even more thoroughly and with far more cause.  In fact, I despised every character in that foul tome — from insipid Lockwood through to that lummox Hareton.  You know what I mean, right?  Or, have you the pleasure and privilege of never having cracked the covers of Wuthering Heights?

"Wuthering" is a North England word that means "having blustery, roaring winds." Well, in this book, they are ill winds, indeed, because they blow nobody — including the reader — any good.  Everyone in this novel operates within the confines of severe dysfunction, with everyone possessing a violent sort of loathing for everyone else.  Wuthering Heights is based upon the Jerry Springer Principle: that human train wrecks are entertainment.  And the novel is compelling.

The feckless Lockwood falls into this disenchanting web when he rents lodging from a Mr. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights.  He gets stuck at that disreputable residence overnight, when weather prevents his returning to his rented quarters a small distance off.  Everyone is queer and everyone is hostile, and, while he spends a little time trying to figure out the strange dynamics, he readily consigns them all to unfathomability and goes to his provided room to sleep.  In the night, he is visited by a dream, a vision, a spirit from beyond, and — in his panic — he arouses the attention of the somber and repulsive Heathcliff.  Heathcliff does not seem surprised by this witching hours visitant; rather, he seems envious of Mr. Lockwood's experience.  Heathcliff then proceeds to while the rest of the night in lamentations and despairing exhortations to "Catherine."  Mr. Lockwood escapes home to the other rented property the next day — catching, for his troubles, a nasty cold.

Consigned to his bed, he entreats his housekeeper, one Ellen Dean, to tell him the story of all he observed at Wuthering Heights.  The rest of the novel is a series of flashbacks, as recalled by this domestic servant — the only somewhat rational voice in the entire book.

The former proprietor of Wuthering Heights, Mr. Earnshaw, brought back with him from a business trip an orphaned waif of no-repute or relation to live in his home.  He calls the boy "Heathcliff," and the child receives no other name.  Mr. Earnshaw's two children, Hindley and Catherine, at first scorn the boy; then, Catherine forms a passionate bond with him.  Abused by Hindley, adored by Catherine, Heathcliff grows up into a twisted and cruel man, whose only anchor to rationality is his devotion to "Cathy."  Long story short, Cathy marries a neighbor boy, Edgar Linton, instead of the degraded Heathcliff.  Heathcliff runs off for a few years.  In the meantime, Cathy gets pregnant.  Then, Heathcliff returns — remade and with some money — and proceeds to hang about the Lintons' home, making Edgar very nervous.  Cathy dies after childbirth, and Edgar's sister, Isabella, runs off with Heathcliff.  Heathcliff, in the meantime, has won through gambling the title of Wuthering Heights from drunken and debased Hindley.  When he returns with his hated bride, Heathcliff goes on to make everyone about him completely miserable for the rest of the novel, until he mercifully dies.  The second half of the novel is all about the story of Catherine's daughter, also named Catherine, Heathcliff's son with Isabella, named Linton, and Hindley's son, named Hareton.  Everyone behaves poorly to each other.  No one is likable. And, satisfactorily for this reader, in the end, almost all of them are dead.

Was I glad to have finished this book!  And yet, I have to admit, it was page-turner. 

Wuthering Heights was published in 1847.  Jane Austen died in 1817, before she had attained the age 42.  I imagine that, had she lived another thirty years, in her seventies, Jane Austen would have eagerly picked up the new novel from upstart author Ellis Bell.  And she would have laughed and laughed and laughed.  Then, she would have picked up her pen and written a brilliant parody of it, sent it to Cassandra, and given it nary another thought.  Miss Austen's sensibilities are not those of the Misses Brontë; and, I fear, mine are not, as well.  Overblown emotionalism; passions unchecked by reason or humor; sledge-hammerly subtle symbolism — oh, you Brontës need to get over yourselves!

Sipping Once, Sipping Twice, Sipping Chicken Soup With Rice!

[Recite with sarcasm:]
In August it will be so hot,
I will become a cooking pot.
Cooking soup, of course.
Why not?
Cooking once, cooking twice,
Cooking chicken soup with rice.
--Maurice Sendak

It's barely 60°.  It is August 10.  Last night, I cooked chicken soup with rice.  Today, I am reheating leftovers.  Can you believe it?  It seems almost unreal.  God cracks me up.  Happy summer, all!

Book Review: The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism

The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism
by Mary Eberstadt
Ignatius Press (San Fransisco), 2010

C.S. Lewis used to be an atheist.  Yes he did.  And, if you ever read snippets of his writing and correspondence from those faithless years, you will find an alien Jack (as he was known — for reasons of his own — to friends, family, and colleagues) awaiting you.  Imagine the sharp and rapid synapses of that exceptional mind firing, not with the expansive geniality and wry humor so characteristic of his later years among the redeemed, but with bitterness, smug condescension, arrogance, and, frankly, snottiness.  It was a shock for me to read of rude, young Jack — in his own words — in Alan Jacobs's first-rate biography, The Narnian.  But, really, it ought not to have been.  After all, I was briefly an atheist, too.  And, if I recall correctly, I was not particularly pleasant to be around, either.

