Tales of Adam By Daniel Quinn

Tales of Adam
Daniel Quinn
Random House of Canada
November 2005

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Daniel Quinn, best know for his Ishmael trilogy (Ishmael, My Ishmael & The Story of B), has released some more writings in this vein of thought. That is the good news; the bad news is, the book is only about a hundred pages long.

For those fans of Quinn’s earlier writings it will be a treat, a little treasure to be savored over and over again. I have already read it twice and got even more out of it the second time. The book is broken into seven teaching stories, much like the stories used to illustrate points in the trilogy, except they are not woven into a larger story.

The stories are each told by ‘Adam’ to his son Able. The stories teach lessons on sustainability, greed, wisdom and knowledge. They teach Able and us our place in the universe and our responsibility as creatures of reason. In teaching about ecology, Adam states, “Every track begins and ends in the hand of god. Every track is a lifetime long.” P.22.

In talking about place Adam says: “No Place where there is life is a desert except to man.” P8. This sentiment on place echoes much of Terry Tempest Williams’ thought. Towards the end, Adam tells his son, “We are seekers of holy places.” P.74, and that is true of many of us. We are questers on a journey to find out who we are and our place in the universe. These sorts of stories might help us along the path.

(First published in Imprint 2005-11-05 as ‘Teaching from Adam’)

Myths, Madness and Mayhem

There is an amazing new series of books being published. The first three have just been released in 32 countries and 30 languages. The project is the brainchild of Jamie Byng, a publisher at Cognate books. The series was launched October 22nd, 2005 after nearly seven years of work. Their goal was to assemble some of the top authors in the world and have them re-tell a myth or legend in their words - how they would tell the story. If the first few are any example of things to come, this will truly be an amazing series of books worth the time and effort to read.

The three released in this event are The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood; Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson, and an introduction to the series by Karen Armstrong called A Short History of Myth. What makes these books and this series so great is that they are not approaching Myths as fairy tales, or children’s stories, but as truth, as the stories that tell us who we are and why we are here and how we are to live.

There are forthcoming books by David Grossman: Lion’s Honey: The Myth f Samson, and Victor Pelvin’s The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, as well as future offerings by Chinua Achebe, Milton Hatoum, Donna Tartt, A.S. Byatt, Su Tong and Natsuo Kirino and possibly more to come after that.

In Canada these books are being released by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random house of Canada. Armstrong needs no introduction and her book serves as a reminder of mythology and story and the reason we as humans tell stories. So let us now begin with Atwood’s book.

The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood
Knopf Canada
October 2005

I am not normally a fan of Margaret Atwood’s writings. I often find that she is too dark or has too much edge. Not that it is not good writing, and she is probably currently the most famous of the living Canadian authors, she just isn’t usually my thing. I cannot say that for this book.

The Penelopiad is a hilarious romp through a story that most of us know, but told outside of time. There is an old saying that “dead men don’t tell tales” and that may be true, but in this inventive retelling, a dead woman and her chorus of dead girls do just that.

Atwood has turned this myth on its head and told it from the female perspective. Unfortunately, our heroine is dead and in Hades, retelling her story from across the river Styx. She is telling her whole story but especially the events around Odysseus’ long absence during the war against Troy and that unfortunate event with her cousin Helen.

The story is written in the format of a Greek Tragedy but with the humor and temperament of a comedy. Our chorus is the twelve dead maids, hung strung together on a ship’s rope by Odysseus. They appear from time to time, in song, dance, or mock plays and trials to re-enact events from their lives to punctuate Penelope’s story.

The twists and turns in this story will make you laugh out loud. A friend of mine who read it stated, ‘It begs to be read aloud.’ And I could not agree more. Pick up the book, get some friends together and read it aloud, over an evening or two together. Much fun will be had with the ghosts of our 13 dead ladies.

Weight
Jeanette Winterson
Knopf Canada
October 2005

Now on to much weightier matters. Winterson takes a much different approach than Atwood. She tells this tale as herself telling her tale retelling a tale. Confusing? No not really. She begins with herself, tells the story of Heracles ad Atlas and then returns to her own life and lessons learnt.

Unlike the Penelopiad, this book Weight is very dark and brooding and leaves one with a feeling of unease as if we missed something, or even that in reading this book, like Pandora, we have opened a box and cannot now close it and will be forever different. Though we are not sure how.

