Half Past Noon

Today is the 104th birthday of Theodore Seuss Geisel. Not an auspicious anniversary by any means, but The Afterword (book blog of the National Post) is celebrating by offering five little-known facts about the beloved Dr. Seuss. I’m going to spoil it and give you #1, but if you’ve ever read and loved the dear Doctor, go and read the rest.

1: Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat was born as a response to an article which was published in Life Magazine in 1954,. The piece criticized American school primers as intensely boring, unchallenging to readers and responsible for causing harm to children’s literacy. The article called for more primers to up the excitement by energizing the language and including drawings like those of “imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, Theodor S. Geisel.” Using the piece as a call to action, Geisel and his publisher came up with a list of 400 “exciting” words, which Seuss than narrowed down for the book, and included 13 more of his own. The final product is 1626 words in length and uses a total vocabulary of 236 words.

So. I have finally encountered “the rub” in N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: the bit about economics.

Allow me a few “preface” points. First, I realize that this is not the heart of Wright’s argument. (I love this book very much and consider it lifechanging.) Second, what I have to say is a personal statement: please keep that in mind. Third, I am no expert in these matters. What I offer here is merely the best sense I can make of my own gleanings and meditations. Fourth, I make no claims to 100% sound logic or clear thinking. It’s late, I never really understood all those danged symbols, and the brain doesn’t work that straightly anyway. If you can point out my errors, miscalculations, or misjudgments, I will truly be most grateful.

To proceed, the quote:

The Cold War years enabled the United States to build up its persona as God’s answer to communism. Many conservative churches there still live by the belief that what’s good for America is good for God—with the result, for instance, that if their country needs to produce more acid rain in order to keep up car production, then God must be happy with it and anyone who talks about pollution or is disappointed that the president didn’t sign the Kyoto protocol is somehow anti-Christian or is simply producing a “baptized neosocialism,” as one reviewer accused me of. Rampant belief in the rapture lends strong support to this, as we saw earlier: Armageddon is coming, so who cares what state the planet is in? The irony is that those American churches that protest most vocally against the teaching of Darwinism in their schools are often, in the public policies, supporting a kind of economic Darwinism, the survival of the fittest in world markets and military power.
– N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, pages 219-220.

[1] I am not an economist. To be honest, I’ve disliked economics for a long time, despite the fact that my father taught it to me in high school. (Sorry, Dad. I love you, I promise.)

[2] My father (the economist) taught me long ago that just because a person gets one thing right, doesn’t mean that they’re white as bleach.

[3] The common accusation against conservative Christians is this: they have fallen to the temptation of dualism (that is, thinking merely in terms of “right” and “left”). This is true. Far too often human beings are lazy in their discernment and thinking. Instead of weighing every issue, they side with what is familiar, what rings true. (Is this ideal? Of course not. I won’t even claim it’s inexcusable. However, it is inevitable. No one person can weigh every single issue fairly and come out with a fair answer. We should do our best, of course, but it means we ought to be fair in our condemnation of others who fail in this manner. “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”)

[4] I’d like to suggest that Wright (and possibly others who follow/parallelize his critique) misjudges “conservative churches.” Now, given that he is more experienced with the broader world than I, I admit that it could simply be a case of “being sheltered.” That said, the “conservative churches” that I have been a part of do not fit into Wright’s description. My parents taught me from an early age that “Republican” did not equal “white knight in shining armor.” They may have disliked Bill Clinton, but they did not consider Bob Dole an ideal candidate. And while they did oppose the Kyoto Protocol, they did so not merely because left-wing environmentalists like David Suzuki promoted it; rather, they opposed it because its science was far from certain.

[5] May I level a modest accusation? I will, with or without your permission. I believe that Wright unfairly implies that those who oppose the Kyoto Protocol are close-minded. And I believe that similar unfair implications often lie behind attacks on “capitalism” and the “free market.” Is the “free market” abused? Most definitely. But may I also remind you that many other good things—including the written word, non-totalitarian government, and even (*gasp*) the church—have been similarly abused?