And, so, we have what are collectively called The New Atheists — including, but not limited to, Sam Harris (The End of Faith), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), and Christopher Hitchens (god is Not Great).  As I am a Christian and believe such things are good for the soul, I will start with a confession:  I have not read any of these modern polemics.  Truly, life is too short on good reading time, and there is always a new book about Shakespeare (current read: Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt) or Jane Austen (most recent read: Jane's Fame by Claire Harman) or even a novel or two skulking about the bookshelf queue, awaiting perusal (just finished: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë -- next up: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver) — I have neither the will nor time to read books about something I, sorry guys, simply do not find all that interesting.  Don't feel bad — I tend not to read apologetics or other books about Christianity either.  I mean, we have the Bible and G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and a small handful of other writers.  And I am content.  Faith question?  Answered.  Belief question?  Answered.  Religion question?  Answered.  God question? Answered.  So why did I hurry over to Amazon (after checking my local Christian bookstore, which did not have stock — c'mon guys, you need to be more on the ball!  I'm doing my best to keep you in business, but you're NOT helping!) to pick up Mary Eberstadt's brand-spanking-new epistolary novel, The Loser Letters?  Good question.

I read a review of it by chance at Christianity Today's website.  The reviewer said that it was a sort of modern take on C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.  Interest officially piqued.  The one-sided record of correspondence between Screwtape, an undersecretary in some unnamed department of bureaucratized Hell, and his nephew, Wormwood, a young tempter on the make that chronicles their battle for the soul of one man against The Enemy is an enthralling read.  I was certainly intrigued to discover what Ms. Eberstadt -- whose book, Home Alone America, I enjoyed a few years ago — would do with an atheist version.

A.F. Christian is our correspondent in The Loser Letters.  She is a twenty-five year old in rehab; a convert from Christianity to atheism (the "A.F." stands for "a former"); and she writes a series of letters to the big guns of New Atheism — the aforementioned Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins as well as Onfray, Stenger, Dennett, and many others of whom I have never heard, let alone read.  In her first letter, she observes that, while she was lucky to have thrown off the shackles of belief in that "biggest fraud of all time, cosmic zero, ultimate no-show" Loser (God), there have, overall, not been many converts to the atheist mindset — especially in proportion to the amount of work put out by the men she addresses.  She proposes a series of letters to these worthy fellows, detailing the ways in which atheism can better be "sold" to the public at large — each letter touching on a different subject that might turn off the majority of believers (whom she cleverly labels as "Dulls," since — and I'm not making this up — several atheists are trying to assume the general cultural label of "Brights" instead of "Atheists") from giving up on the Deity and embracing atheism.

From this general premise, A.F. Christian proceeds to enlighten and inform the atheist brotherhood.  There is a much different dynamic at work in The Loser Letters from The Screwtape Letters.  In Screwtape, two demons consult each other (one advising, the other reporting) on their task of keeping one man, the patient, from the Enemy — that enemy, of course, is the Father and His armies of heavenly host and earthly saints.  Both devils know that the Enemy is real; both know His power and curse His love.  In Loser, the advisor and the soul in jeopardy of perdition are one in the same.  She rails against a power and presence she denies is real (though, from page one, the reader has the sense that she is no more convinced of that than I was during my brief, but excruciating, voyage into unbelief) to a group of men who have made it their business in life to be officially "without God."  In fact, the enemy in Loser is not so much the Loser Himself, as it is His followers — the Dulls who would believe so strongly in this imaginary friend, and act so rationally in accordance with their beliefs to heal and edify and encourage and support the world at large in the name of this friend.  See, atheists can, by definition, have no beef with God; they must be against those who cling to Him.

The strengths of The Loser Letters lie in the fact that some glaring inconsistencies of atheism — were atheism looked at as a whole cloth belief, which I think would arouse protest from many atheists  — are entertainingly brought to light.  For instance, there seems to be no agreement among atheists on whether man is just one of the higher orders of animals, whose lives are on par with those of many animals, and whose animal appetites ought to be satisfied as a natural occurrence (as someone such as Peter Singer might believe); or whether man is the highest, the noblest of beings, so sufficient unto himself that he, in his most exalted state, is worthy of worship and is certainly over all of nature (and most of his fellow men) in the pursuit of his goals (as, say, Ayn Rand might aver).  Ms. Eberstadt looks at the products of the systems of belief, as well, in a very effective way.  What, say, Christianity has wrought culturally, artistically, charitably versus what atheism has wrought.  She looks at the current, depressing cultural view of sex against a backdrop of the religious values of self-control and monogamy; the historic and current worlds of art; the myriad hospitals, soup kitchens, international missions, the grand, seismic shifts in human justice done in the name of Loser.  She does acknowledge (she is writing as an enthusiastic atheist, you know) the many times believers have fallen short of glory; but, she slyly insinuates that adherents of atheism never had any heights from which to fall.