How does Winterson accomplish this? In this deep brooding book she touches something primal inside. Much as Heracles is awoken and bothered by the question “Why? Why? Why?” this question arises and will not let him go.

So too, this book will awaken questions in your mind and your spirit, and maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, in this book we will find the questions to lift our weight. If we can learn from it to tell our story we can be freed, and step out from under the burden on our shoulders, as Atlas so desperately desired.

As stated earlier this series is a unique event. It is stories from old being told by authors anew. As such they are books we could all enjoy and learn from.


(First published in Imprint 2005-11-05 as ‘Myth Novels’)

Speak by: Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
Penguin

Melinda Sordino, a student with good grades and great friends, has made some mistakes. At the end of a summer party she calls the cops, yet when they arrive she doesn’t tell them anything. Back at school the next year, her friends won’t speak to her, and people she doesn’t even know hate her as the fink who wrecked everybody’s party, and her grades start dropping. Her relationship with her parents deteriorates quickly. She becomes sullen, and withdrawn. However this picture is not the whole story.

Her parents know something is wrong but cannot get her to open up. Her only hope is her art teacher; he realizes something is very wrong and through the assignments he gives her tries to draw her out.

This is a story of a girl who is abused, and who doesn’t know how to talk about it, but in keeping it inside she is self -destructing. Can Melinda find her voice and speak of her sorrow, or will her silence destroy her?

The Ransomed Heart by: John Eldredge

The Ransomed Heart
John Eldredge
Thomas Nelson Books
October 2005

John is currently one of the controversial voices in Christianity. Yet not in the way most are; those on the left and those on the right dislike him equally. If you do a Google search on John Eldredge and Wild at Heart, you will get sites praising him as a new voice for Christianity and for men, and just as many condemning him and his writings as heretical. John is best known for his book Wild at Heart, which has been sweeping through churches across North America and the world. On the community forum on his ministry’s website, http://www.ransomedheart.com/forum/ there are members from around the world.

What is this book about? It is a devotional reader, it has 365 meditations or excerpts from his other writings, The Sacred Romance, Wild At Heart, Waking the Dead, Journey of Desire, Epic and Captivating. This book would be a great primer on John’s thought or as a reminder for a fan who has read his works. It’s like borrowing a book from a friend who has underlined the best passages and you skim those to get the guts of the book. This is “the guts” of his full progression of thought.

You might ask what is the basic idea of his works? I would say that it is three-fold; first that our hearts are good, second that we need to learn to listen to our hearts, and finally we need to be living from our true hearts or our truest self. Waking The Dead begins with a quote “The Glory of God is man fully alive,” Saint Irenaeus. One of the things I like about this book, and all of John’s writings, is that he draws from such varied sources; he loves to quote from movies and use movie illustrations, and he draws from a wide range of Christian sources- the desert fathers, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton and many, many more.

This book would be great to get a feel for what the controversy is all about, or to keep beside your bed and randomly open each night for a little reminder that your heart is good and that it matters to God.

(First Published in Imprint 2005-10-14 as 'Small Reminders of Faith')

How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun by: Steve Douglass and Al Janssen

How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun
Steve Douglass and Al Janssen
Success Factors Publications
ISBN 579020003

(Note 2023 - the book only appears to be available as an eBook currently, or through the CRU site.)

Are you concerned about your grades dropping in University and having enough time for fun, games and extracurricular activities? If so, then this book is a must read for you. This book takes the 80/20 principle and applies it to academics. The authors of this book so believe in it, it has a written guarantee that if you apply it, your average will go up 1 grade point or your money back. The best thing is, not only does it work, it is easy to apply. The longest chapter is 12 pages and with just 12 chapters it is a chapter a week for a term and you will peak for your exams.

You might be asking yourself, “What is the 80/20 principle?” It was a business term developed by Richard Koch and it seems to be pretty consistent, one of those great patterns in the chaos of the universe. Take McDonalds as an example: 80% of McDonald’s profit comes from fries and drinks, the other 20% of their profit comes from everything else on the menu. Or take real estate: a friend’s father owns a real estate office; 80% of the sales consistently come from 20% of the realtors, the other 20% of sales comes from the rest.