[6] My primary point (resting, perhaps in a muddle fashion, on the previous points) is this: I believe that conservatism is often unfairly condemned. Is it perfect? Of course not. Any conservative worth his or her salt would admit that immediately. And I’m not upset that Wright or others may have problems with conservatism in general. After all, if we conservatives cannot listen to criticism, then we are indeed close-minded.

[7] I believe there is good to be found in the writings of F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, and Gary North. I also believe that any who treats those writings as solid, unshakeable gospel is a fool. (And I know for a fact that the “free market economists” I know would never do such a thing.) Furthermore, I believe there is much good in “free market economics” to be gleaned, and I’m rather tired of hearing it maligned. Is capitalism perfect? Of course not. No system is, nor ever will be. That’s the beauty of humanity: it can never be systematized.

[8] As I wrote earlier, these points may be muddled. I am not a philosopher, a theologian, or an economist. I am merely a layman, trying to sort this out and make some sense of how these theories can actually be lived out in this world. As such, I’m not looking for a label or to label anyone else. I merely ask, “Can someone please stand up and tell me that there is something worth saving in ‘free market’ economics?” Because until Cavanaugh, Wright, or someone else is willing to do so, I can’t listen to them: they’re merely making the same mistake they accuse others of making.

More from N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope.

In Chapter 6 (“What the World’s Waiting For”), Wright argues that “resurrection” is much more than just a change from being dead to being alive. Resurrection is re-making, an act which redefines existence and creates a (literal) world of new opportunity. But it’s not like starting over or wiping the slate clean. Because resurrection is a redemptive act, all the history remains, conquered and subdued by the re-creating work of God.

(Gah. I was trying to make this interesting, but it’s proving more difficult than I anticipated.)

Like many of Wright’s other observations, this has an incredible bearing on storytelling. The best stories will (I suggest) capture some essence of this, depicting a world where growth accomplishes something. A good romantic comedy should end with the characters grasping something true about love, something that can’t just be erased and forgotten in a sequel. (Pride and Prejudice is a good example.)

This doesn’t mean that every romantic comedy or story needs to say something profound and lifechanging. I just think we settle for far too little in our stories. There is always room for falling away, always room for disappointment—that’s life. But it’s just as true that redemption transforms the hell out of the world. That’s what it’s for. If we can’t capture that in our stories, I think we’re missing something very beautiful and very awesome.

I’ve been reading Hemingway’s short stories and started to wonder: is it ok to write about everything? For sure, there is a story in every situation, but some of them must be off limits. Occasionally Hemingway will write a story with enough sexual detail to force this question to the discerning reader’s mind. He never seems to write the story or the scene just to be explicit or dirty, so he is still well inside the parameters of good old fiction. But there is still a problem with writing about someone having sex. Just because it is consistent with the rest of the story, or just because the author is still telling us something about someone in the story does not justify it.

So what can we write about? What can’t we write about? The writer’s wisdom: “write about what you know” only gets you as far as the writer, and so you have Hemingway writing about things he knew very well. On the other hand, if you read the Old Testament in Hebrew, you will definitely find no examples of avoiding a subject just because it is explicit. In fact, Moses, Solomon, and the prophets were far more explicit than any Hemingway story I’ve read.

I can immediately see one difference between the Old Testament and Hemingway. That is Hemingway tells us about a specific set of characters doing the explicit stuff. The Old Testament tells us about Israel through general comparisons. She was like a prostitute, etc. But then there is Song of Solomon, which is impossible to relegate completely to allegorical-lesson-land. And there is also Moses, who if put in our pulpit today would probably make everyone of us (myself included) uncomfortable.

Maybe it has to do with the intent of the writer? Maybe it is one of those things where the content of the story is only good in proportion to the character of the writer? I don’t know. Help me out here.