There are several weaknesses in this book as well.  It is, altogether, a little too linguistically hip and swinging to be a really pleasant read.  I know that Ms. Eberstadt was going for the voice of disillusioned, twenty-something America; but, I had trouble easily digesting about 25% of what was written.  The cultural references are also up-to-the-minute (at least I assume they are; I'm about three hours late, culturally speaking), which, I fear, will detract from the shelf life of this book.  It certainly makes the "comic" aspect of the book a wee indecipherable to a fuddy-duddy like me.

I think, though, that the main weakness for me was the story itself.  Throughout the letters, A.F. reveals in piecemeal her personal story — her journey to unbelief.  When the story is fully revealed, I thought to myself, "This is entirely over the top; therefore, it rather discredits than bolsters the narrative."  The ending, too, is just a little too schmaltzy and pat and feel-good.  Take the ending of Screwtape — reassuring, yet unsettling and terrifying at the same time.  This was sort of like . . . eh.  I will admit that I did cry a little near the end; but, I dare any mom to read the last chapter and not tear up a bit.  But emotionalism on the cheap does not a strong story make, and overall, I was a bit disappointed.

So, who is The Loser Letters for and what are they to take from it?  You know, I'm not really sure.  Is it for Christians, to help them answer the arguments of atheists?  Surely; but, there are books that present those answers more thoroughly and fluently.  Is it for atheists, to encourage them to re-think some of their assumptions and assertions?  Surely; but, I am not convinced that it is most effective that way.  As a Christian, I was arguing against A.F. on the atheists' side; I do not think that atheists in general would have a light bulb over the noggin experience (truly, I do believe that only the Holy Spirit can effect such a welcome moment).  Mostly, I think, The Loser Letters is worthy entertainment for an evening; and, perhaps, a springboard to grander and better books on culture, faith, and this great "mess and mystery of life."  And, considering it is a published collection of an installment series from National Review Online, not a scholarly apologetic years in the researching, that is not too backward of a commendation.  A harmless and intermittently entertaining read.  But, make sure you read The Screwtape Letters, if you haven't already.

Oh, and one last quibble with Ms. Boar-City:  Why does my beloved Deutsch have to be the language of Hell?  Huh?  German is a glorious and startlingly beautiful language, and, though I am sure it was done in jest, deserves better than such malignancy.  I think the language of Hell is bound to be — in keeping with Jack Lewis's particular vision — government bureaucracy legalese, with every communication coming in 2,800 page documents.  Ooh, I just gave myself an other-worldly shiver . . .

Mentioned in this post (among others):

WA Senate Race! Whoo-Hoo!

Why in the world have I received my mail-in ballot for the upcoming state-wide primaries when I have not yet received my Voter's Pamphlet?  While I was marking my choice of Dino Rossi to replace the worthless Patty Murray, my eyes traveled up the list of candidates to see that my old friends Goodspaceguy and Mike the Mover are back on the ballot.  Oh, Dino, what should I do? 

Of course, I will vote for Dino Rossi -- our best chance to unseat the bovine Murray in November.  But, as I was just reminded in moving my old Singing Sparrow stuff over to Adorable Trivialities, much mirth and hilarity can be extracted from the WA Voter's Pamphlet.  How strange that the ballot should have arrived before it!  Were I Mike the Mover or Goodspaceguy, I should surely cry "Foul!" -- as how many ballots will be reflexively marked by those of a Democratic turn for the dull, blank mind of Patty Murray, when there are far more interesting views and positions held by MTM and GSG lurking twixt the pages of the pamphlet?  Any discerning voter will want to be fully informed.  What's the deal King County Department of Elections?  Afraid that your witless darling will be overshadowed by the sheer awesome intellectual heft of Mike the Mover?  Afraid that your vacuous pet will be out of her depth in the crucial subject of intergalactic diplomacy when matched with Goodspaceguy?  What are you hiding?

Washington deserves better than the vapidity of Patty Murray.  We (and the U.S.) desperately need the level-headed, common-sense conservatism of Dino Rossi, and we're lucky that he has chosen to run.  Thanks, Dino! 

UPDATE:  Received my Voter's Pamphlet in the mail today! Let the hilarity ensue!  (Actually -- frighteningly -- Goodspaceguy has some good ideas.)  Now, where is my Dino Rossi bumper sticker I requested?

Whoa, Dude! Not Cool!

From Design Toscano, makers of The Zombie of Montclaire Moors Garden Statue and Bigfoot, The Garden Yeti, comes this stunner -- Hercules and Diomedes in a grapple of uncomfortable intimacy.  I invite you to scrutinize the statue at their website; I couldn't bum the code for the -- ahem! -- enlarged view.  But, as far as I can tell, my original suspicions were correct, and I can't think of anything else to hang onto down there.

If you find that you long for this sculpture, but cannot stomach the view, there is a draped version available as well. 

