Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber

This is a fat book. So I initially expected it to be a memoir in need of a lot of pruning. Such is not the case. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. It's a spiritual memoir in the style of Girl Meets God-- a story of a bookish person struggling with the big questions of life and ultimately coming to believe that Christ has the answers.

There are many things to like about this volume, from its structure around the Oxford academic year to the way Weber weaves quotations from various classics throughout her narrative. Most striking and helpful to me was her description of life as a new Christian in the midst of academia. Many of her friends thought she was crazy. Some even told her she had lost all academic credibility. Not only did she struggle with friends feeling betrayed, she also struggled to fit into “churchianity”. Things like finding the correct page for the Bible reading and singing in public seemed like almost insurmountable difficulties. She felt she could never catch up to those who had been steeped in the Bible and Christianity from youth. As one of the latter, I found the chapter “Church Going” a very helpful description of how a new Christian might feel coming to church for the first time.

One thing that surprised me about Weber's memoir was how little she mentions C.S. Lewis. Given that the book is set in Oxford, that was something I expected. But her road to faith in Christ was guided primarily through reading the Bible (all of it!) and conversations with Christians.

Surprised by Oxford is funny, articulate and thought-provoking. It's a title I'd read again, and will be recommending to others.

-Kara

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

A most un-useless place

The Waiting Place: Learning to Appreciate Life's Little Delays by Eileen Button

I received a review copy of this book on BookSneeze. The whole idea is that you need to write a review of the book before they will send you another. The problem is, no sooner had I received this book, than I realised there were two other books available that looked really interesting: Mark Horne's biography of Tolkien, and Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber. So, ironically, I found myself rushing through a book on waiting.

This is not a book to be rushed, however. It is mostly personal memoir, through which the author celebrates all that is ordinary and mundane. And, of course, waiting. There is great wisdom here, something that Kara and I need to remember as we wait for the birth of our first child at the end of October.

Button writes very well, and communicates this wisdom through story rather than through teaching the Bible. There is, however, plenty in the Bible about waiting, like in the Book of Deuteronomy, when a curse comes on the wicked: " In the morning you shall say, 'If only it were evening!' and at evening you shall say, 'If only it were morning!' because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see." That's the ungodly view of time.

The title of the book comes from Dr. Seuss: "and grind on through miles across weirdish wild space / headed, I fear, toward a most useless place / The Waiting Place." But it's not useless. It has the capacity to shape us and bless us.

Liturgical drear

The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life by Joan Chittister

I received a review copy of this on Booksneeze, but I found it so bland, I have taken quite a long time to get around to reviewing it.

The goal of the book is worthy enough: it covers all the main points in the liturgical year, and explains what they mean for Christians. Chittister argues that the liturgical year reprises "those moments that are the substance of the faith" (p. 13). But what is the Christian faith? Chittister seems somewhat liberal on this point: "It was on the cross that Jesus, the new Moses, led the people through a desert of darkened understanding from one insight into the will of God for them to another" (p. 17). Very poetic, and picking up on an important New testament theme of Jesus being the New Moses and salvation being a New Exodus, but that is not why Jesus died.

This is a thoroughly Roman Catholic book, and as such puts more store in Church tradition than in biblical practice. Chittister acknowledges that "not all the feast days that accrued to the church calendar in early centuries were well-grounded spiritually or well-authenticated spiritually" (p. 29), but that doesn't seem to faze her. Her Catholicism also comes out in sentiments such as "Good Friday is the saddest day in the liturgical year" (p. 147).

BookSneeze Review: Lee, A Life of Virtue by John Perry

I recently obtained an advance review copy of this book from Booksneeze. I was intrigued by this statement on the back cover: "Traitor. Divider. Defender of slavery. This damning portrayal of Robert E. Lee has persisted through 150 years of history books. And yet it has no basis in fact." Strong words, these. Yet I was puzzled as well, for this supposed pervasive portrayal of Lee was something I failed to identify with. To the contrary, every previous Civil War book I had read, both pro and anti-Southern, conveyed only admiration for General Lee. Had I somehow missed something? This could hardly be reason enough to write a new biography about a man who has already had numberless words written about his life. The editor's note helped me to understand the motivation for this new series about American Generals. Stephen Mansfield asserts that most that has been written about the lives of American military leaders falls into two opposing categories, hagiography and revisionist history (in which the subject is a "reviled symbol of societal ills"). He states that it is time for a balance portrayal of our leaders, one that gives honour where it is due, and yet does not gloss over human frailty. More than that, the intent of the series is to "help us learn the lessons they [these generals] have to teach". (p.x) In the author's introduction, Perry proposes to answer the questions "Who was the real Robert E. Lee, how did he become the man he was, and how is the genuine article different from the myth?"(p.xviii)

As I read the biography, I was most struck by the difficulty Lee faced in balancing his sense of duty to his country with his devotion to his family. During his more than 30 years of service in the U.S. Army, he experienced many lengthy separations from his wife and children. Some of the agony he felt comes out in some of the letters to his wife, Mary Anna Custis, which the author quotes at length. Perry also brings out the close connection that Mary Anna's family had to George Washington, whose memory was still fresh in many American minds during the early 1800's. Even at such an early date, there emerge strong hints of the popular mythology that was to grow around the first President of the United States.

Drawing heavily from personal letters and J.William Jones' biography of Lee, Perry concludes that "Lee was not an infallible commander. His recurring flaw was to assume his subordinates had the same energy, bravery, resolve, and sense of self-sacrifice he did and then plan accordingly. ... Yet, ... Lee was a great leader...because he never abandoned his personal standards, [and] never wavered from doing what he thought was right even in the face of inevitable, crushing, devastating consequences." (p. 226) I found the book easy to read, and think that Perry a fair job in accomplishing his stated goals in writing the book. However, I would have appreciated more detailed references, rather than the rather short bibliography given at the end.

BookSneeze Review: Jane Austen by Peter Leithart

In this slim biography (only 175 pages), Peter Leithart endeavours to counter misconceptions of the "Divine Jane" and to reveal Austen as she was. He shows how her life was idealized in the 19th century, and compares letters quoted in older biographies with the originals. Leithart argues that Austen's satiric, sometimes cutting, sense of humour has been often downplayed or ignored. The Victorian Austen was "an Austen who could never even deign to notice bad breath, much less complain about it to her sister." (page 146)

He also comments on the current craze for all things Austen, labelling it "Janeia". He says that "Jane Austen is now what she never was in life, what what she would have been horrified to become--a literary celebrity." (back cover) Instead, he believes that she was a humble person: "She recognized her own smallness, and she achieved artistic greatness because she recognized her limitations and joyfully worked within them...." (page 153)

I've not read many biographies of Austen, so am not sure if Leithart is really saying anything new. But I found the book a concise, balanced introduction to her life, and a useful companion to Leithart's excellent commentary on Austen's novels, Miniatures and Morals.

Note: Originally, the book was written as part of the Cumberland Press Leaders in Action series, however, publication was delayed when the press went out of business last year. Thankfully, Thomas Nelson decided to print it as part of their Christian Encounters series. I was thrilled to receive a review copy from Booksneeze .