My favorite John Updike interview, moderated by my favorite interviewer, Terry Gross. Note: you’ll want to select the interview from 1997 (I can’t link it directly).

Fiction, being the game of not quite, is the place of not-quite-belief. Precisely what is a danger in religion is the very fabric of fiction. In religion, a belief that is only “as if” is either the prelude to a loss of faith, or an instance of bad faith (in both senses of the phrase). If religion is true, one must believe. And if one chooses not to believe, one’s choice is marked under the category of a refusal, and is thus never really free: it is the duress of a recoil. Once religion has revealed itself to you, you are never free. In fiction, by contrast, one is always free to choose not to believe, and this very freedom, this shadow of doubt, is what helps to constitute fiction’s reality.
– James Wood, “Introduction: The Limits of Not Quite,” in The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief, page xii.

I begin with this quote because I think it explains the context for my disappointment with Wood’s Book Against God. In the same introduction, he makes the claim that “it was not just science but perhaps the novel itself which helped to kill Jesus’s divinity, when it gave us a new sense of the real, a new sense of how the real disposes itself in a narrative—and then in turn a new skepticism toward the real as we encounter it in narrative” (page xiv).

If you had handed me The Book Against God and told me that it was written by a Presbyterian minister, I would probably have thought it was brilliant. As I pointed out earlier, everything in this novel—the repulsive nature of lead character Thomas Bunting to the very admirable speech of Bunting’s father—seems to argue against atheists. I’ll go so far as to say that this novel suggest that atheists are childish men who want nothing more than freedom to do absolutely nothing, to sponge off their loved ones and shirk all forms of responsibility. Because that is how Thomas Bunting ends up being portrayed: his life doesn’t prove the validity of his atheistic faith.

Now, compare my impressions of the novel with the above quotes from The Broken Estate. How on earth do they mesh? This is what bothers me about the novel, it’s why I keep thinking about it despite feeling like I was tricked into finishing it. I simply cannot fathom what Wood was trying to communicate. Everything I’ve read about Wood has suggested that he is no fan of Christianity. Why then does this novel offer us a despicable germ of humanity as a spokesman for atheism?

Obviously, you can’t apply all characters universally. I understand that. But then, why are the most admirable characters in this novel Christians? Bunting’s father, for example, is a fine man: he is patient with his son’s irresponsibility, loves his son to the point of overindulgence, and humbles himself in the eyes of the world by fleeing the academy for a parish. Even Thomas’s ex-wife Jane—the object of all his desires, his only hope for a stable life—makes some claim to Christianity. The people that, like Bunting, hate God lead unhappy lives. Isn’t that weird?

For the past month or so, most of my reading time has been devoted to exploring the world of Hellboy. (And yes, my friends are worried.) I’m fascinated by much of what Mike Mignola has crafted with this badass demonic hero: he’s funny, powerful, and consistently overcomes his doomsday destiny. That last part especially gets me. Hellboy is destined for absolute terror, and yet he is not bound by this “destiny.” It’s the kind of story only possible in a Christian world (just imagine the outrage it would give Sophocles and other ancient tragedians!), and I love watching it play out.

I’ll write more about what’s struck me in the comic books later; for now, I wanted to offer a few comments on the offshoot novels that I’ve managed to read so far.

First, I don’t think the three novels I’ve picked up (two by Christopher Golden—The Lost Army and Bones of Giants—and then The God Machine by Thomas E. Sniegoski) add anything of value to the Hellboy story. As Mignola notes in the introduction to The Lost Army, Golden has given Hellboy something of sex/relationship life; that is in my opinion their biggest contribution. Instead of sticking to the recurring themes and characters of the comic books, the novels depict a world full of demonic and otherworldly bad guys eager to tap into Hellboy’s power; they are wholly unrelated to the grand story that connects Mignola’s stories. The result is that the Hellboy myth is battered, scattered, and thinned out. It robs both the reader and the character of purpose, replacing it with cheap, worn-out formulas.

