Category Archives: literature
A Review of W.S. Merwin’s Pulitzer Prize Winning Book: The Shadow of Sirius
I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to start reading the Pulitzer Prize winners for literature and poetry. Every time in the past, I’ve read a Pulitzer winner (Walking to Martha’s Vineyard and Gilead for example) I’ve always really enjoyed them. So I got W.S. Merwin’s book of poetry, The Shadow of [...]
Through Painted Deserts: a Review
I just finished up Through Painted Deserts, Don Miller (of Blue Like Jazz fame)‘s rewrite of his first book. The original title was Prayer and The Art of Volkswagon Maintenance, which is a substantially better title for several reasons, not the least of which is that it hits on the themes of the book much stronger [...]
Crazy for God
On Shack’s recommendation, I read Crazy for God, by Frank(y) Schaeffer. He was right–it was awesome. I read a Franky Schaeffer book several years, when I was first getting back into poetry after college. Addicted to Mediocrity was about the way American Protestant subculture had relegated the arts to the Christian basement, as he put [...]
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Authorial Intent and Scripture
In a comment on my recent post about authorial intent, Wick brings up an interesting point, namely, how does God play into all this. This is a really interesting question, if for no other reason than because it’s what gets a lot of conservative people (myself in college, included) het up about the whole issue. “If you’re [...]
More on Reading–People Really Do READ This Stuff
As a follow-up to my thoughts on marketing magazine/literature, I was thinking about the content. I’ve always felt like those marketing things were mostly a big waste of time, parroting the same platitudes over and over. You’ve heard me level the same criticisms at most Christian writing. Most of it is simply the same stuff restating [...]
People Do Read This Stuff
I friend of mine once said that his family knows they can make him happy by giving him a boring book for Christmas. At work, we get marketing stuff all the time. I read this stuff occasionally, and think, “Does anybody read this stuff?” On the trip over here, Kris and I both read a lot. [...]
Slaughterhouse 5 and the Gospel
I mentioned before that Vonnegut takes on the gospel in Slaughterhouse 5. He says that part of the problem with the gospel is ‘its shoddy story-telling,’ that the lesson we learn after they crucify Jesus (because we know he’s God’s son the whole time and not just some regular bum) is they shouldn’t have killed [...]
Slaughterhouse Five
My office-mate William recommended that I read some Vonnegut. I never had. So he lent me Slaughterhouse Five. Pretty freaking depressing. But really good. There’s a lot I could say about the book. I touches on some pretty important stuff, religion, free will, war. Death. But that’s not I’m hear to tell you about. I came [...]
Music Composed by A Computer
or Where Does Art Get Its Meaning