A Sparrow Falls

I have decided not to renew my domain account with Go Daddy this year.  I almost never use it, and rarely think of it.  So, The Singing Sparrow will be no more.  I have transferred the published posts from the blog there to Adorable Trivialities, and you can find them all published here on July 1, 2010.

Thanks to all who came by and read my stuff on that site and took the time to make comments.  I appreciate you.  Your comments have, unfortunately, not been saved in the transfer to this blog; but, feel free to re-read and re-comment, if you'd like.

And thank you to all who continue to make it here and read the new stuff (such as it is) and make comments.  I treasure your readership and contributions.  I came back from Barnabas a-rarin' to write, so look for more content soon.  It may never get back up to 2005/2006 levels, but it will get better.

Blessings and gratitude to all!

Cell Phones: Modern Electronic of Convenience and Wonder? Or Demon Message Receptor from Hell? (You Know It's the Latter)

OK, I am willing to admit that my beef is a lost cause.  We are a Cell Phone Nation.  Seniors, soccer moms, and kids -- not to mention power players in the world of business suits -- walk about, phone to ear or nose to screen, fingers flying all over the damn things.  I hate them.  Of course, I have one.

I never wanted a cell phone, but, back in 2000, Jason told me I was getting one.  "I don't want one," I protested (see, I am consistent).  "I don't care," he replied in his inexorably Jasonish way, "You're getting one for safety reasons.  I don't like to think of you out driving late at night without one."  "Oh pooh," I sighed, and dutifully accepted the wee silver fold-over phone.

There are exactly two people in the world with whom I like to talk on the phone -- one of whom I did not even know until a few years ago.  This is not to insult anyone else in my beloved circle of friends.  I'm just not much of a talker (on phones).  Get me settled in with some coffee or adult beverages, and you know I'll chaw on with you until daybreak.  But phones are just so . . . blah.  No gestures; no expressions; no comfortable silences between inspiration.  Who needs it?  Give me face-to-face whenever possible.

Also, I guess my hatred of cell phones relates to my recent decision to reject all the social networking sites. There is such a thing as being too connected with too many people.

Anyway, about three years later, after discovering that we never really used the things enough to justify the $60/month we were spending on them (and I was home with the baby and not doing much in the way of late-night driving), we switched to a pre-pay plan through Virgin Mobile.  Got a cheap, little fold-over phone again, began to pay $20 every three months (savings!), and continued along the path of rarely turning the thing on, let alone actually using it as a communication device.

Then, in 2007, I started watching little Rylee, and -- all of a sudden -- having a cell phone was part of my job.  Her parents -- understandably -- wanted to be able to reach me at their convenience.  So, I dug the dusty machine out of storage and re-charged it.  I used to make fun of people with cell phones attached at the hip; now I was one.  Of course, in the meantime I had become strangely deaf to the cell phone.  For some reason, probably psychological, I simply could not hear the ringer most of the time.  I remember one time, sitting in a Mexican restaurant with a margarita in one hand and my cell phone in the other, waiting for an important call -- and I missed that call not once, but three times.  Yikes.  So, I learned how to use the vibrate code and kept the thing in my pants pocket for a little jolt whenever there was an incoming call.

So, about three months ago, I accidentally washed my cheap, no-frills, fold-over phone with my pants.  Jason went to get me a replacement and found, much to my consternation, that they no longer make that simple receptor device.  Oh no.  Now, you have to have a camera -- and texting capability -- and Internet capability.  He bought me the cheapest phone they had, and I hate it.  It does not fold down, so the buttons are constantly exposed which makes it hard to slip in my pants pocket.  Plus, whenever I look at the darn thing, it's always half-way to texting some gibberish over to Timbuktu or some-such.  I loathe and despise the wretched appliance -- and may just throw it in the next laundry load for spite.

Now, Jason is saying that he needs to upgrade our cell phone system because of his work.  His company would reimburse part of the plan.  So, I will soon have to adjust to a new phone.  Again. I hope it will at least fold over, even if I have to submit to a camera inside.  And, I guess, just because a phone can be used for texting doesn't mean that I have to learn how to use it.  You can lead a land-line-lover to satellite reception, and you can even make her use it; but you can never, ever make her like it.

Dulcinea

Have you forgotten who you are? 

Carolyn Arends loves to tell the story of St. John of Kronstadt, a Russian Orthodox priest of the late 19th century who would -- in a time of great political and social upheaval and devastating poverty in Russia, when most priests would stay separate from the masses and wait for the lost to find them -- walk the streets of the slums and approach the destitute living in filth and despair.  As Carolyn tells it, he would cup his hand under their chins, look into their eyes and tell them, "This is beneath you.  Do you not know that you were created to house the fullness of God?"  Everywhere he went, revival broke out.

