January 21, 2020

The Grammarians (2019)
By Cathleen Schine

The title characters are twin girls, Laurel and Daphne, born about mid-20th century to a young couple living just north of NY City.  They develop a "twin language" that morphs into an obsession with words (their favorite book is the voluminous Webster's), and become inseparable.  After college, they move to Manhattan, where Laurel teaches kindergarten at a private school and Daphne edits an alternative paper in Greenwich Village.  They marry (in a double wedding) two very nice men: wealthy Larry and med student Michael.  The two husbands bond as well.  Laurel and Larry have daughter Charlotte and Laurel gives up teaching to be a full-time mom.  After some put-downs by Daphne (who is now a popular columnist), Laurel decides to return to her teaching career.  Daphne and Michael have baby Prudence, but is still very much a working girl and one who who continues to put down her sister's career, especially after Laurel gives up teaching to pursue what becomes a successful new career writing poetry - and she can throw insults right back at her sister.  While their husbands now hang out without their hostile wives, even buying a sailboat together, the wives see each other only when absolutely necessary - as at their father's funeral, or mother's birthday party.

While the story grows around the twins' obsession with the meanings and uses of words, it's an all-too-human tale of friendship gone wrong, and all the efforts by family and colleagues to try to heal the rift.  There are some cute and humorous sub-plots especially around Laurel's wonderful but inept headmaster and his daughter Miranda.  It's a short read, though it covers a lifetime, and really warms up in the end.

Listed among the New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2019"

January 15 2020

The Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS (2019)
By Azadeh Moaveni

The author interviews young Muslim women from various countries - modern UK and Germany as well as Tunisia and war-torn Syria.  Some are very young and naive, some are college-educated, and some are married to husbands struggling to find work.  Some, but not all, come from poor or broken families.  All are taken in by the promise of an Islamic nation-state dedicated to the Muslim faith.  They make their way to Syria, alone or with a spouse, boyfriend, or sister. They are married or will marry an ISIS fighter and - in most cases - have children and become widowed; some will die, some will lose their children to disease.  Eventually, all come to see that this glorious war to create an Islamic state has long since denigrated into a brutal, lawless society whose proponents were obsessed with power rather than the tenets of Islam.

• Emma lives with her single mother in a Turkish neighborhood in Frankfort.  Though ethnically European, she feels welcomed by her Muslim friends and converts.  She follows her boyfriend Selim to Syria.  Ten years later (in 2017) she is stuck in Syria, regrets her decision to leave Germany, realizes the war has "devolved into an orgy of spectacular violence" (p 286), and wonders if she'll ever see Selim (now her husband) again.

• Kadiza is one of four teenage friends, who leave school and family behind in East London.  At age 16, she has been widowed and wants to go home, but is killed in an airstrike.

Unfortunately for those women and their peers, some of whom were too young to realize what they were signing on to when joining the war, most of their countries of origin do not want them back - and they end up in this "guest house" north of Racca, where the author interviews them.  Many women coming from outside Syria look down on the local women who, likewise, resent these snobby foreign women interfering in their country, acting like colonizers.

While ISIS started in Iraq, Al-Baghdadi had moved to Syria, where he urged jihad against the authoritarian Assad.  Key states (e.g., Turkey, Saudi, US) help the rebel fighters battle ISIS while Russia and Iran back Assad.  By 2015, ISIS has become a global menace and millions are fleeing Syria.

From a Christian perspective, I would want to tell these women that they have a loving heavenly father who wants them to live in peace, not in fear.  But I can see - in a perverted sort of way - how the Christian leaders of the middle ages used their faith as a front to persecute and attack Muslims during the Crusades.

I learned a lot about the start of the war in Syria and the various parties involved.  Moaveni's interviews with the young women accompanying the jihad fighters are fascinating.  The book is less interesting when the author draws conclusions or makes assumptions (e.g., when a young British woman, Sabira, is intercepted at the airport trying to fly to Syria, the UK govt works with her to give her another chance, whereas "had she been a young American woman...it's likely she would have been prosecuted under vaguely defined statues about 'material support for terrorism' and been forced to serve a years-long prison sentence" (p 270).  Well...maybe not, since she changed her mind and decided to stay put and cooperate with law enforcement.  In any case, this book provides valuable insight into the formation of ISIS, Assad's regime in Syria, and the unfortunate young women caught in the crossfire.

Listed among the New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2019"

January 10 2020

In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown (2018)
By Nathaniel Philbrick

Philbrick wrote two earlier tales of the American War for Independence: Bunker Hill and Valiant Ambition.  As in the earlier titles, he introduces the reader to key characters and events to provide new perspectives.  Here, besides Gen George Washington, we meet General (Marquis de) Lafayette, Gen (Comte de) Rochambeau, and Admiral de Grass who partnered with Washington to defeat the English at the naval battle of the Chesapeake.  On the British side are Gen Cornwallis, mourning the death of his young wife; Gen Benedict Arnold, whose traitorous presence served to rally the colonial forces; Adm Rodney, whose painfully enlarged prostate caused him to head back to England for medical care, leaving the Battle of the Chesapeake to the much less able Adm Graves. The author demonstrates that matters of luck (or Providence) - such as Adm Graves' illness and absence, the climate and wind at sea, and decisions by the British to delay marches or sailings at crucial intervals - played greater roles than just the skill or numbers of militia on the colonists' side.  We see that the Battle of the Chesapeake, which was fought by the British and French navies, with financial assistance from the Spanish (but no colonial participants) laid the foundation for the crucialAmerican victory at Yorktown.