The comic books are wonderful because they don’t try to tell us every moment of Hellboy’s lives. What they offer is a simple ongoing storyline communicated in a series of stories that develop Hellboy’s character by focusing on his destiny and his wrestling with that. Each short story teaches Hellboy something new about himself (or, if he won’t listen, at least the reader). The novels, on the other hand, are little more than displays of just how good Hellboy is at destroying spiritual powers. But we already knew that, so why bother?

Second (and I’ll keep this very brief), the novels are poorly written. Especially Golden’s first two. Way too much information about what people are feeling or thinking, which really defeats the purpose of action and dialogue. If somebody is speaking angrily, you shouldn’t have to tell it to me like that: the words coming out of his mouth can communicate that emotion. Same goes for actions.

Third, the novels make a weakness of the stories in general very explicit: God is far too silent. Take this passage from The God Machine:

Accursed humanity.

The more he saw, the more his anger grew. Here was a species that did not deserve the wonders their Lord had bestowed upon them. Murder, poverty and war, the befouling of the planet itself; these were not the faithful creatures that the Almighty believed them to be. They were a blight, a pestilence, defying His wishes at every turn.

The Creator was blind to this, smitten by humanity’s supposed charms. With every passing millennium the angel watched, anticipating the call. He expected to hear the voice of his God, ordering the Destroyers forth from their murky prison and unleashing them upon His failure. How Qemu’el longed to see their cities crumble, the tortured faces of the human race turned up to the heavens in desperate prayer as the skies were turned to fire, and they were expunged from the world—a horrible mistake erased, never to be heard from again. (page 163)

If you’re going to write something like this—that is, describe a character’s violent anger toward God, his complaint about the Creator—then it becomes something that must be resolved by the end of the book. And yet, when Hellboy shows up to kick butt and keep humanity alive, resolution to this is nowhere to be found.

I’m not suggesting that every novel needs to be an explicitly “Christian” novel. However, if a character’s prime motivation is anger against God’s “blindness,” and that character is obviously evil and wrong, then the resolution (in this case, the declaration that God is not blind) needs to be just as obvious. God, of course, uses physical means to deal with evil men and evil powers. But then, it’s the writer’s job to acknowledge Who is actually in charge. Instead, Sniegoski offers a world where God is silent, inactive, the picture of a blind watchmaker observing how things are working out. Oh, and thank goodness for Hellboy, since we can’t thank God for him: where would we be without his self-sufficient, self-saving power?

A couple of random thoughts on James Wood’s Book Against God (after an hour of heavy snow shoveling).

First. If Wood is arguing for atheism, then his only convincing argument in this book is, “Philosophy on its own proves nothing—you need to prove your beliefs through your life.” And Thomas Bunting never learns this. To the end, he remains a selfish, irresponsible man who can probably look forward to an old age without friends or family. Of course, this is a valid point that goes both ways: Christians cannot truly argue for their faith without a solid Christian walk with God. And this is something that Thomas Bunting’s father (Peter Bunting, an Anglican priest) has learned:

“You know, [says Peter, speaking to his wayward son] not long before you were born, I had a crisis of faith. Curiously, it’s why I became a priest. Or rather, I resolved the crisis by leaving the intellectualism of the university for the devotion of the priest’s life. I didn’t know the answers to any of my questions, and decided in the end that living a Christlike life was the only answer to them. It’s why I am interested in Tim Biffen, because he so reminds me of myself when I was a young man. It’s very very important not to be corrupted by theology.” (page 225)

Second. Going off of that last quote, it appears that The Book Against God is really quite the opposite. Peter Bunting (the priest who abandoned a theological teaching role for the Church) is the one who seems to have his head on straight. And despite his son’s snide despising, Peter very obviously loves him, tries everything he knows to love his son back into the faith. Peter’s efforts are admittedly feeble (he doesn’t do much more than challenge his son intellectually), but I feel that the end leaves some window of hope, some chance that his son will stop playing at Jonah and admit that he’s just lying to himself.