I was reminded of this beautiful story recently at Barnabas, when I heard Carolyn speaking again about "Resting in God."  Blessed was I to have heard this before, when Carolyn came to our church to speak at a Women's Retreat last November.  Blessed was I to hear it again.  Really, it is a subject about which you cannot hear too much.  "Come to Me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest," said Jesus.  And yet, in this age of leisure and pleasure unknown to any other generation, we find real rest so rarely.  So, the first part of her presentation was looking at what steals our rest.  And the first part of that is the issue of identity -- who we are. 

We are such forgetful creatures.  No wonder that, throughout the Bible, God implores us to remember, remember, remember.  We forget who God is, what He has done, and who we are in Him.  How can you find rest if you do not know who you are?  We work and strive to make ourselves acceptable, and then -- exhausted, stressed, at the end of our ropes -- we find that we were already accepted from the first.  Because of who He is, we are made who we are -- the only earthly beings to house the breath of God within us.

Carolyn uses stories and songs to illustrate her teachings.  One song she used was her own "Who You Are" from the album Under the Gaze.  One of the stories she used in depth was the "Woman at the Well" from John 4.  In that story is contained our great fear and desire to be known.  After examining the story from the Bible, Carolyn showed this brilliant and emotionally-charged clip:

Wow, huh?

While I sat and watched that video, I thought about the recent excellent production of Man of La Mancha by Taproot Theatre that I had seen just before leaving for Barnabas.  Man of La Mancha is a musical based upon Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote.  I am reading Don Quixote now, and it is quite different in style from the musical.  The musical is unabashedly romantic -- not only in the sense of highlighting the love story, but in the genre sense of portraying reality through the lens of the ideal -- and paradoxical.  Cervantes, in the musical, is entertaining inmates in a prison while awaiting interrogation under the Inquisition by fabricating a vision of a man whose madness makes him the most sane, or at least most humane, character of the play.  Don Quixote (Jeff Berryman) bursts forth on stage as impoverished gentry turned knight-errant.  He acquires sidekick and squire, Sancho Panza (Don Darryl Rivera), and sets forth to battle giants (tilt at windmills) and seek lodging in country castles (a rustic inn).  At the inn, he encounters tavern whore Aldonza (Candace Vance), in whom he finds the gracious and pure lady on whom he can lavish his chaste and chivalric vision of love.  He renames her "Dulcinea" -- Sweet One.

At first, Aldonza is confounded and bemused by his courtly overtures to her.  Then, she slowly starts to share his vision of her -- to see herself in a new way, as a beautiful and beloved woman.  Then -- oh how it tears at my soul -- Aldonza is brutally raped.  When she next sees Don Quixote, she directs all her anger and disillusionment and heartache at him.  He had given her a hope that had been murdered in the most violent way.  She tells him who she is, that she is Aldonza.  He says she is Dulcinea.  She screams at him and flies at him in rage, "Look at me!  Look at me!  I am Aldonza!"  He stares back at her in bewilderment and says, simply, "You are Dulcinea.  You are my lady." 

This video of a powerful, lyrical retelling of the Samaritan woman at the well repeats over and over: To be known is to be loved; to be loved is to be known.  We think we know ourselves well -- every nasty, sinful detail of our failings and our not-even-tryings are the ones we turn over and over in our minds during those wretched, sleepless 3 AM's.  And maybe, maybe when the tsunami of Christ's overarching love first washed over our lives and silenced in the awe of His sacrifice our doubts and our fears, we began to believe that we were His sweet ones.  And then, we fall and fall and fall again.  So, we yell and scream at the Maker of the Heavens and the Earth to look at us -- look at us.  And He does.  And, because nobody knows us like He does, nobody loves us so well; we are still His Dulcineas.

And, because embedding YouTube videos is fun, here are Carolyn Arends and Steve Bell singing "Who You Are":



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Happy (Belated) Birthday, USA!

Truly, you do not look a day over 225!

A few years ago, a Canadian youth, with all the candor and innocence of a twelve-year-old, asked me which country I liked better -- America or Canada?  Well, I do love Canada -- especially British Columbia, whose geographic beauty is really a more-magnified, overwhelming version of Washington's -- but, as I pointed out to the young fellow, I am an American.  I will always love America best.  And, in 2010, even though for the first time Canada has been ranked as more economically free than my paterland in The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, I still love America.  Were it only for the sake of Grover C., I would love America.  Were it only for the sake of Isabel Paterson -- American by choice -- I would love America.  Were it only for the sake of Flicka Spumoni, Chris Christie, Sarah Palin, Allen West, and a whole host of other patriots and truth-speakers, I would love America.  And so I do.  And for more reasons than those as well.

On this day -- two days after the Day and one day after this year's official government holiday of the Day -- I ask you to consider, not only Philadelphia in 1776, but also early 19th century Germany and a rather obscure writer named Heinrich von Kleist.  Read if you can a novella of his entitled Michael Kohlhaas.  This is truly one of the most exceptional stories ever told -- both in manner and content.  Contained within is the sum message of the Revolution -- that justice and liberty are more important, ultimately, than life itself.  