You’re probably wondering, “What does this have to do with school?” A lot! This book will teach you how to do school better, and I can personally vouch for it. My first time in University I had a 58 average. I have read this book a few times since being here at The University of Waterloo and I have an over 80 cumulative average. I have g1ven away over a dozen copies of this book and every person who has read it has thanked me for the book and the help it has been.

I’ll give you a personal example. A few years back, I took the Introduction to Church History Course RS 230 with Arnold Snyder; the first week of the class I asked him his objective for the course. He told us this will be your final exam question, “You’re sitting at your Christmas dinner and your uncle Buck says ‘So I hear you took the history of Christianity course, tell me the story in your own words’.” So instead of doing my usual and making tons of charts of names, dates, place and theories, I focused on the story - being able to tell the history clearly, concisely, and simply in my own words. I saved hours and hours of work and time spent memorizing just because I knew the objective for the course.

This book will be worth the $15 to get it. You can order it through the CRU site for $8.49 USD it is also available on Kindle now. Check it out - it’s guaranteed!

(First Published in Imprint 2005-09-14 as 'Is your objective very visible?')

With Bound Hands by: Mary Frances Coady

With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany
Mary Frances Coady
Loyola Press

Reading books by and about those who spent time in Nazi Germany is always difficult and sometimes discouraging, yet often they end up dispelling the evil they recount by the triumph of the human spirit against it. This book should be a Holocaust classic right up there with Elie Wiesel’s Night or Etty Hillsum’s An Interrupted Life and Letter from Westerbork. However, our main character has more in common with Etty then Elie, for Elie was rescued in the dying days of the war, and both Etty and Alfred Delp, our hero, did not make it out.

This is the story of a young man studying to be a Jesuit Priest, a man who pushes the boundaries in his own order and ruffles some feathers outside of it as well. He is a man who has faith and is certain of the things he believes in. He is also certain that Hitler will fail and from early in the war is part of a group that is trying to create a plan for the rebuilding of Germany after the war. This group that he joined was called the Kreisau friends. In an early letter Delp wrote about the resistance: “Whoever doesn’t have the courage to make history is doomed to become its object. We have to take action.” P.48. Throughout the war Delp had many roles: parish priest, teacher at a boys’ school, active resistance friend and community leader.

Delp was arrested for a murder plot on Hitler, a plot about which he did not actually have any knowledge. He believed to nearly the end that he would be acquitted in his trial. In December of 1944 he wrote: “Today was a good day. Even though in the end we’re chained and locked up, the heart of the day is the mass. We pray and trust and are not in the least bit modest about what we expect from God.” P.107. Yet as time wore on, he would despair. But his faith in God would stand firm.

This book is an amazing testimony of the power of the intellect and of steadfast faith, in very troubled times.

(First Published in Imprint 2005-09-23 as 'Faith Versus Adversity')

Orphan's Destiny by: Robert Buettner

Orphan’s Destiny
Robert Buettner
Warner Books
October 4th 2005

Back to war. After we left our hero Jason Wander at the end of Orphanage, we believed that we were free from the slugs. Wander was one of the few who doubted it. It took him over two years to return to earth and the earth was in sad shape.

The destruction that had been so devastating before he left, was now even worse. After almost 2 years of near nuclear winter, vegetation and animals were struggling to survive the climate change and it would be years before the atmospheric dust cleared itself up.

Orphan has a new Military mission to convince the media and the population that the threat is over and that money should be spent on rebuilding the world, not military spending. The problem is, he is not sure he believes it. Like many veterans, he struggles with guilt: why did he survive and so many others did not? Why did he bury his love and his friends so far from home?

Then his worst fears are confirmed: there is an attack that takes out earth’s only military spaceport. He must once again do the impossible, and lead a small band of determined men and women back to space for a last-ditch effort to save earth from a fleet of 121 ships larger than any we have, and 1 ship the size of a city.

Read Orphan's Destiny and see if Wander can pull off a miracle a second time, or will humanity lose all hope.

(First Published in Imprint 2005-09-23 as 'Return of Killer Slugs')

Jason Wander Saga:

Orphanage
Orphan's Destiny
Orphan's Journey
Orphan's Alliance
Orphan's Triumph