Third. Atheism (at least as described by Thomas Bunting) is pure immaturity. It’s for people who don’t want the responsibility of worshiping a God, who don’t want to be told what to do, whose chief law is themselves. Bunting writes at the end:

Oh, Father, there were days so exciting when I was a little boy that each morning was a delicious surprise, a joy adults can only mimic when they are fortunate enough to make a long journey by night and rise in an undiscovered place in the morning and see it in the first light. When anyone asks me, I say that my childhood was happy, and for once, for once, I am not lying. Wasn’t it an orchard, my childhood? But why, then, the worm? Why the worm? Tell me. (page 257)

This end is moving, until you realize that Thomas Bunting simply needs to grow up. His complaint with the world is not really, “Why are you so rotten?” but “Why do you require so much of me?” And even secularists can shake their heads at that kind of thinking.

In the end, I really don’t know what Wood was aiming at. If he’s arguing for atheism, then he’s ironically made it very unattractive and unappealing. Regardless, after reading The Book Against God I felt that I had been tricked into finishing it: it wasn’t until I was near the end that I realized that Bunting had no solution to his troubles, no way out of his follies. This book is like watching a traffic accident happen in slow motion, and despite the thoughts inspired above, definitely not worth reading.

This book was a disappointment. My impression coming into this novel was that Wood is an aesthetic critic, all-too-willing to skewer ideologically driven fiction. Even my own (albeit limited) exposure to Wood’s writing backed this assumption. His reviews are enjoyable primarily because he writes as one who loves to read and who loves stories. But The Book Against God (which is apparently a semi-autobiographical novel) is weighed down by so much philosophical dialogue that it becomes more of a treatise than a story.

Thomas Bunting (our narrator and central character) approaches all spheres of life through the lens of philosophy and abhors God. He is a sharp thinker, well-read, and completely unable to support himself. While his wife works all day, he sits at home smoking, reading philosophy, working on a secret Book Against God, and ignoring his already-seven-years-late Ph.D. thesis. He is a most unattractive hero, and as the last third of the book proves, he is one of the most despicable anti-heroes to ever make an appearance in fiction. No matter how much you agree with or hate God, you simply cannot like Thomas Bunting by the end of this book. His greatest and last crime is a dive into Onanism (in an attempt to prevent his wife from conceiving), and after this incident, he is completely unsympathetic.

The biggest fault of this novel is simply that Bunting is an inhumane character. He has no sympathetic traits, no good points. An incorrigible liar, you quickly learn not to trust his narrating, and his interactions with his parents are ungrateful and unfair. Sure, they may be imperfect parents and people, but they certainly do not deserve the rage he exhibits around them. Wood has given us a book about a wretch, someone whom no one can love, but to what end? This novel is (if anything) an argument for God, a proof of philosophy’s inability to stand by itself, a suggestion that atheists aren’t much different than screaming toddlers wreaking unrest in grocery stores. Moreover, there’s nothing to enjoy or learn here. This is a book I would never recommend to anyone, because it’s chiefly unnecessary—the only reason I picked it up and finished it is because I’m interested in Wood.

Wood is most famous for coining the term “hysterical realism,” a phrase applied to the verbose, bloated fiction of writers like Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, and others. But I think it could just as easily be applied to this book. Its only lack in that category is length: a reader has only to suffer a mere 257 pages of intellectual refuse courtesy of Mr Bunting. But Bunting is certainly hysterical (most appallingly so at his father’s funeral) and, well, there is a certain tinge of realism here: I can’t see someone with Bunting’s ideals have a much better life. Perhaps this is a lesson about labeling; it is certainly not much of a lesson in fiction itself.