Michael Kohlhaas was, as the author informs us in the first paragraph, "most upright," "the very model of a good citizen," "benevolen[t] and fair-minded," bringing his children up "in the fear of God to be industrious and honest."  His fatal flaw was "one virtue" carried to excess:  his sense of justice.  Typical of von Kleist, we are immediately plunged into unremitting action and drama.  His narrative carries us from incident to incident with scarcely time to draw breath.  

Dealt an injustice by a petty bureaucrat, Michael Kohlhaas seeks at first reparations through the lawful, customary measures.  When these efforts fail, he becomes an incendiary -- the leader of a band of brigands -- a murderer.  If this seems extreme, it is supposed to.  The narrator is aloof from the action, dispassionate, as he details the desperate path of a man driven to desperation by a situation both within and without of his control -- that is, the situation originally is beyond his control; his reaction, of course, is not.  And yet, as page after page turns, and Michael Kohlhaas finds justice elusive -- and, surely, without an accountable system of justice and reliable, universal law, can there ever be true liberty? -- the weight of the action becomes oppressive and Michael Kohlhaas himself turns from a character of almost comic extremes to a great, tragic figure.  

When the end of his story finally arrived (in my copy nearly 100 pages later) and the denouement was masterfully achieved by a master writer, I laughed.  It was that sort of laugh that escapes involuntarily when a great tension is lifted -- not because you are finding humor, but because you are finding relief.  A short bark of a laugh and a sigh.  For, without spoiling the ending, I can safely say that von Kleist managed to bring about the only possible satisfying conclusion to an extraordinary tale.  I'll leave it to you to find the details out for yourself.

So, why is this an Independence Day read?  There was a time in this nation's history when ideas were more important than comfort, than reputation, than wealth, than life.  Independence Day is, ultimately, a celebration of the power of ideas over the power of the sword.  Yes, 234 years ago a fight was begun and blood was poured out for those ideas, but it was the ideas themselves that won the Revolution.  And, if those ideas recapture the minds of the American people, they will win again.  They are the same ideas that drove the action in Michael Kohlhaas.  Surely Heinrich von Kleist, born in 1777, grew up in an era of big ideas and cultural revolution.  The ideas that man is sovereign unto himself and God, accountable for his actions, subject to natural law and God's law before any whims of man, and that he has the right to seek out justice, to seek out liberty no matter what cost to himself and, to a certain measure, society at large --  these ignited the extreme actions of a man whose horses were detained illegally and ill-treated in their detention to burn down villages; and these ignited the extreme actions of a group of colonialists to go to war over a few cents tax on paper and tea.  In the end, the Revolution was no more about paper and tea than Michael Kohlhaas was about the pair of black horses.     

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Extract, Extract Baby!

OK, I made myself giggle this morning, when it hit me that I had been completely wrong about a news story I saw on Comcast's home page yesterday.

Under the "Top Videos" section yesterday, there was a still of this mugshot:

The headline beneath it was "DUI for Vanilla Extract."

So help me, when I saw this yesterday, I thought, without any inner attempt at humor, that this woman had been a little known white rapper in the 1990's named "Vanilla Extract" (a la Vanilla Ice --see appropriately patriotically-garbed pic to your right -- who was a male white rapper in the early 1990's for you whippersnappers out there) who had just been busted for DUI.  Wow, I remarked to myself -- again with no thought at all of making a funny -- what a stupid name for a rapper.  No wonder I've never heard of her.  OK, who am I kidding -- it's a freaking GREAT rap name!                                                                                                               

Fortunately, the headline under the same still shot this morning on Comcast's home page is "Woman gets DUI for Vanilla."  A little more clear, wouldn't you say?  Turns out this poor lady actually made herself drunk on Coke and vanilla extract.  Yikes!  Do you know how much vanilla extract that is?  I'm surprised she didn't throw up before the cops arrived. Read her tale of weak will and the mighty lure of baking components here. 

Now, of course, anyone over the age of thirty is recalling to mind that episode of Family Ties where Alex P. Keaton's (played by Michael J. Fox) drunky Uncle Ned (played by Tom Hanks, forsooth!) steals a snifter of the evil bean juice in the middle of the night.  Watch the video -- if you dare -- but it gets pretty real:

Happy Fourth of July, y'all!  This is Vanilla Extract, signing out!  Peace, yo!

From Sparrow: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole

Penguin Modern Classics (2000)

       

It's pretty sweet when an author can find an introductory quote as gnarly and kick-ass as this one that John Kennedy Toole used to begin his novel, A Confederacy of Dunces:

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.Jonathan Swift -- "Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting"

To use the great 18th century satirist and social commentator's words to introduce a novel so brilliantly satirical and pointedly critical of society was a stroke of genius that aptly foreshadows the upcoming romp with a singular character, Ignatius J. Reilly, and a whole host of seedy and undesirable cohorts.