These leaders become real to us in a moving way that many other popular histories neglect.  Gen Lafayette, for example, leading the colonial forces in Virginia, had a personal interest in engaging Gen William Phillips, leader of the British forces in that colony.  For, while Lafayette was still a toddler, in August 1759, Gen Phillips had directed a cannon shot at the Battle of Minden in Prussia, killing the Marquis's father.  And it was when Gen Washington suffered some of the most discouraging defeats of the war that he would write to his cousin Lund to oversee improvements to Washington's beloved Mount Vernon - constructing a porch that overlooked the river or adding a room on one side - anticipating a day when this war would be over and he could return home at last.  Finally, the war does end, and perhaps most touching is when Washington addresses congress to urge support for a motion; he starts reading a letter, only to find he can't make out the words.  He pauses, asking that he be permitted to put on his spectacles, for not only has he grown gray in the service of his country, but also blind.  No one in the room had ever seen their leader wearing glasses, a "sign of human frailty that overwhelmed them.  There was something so natural in this appeal...it forced its way to the heart, and you might see sensibility moisten every eye." (p 250)

As usual, the author has included extensive notes and a bibliography, but also a helpful epilogue cataloguing the aftermath of all of the major figures in the Battle of the Chesapeake and victory at Yorktown.

January 5 2020

The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts (2019)
By Karen Armstrong

While hesitating to post a book I have only skimmed through, I recently heard author Karen Armstrong speak about her new book at a talk sponsored by the Providence Atheneum in November.  A former nun, Armstrong has published over 20 scholarly titles (I am currently reading The Bible: A Biography and am pretty impressed by the breadth of her scholarship).

In the current title, Armstrong examines the texts of the world's major religions, insisting they are very relevant and important today.  First she looks at religion in general, and refers back to the earliest manifestations of mankind's search for God, including statuary and cave art.   She cites American scholar Frederick Streng's (1985) working definition of religion:

Religion is a means of ultimate transformation... An ultimate transformation is a fundamental change from being caught up in the troubles of common existence (sin, ignorance) to living in such a way that one can cope at the deepest level with these troubles.  That capacity for living allows one to experience the most authentic or deepest reality - the ultimate.

Armstrong sees the sacred texts (Bible, Koran, etc) as a plan of action "whereby people connect with that true and ultimate reality that will save them from the destructive forces of everyday existence."  Referring to the way our left and right brain functions, she says humans are 'wired' for transcendence, to attain to what the Greeks called kenosis (the emptying of self) to cultivate habits of empathy and compassion, not just toward one's own people, but to the stranger and even the enemy.  We must make the scriptures speak directly to our modern predicament - not to revive the Bronze Age legislation of the Hebrew Bible or the Muslim reformers' slavish attempt to return to the mores of 17th century Arabia - but to revisit the scriptures "and make them speak directly to the suffering, rage and hatred that is rife in today's world and imperils us all."  Scripture, then, is not only a tool for individuals to connect with the divine, but to engage the world to combat arrogance, intolerance, and violence, and to engage with compassion.

* * *

In her talk in Providence, Armstrong likewise stressed that 1) Scripture does not mean us to look back at the original past.  It's a laudable idea to go back - but in reality you can't.  We are people of the 21st century.  First century people were Jews and had an entirely different take.  Instead, look at scripture and make it speak to your circumstances.  Look for Jesus in the rituals (like when he broke bread at Emmaus) and through the diverse community.  2) Scripture requires action and concern for today's environment.  In Koran, eg., verses about Jihad were thought to relate to specific events in Mohammed's life and not relevant to anything else - though that changed with the Crusades.

Listed in the New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2019"

January 1 2020

Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy (2010)
By Jim Wallis

While Wallis (CEO of Sojourners) wrote this book to address the issues that led to the great recession of 2008, his observations remain relevant in 2019 as well.  He asserts that a moral deficit underlies the crisis that led to the lost jobs, bank foreclosures, and loss of savings; "the market" has replaced the values of compassion, as persons and institutions without restraint or ethics have placed self-interest and profit above the needs of others.  Wallis suggests replacing self-interest with humility and community.

Over recent years there has grown a huge economic gap between the rich and the poor.  While a few have admittedly prospered, the wealth has not been shared - a sign that a crash is likely to come.  He also laments the need for Christians to care about the planet, knowing that the neediest feel the results of climate change the most.  Looking to the future, Wallis also stresses that today's leaders need to invest in the future, to help mentor the leaders of tomorrow - rather than just take the IBG (I'll be gone) attitude

Our government's spending reflects its values: sadly, in the two decades preceding publication of this book, spending on corrections systems increased by 127% while on higher education only 21% - causing many college graduates to be saddled with huge debt.

Wallis refers to the "bad morality play" unfolding in the 2007-09 time frame.  After "Main Street taxpayers" bailed out Wall Street executives, Wall Street invested their profits not in new jobs for the taxpayers, but in extravagant bonuses for top tier executives.  The banks were rescued because they were considered too big to fail.  Today, based on the banks' selfish misuse of profits, we might conclude that they have become too immoral to succeed.

In his work with Sojourners, Wallis currently lives in Washington DC and notes that he has been arrested over 20x for nonviolent protests of government policies.  He closes with a parable about his hometown of Detroit, once the center of a thriving auto industry, later a failing city whose jobs went overseas, but now a place of hope as the community has come together to help each other.

Wallis provides 20 "moral exercises" to impact one's own lifestyle and that of the community, eg, examine your calendar and budgets to see if your resources reflect your values; welcome neighbors; find opportunities to volunteer; join a campaign (e.g., to improve schools or address poverty); build a better book club.  Don't lose hope; we can all make a difference.