For me, the test of a novel is in the characters. Plots and themes and settings mean nothing at all when paired with sub-par, lifeless creations. If a protagonist (or antagonist) stays with me, haunts me, forces me to consider his or her future long after I've turned the book's last page, then the author has used my time well. Ignatius Reilly was drawn in such a way by Toole that I could see him, hear him, and even smell him as he burped and belched his way through the pages, constantly struggling both with his recalcitrant valve and with every person who had the misfortune to cross his path. This was a worthwhile read, indeed.

Confederacy is set in New Orleans in the early 1960's. Ignatius is a thirty-year-old college graduate who lives with his widowed mother in reduced circumstances. He relishes their fringe status in society and whiles away his days scribbling grandiosities on Big Chief yellow tablets, wolfing down cakes, and drinking Dr. Nuts. His mother's opinion of him fluctuates between reverence and fear. Then, one day, their lives change forever when his mother crashes her car into a building. All of a sudden, Ignatius's lifestyle is put into jeopardy by dire financial straits, as his mother pledges to pay the property owner's damages in installments. Irene Reilly finds her backbone and insists that Ignatius find gainful employment and help her pay off the accident debt. The story is, therefore, the tale of what happens when an idiosyncratic crank with the sensibilities of medieval Europe is thrown into the vat of humanity that bubbles outside the realm of his particular Weltanshauung.

Toole parades a varied cast of characters before the reader. From the depths of New Orleans underworld, to the struggles of lower-middle class workers and retirees, to a terse marriage of the idle rich, Toole astounded me by his ability to give each creation a distinct history and personality and room to shine. Each individual introduced plays a vital part in the progression and denouement of the plot. No one is inconsequential or an accident. The artistry here is such that, without the reader's becoming aware, the parts played fit perfectly and the end is seamless, absurd and utterly, ironically logical. Given these characters and these situations, the end becomes a fait accompli that not only takes the reader by surprise, but leaves him nodding his head and saying, "Of course." To create that kind of inevitability without falling into triteness is one of the novel's great accomplishments.

Perhaps the novelist's greatest accomplishment, though, is Ignatius himself. His character is so polarizing that every reader must have one of three reactions: they find him completely abhorrent; they find him riotously amusing; they find him intriguingly dumbfounding. My reaction was the latter. In fact, I find him much funnier in retrospect than I did in the actual reading, because he is so unlike anyone I'd ever seen created in fiction before. Again, though, his character is so completely developed that, once you accustom yourself to his unique worldview, his actions and conversation are entirely consistent. What an amazing act of writing! To imagine such a peculiar individual so entirely that he becomes a real, if unsettling, person is Toole's literary legacy.

It is difficult to say much more about this novel without rubbing away some of the magic of that first read. If you let yourself be swept up into this world, if you accept the author's terms and allow yourself to be carried along on the ride, I think you'll enjoy it. There is a lot in there that struck me as prescient, considering that Toole wrote this in the early 1960's. It was fun and fascinating, but not fluffy. There are a lot of prickles and irritations, but they made the journey more fulfilling for me. It struck me that this novel is rather moral. The struggle between good and evil is narrated in a less-dramatic form than we would have seen in a novel written a hundred years previously, because, even in the 1960's, those lines were beginning to blur. Ignatius, in particular, is morally ambiguous, but the author is not. The conclusions of the characters' stories are satisfying, because the deserving find reward and the undeserving find punishment. This quirky tale will make you mourn the author's early death and limited output.

John Kennedy Toole must have been surrounded by dunces his entire life, for this work truly reveals a work of genius.

Note: If you have read the book, do you agree with me that Ignatius's favorite actress is Doris Day, with the circus-musical's being Billy Rose's Jumbo and the sophisticated comedy's being That Touch of Mink?

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From Sparrow: Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt

Random House Trade (2003)

About half-way through my reading of this book, I was talking with my husband, Jason, extolling this work and trying to explain how delightful an old dog I was finding its subject, Cicero. Except, you see, I was calling him "Kee-kare-roh," and that was driving Jason nuts.

"Look," he said sternly, "If you're going to keep talking to me, you need to stop saying his name like that. It's 'Sis-ser-oh.'"

"But Henry Beard said . . ."

"I know all about your 'Henry Beard' and his guide to pronouncing Latin correctly, and I don't care. In this age and time we call him 'Sis-ser-oh,' and I'm not going to listen to you any longer if you keep saying it the other way."

"May I still say, 'Iulius Kigh-Sahr'?" I meekly asked.

"No!" he thundered. "His name is 'Julius See-zer,' understand?

It is intolerable not to live among those who adhere to the classic Latin pronunciations. I died a little that night.

Ah, but Cicero lives on, no matter how you pronounce his name. And he is quite the character. Anthony Everitt has written a conversational treatment of Rome's greatest politician that never alienates the reader. In fact, the thoughts, motivations, and actions of the movers and shakers living in the last days of the Roman republic are breathtakingly modern in this presentation. Mr. Everitt has inherited something of Ezekiel's gift in taking dry bones more than two thousand years in stillness and resurrecting them into a marvelous dance of words and history.

Mr. Everitt has chosen the most dramatic moment of ancient Roman history since the suckling of Romulus and Remus on that she-wolf (oh yes, I've seen the statue replica at Caesars' Palace in Las Vegas, and, yes, it is rather off-putting) with which to open his story. It is a scene which the modern reader believes he knows well: The now familiar conspirators are gathered to enact what they see as a last desperate measure to save the Republic from a despot. Caesar enters the Theater of Pompeius with nonchalance, holding in his hand an unread message passed to him at the entry way by a friend that begged him to be on his guard, for duplicity and murder were afoot. The conspirators attack, only one dagger making a fatal wound, but, as it is in these cases, one was enough. Caesar shields his lower half from embarrassing exposure in death and sinks to the ground, his last words of wonderment and accusation on his lips, "You too, my son?"

But, what the reader may not expect is the next turn of events: Brutus, to whom Caesar's words were spoken turns to the stunned gathering of Senators, brandishes his dagger, and cries out, surprisingly, to Cicero. He congratulates the stunned statesman with the recovery of freedom upon the death of the tyrant. As Mr. Everitt writes, "Hitherto scarcely able to believe his eyes, he could now scarcely believe his ears. It was almost as if the assassination had been staged especially for him -- as a particularly savage benefit performance" (p. 6). Marcus Tullius Cicero, famed orator and superannuated politician, whose days in the limelight seemed long past was suddenly held up as the symbol of Republican values and traditional liberties. Thus began the last stage of this remarkable life, as Cicero came back into public prominence when it was one of the most dangerous times in the history of Rome to assume such prominence.

"To understand Cicero's life," Mr. Everitt writes, "which spanned the first two thirds of the first century BC, it is necessary to picture the world in which he lived, and especially the nature of Roman politics" (p. 9). What follows is a remarkably lucid description of the structure of Roman government and the personalities inhabited therein. Cicero, we learn, was a relative newcomer to the scene of Roman politics, which was dominated in a large part by the optimates, the "best people" whose ancestors had filled the Senate since the founding days of the Republic. Cicero, though an outsider to the machine, quickly rose the rungs of influence by sheer skill and hard work; yet, despite his lack of political pedigree, he tended toward the conservative system that protected the interests of the patricians, instead of those of the plebs (whose supporters were known as the populares).

The biggest boon to a biographer is first-hand information about the subject, either from the subject's journals or letters. Too few of history's most illustrious characters have left behind such tantalizing material. Fortunately for Mr. Everitt, Cicero was one of those few. Preserved for over two thousand years has been his copious correspondence with his dear friend, Atticus. From these letters, as well as Cicero's published works and contemporary accounts, Mr. Everitt has culled the cream to bring the reader into the world of both the man and the public figure. And what a man! It is difficult not to be charmed by this fascinating Roman who is presented as urbane, insinuating, sardonic, and forthright -- a man who valued highly the good of the Republic, but always had an eye on which side his bread was buttered. To his friend, Cicero was free to comment on wide-ranging topics, both personal and national in scope. This contributes to an exceptionally thorough and free-wheeling portrait of the final years of Republicanism in Rome.

Cicero turns out to be the exemplifier of both the strengths and weaknesses of that ancient governmental structure. As Rome grew into an Empire, it outgrew its limited scope of government that Constitutionalists held so dear. There was no overriding voice of authority in Rome. There were co-equal Consuls and various groups that made up the Senate and regional governments, but, by law, there was no strong central figure to keep control over the ever-expanding boundary lines that were the result of conquest. When Caius Julius Caesar stepped forward with bold leadership and a vision of empire that united and constrained divided factions, Republicans like Cicero were alarmed. Much like the loose structure of the unwieldy empire, Cicero's talents were soon outgrown when politics as usual was swept away by civil wars and tenuous peace. For Cicero was a great compromiser and flatterer, able to convince opposing sides that he was in their corner. He practically invented politics as we understand it -- a combination of charm, personality, and persuasion. In the last years of his life, when he made an unmitigated stand against Caesar's successors, Cicero's silver tongue failed him, and he fell from favor and into danger.

One of my disappointments with this book was that Atticus, Cicero's life-long friend and correspondent, remains in the shadows. I found myself curious about this man who received a steady flow of letters from Cicero, both in the stateman's glory days and exiled days; who offered steadfast friendship when it might have been controversial or dangerous to do so; whose sister was married stormily to Cicero's brother, Quintus; who was wealthy and stayed that way though many landowners were robbed of their estates to pay governmental debts; and who, amazingly, survived the final, deadly proscription that cost Cicero his life, despite Atticus's close ties to the condemned politician.

Mr. Everitt has done an admirable job in bringing Cicero to life for the uninitiated but curious Roman historian. This author is currently working on a biography of Augustus, which promises to be another intriguing glimpse of a bigger-than-life personality in the context of his culture and times. I await its publication eagerly.

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