Bernard Shaw

Should someone who’s life work is helping people recover from alcohol addiction and violence accept money from alcohol and weapons manufacturers? Should society mandate education and curtail freedom of expression in the hope of increasing social equality? Should love of an individual have priority over love of a country?

They’re tough questions. Good questions.

So here’s an idea: rather than look for an answer, let’s just make fun of everyone involved with the questions. Salvation Army workers? Mock them. Alcoholics? Mock. Weapons manufacturers? Mock. Anyone who tries to do something worthwhile and doesn’t make the world perfect? Mock. Mock. Mock.

Bernard Shaw mocks well. He has the cleverness of Oscar Wilde with a lot more bitter attitude, and a worldview that makes every hero fairly despicable and every villain a clown.

When I read Major Barbara (the Salvation Army vs. Big Booze play), I was amazed by the wordplay and timing. Sure, it left me depressed, but the language was amazing.

Moved to Pygmallion next, and my amazement at his language and discouragement at its use both increased.

And then Arms and The Man, throwing in the same types of characters but with comic subjects like romance and heroism.

And I took a break.

I thought it would only last a few months. After all, I had enjoyed each book while reading it, and he had a lot of others, and I was getting into plays.

But I found other authors, including Shaw’s nemesis, Chesterton, and the break has now lasted a happy few decades.

Neil Gaiman

With Neil Gaiman, I’ve been procrastinating; partly because I don’t want it to be a year since I’ve read him, and partly because he’s just too big to review.

The novels aren’t as good, so I’ll start there.

American Gods is an epic in length, and could be in scope if it had epic-quality characters. The characters are straight-from-stock, though, down to the sexy free-spirit wise-beyond-years thinks-she’s-lesbian. I’ve been to the “House on the Rock”, though. And Wisconsin. And the set works: the Midwest could very well be the place where old gods go to die.

Stardust was of even lower caliber. It’s just a fairy tale, like you’d find in the 19^th-century genre, but with just enough extra sexuality to justify a post-modernist author.

Caroline and Wolves at the Door are brilliant! Caroline is still too scary for my six-year-old, but I think she’ll read it soon. She loved Wolves and explained it carefully to her four-year-old brother.

And with those two as examples, you’ll get a hint of Gaiman’s genius: image, symbol, concept, and as few words as possible.

And that description transitions us nicely to The Sandman. The Sandman is an epic of huge impact. The fact that nearly every line is illustrated and it looks like a comic book will turn off a lot of readers, but it shouldn’t. Alan Moore convinced me that comics, as a genre, were worth another look. The Sandman was the prize for taking that second look.

If you buy or borrow any of the bound sets, you’ll find introductions far better than this. I’ll skip the general stuff, except to say The Sandman is a post-modernist epic on the nature of story as art and truth, with the protagonist as one of the unchanging anthropomorphic gods.

It would be easy to pick The Sandman apart from a Christian worldview. After all, it depicts, and almost seems to advocate many types of witchcraft. But the point is that it’s not about people and magic; it’s about creativity.

Preludes and Noctures, vol. 1 of the series starts slowly, and several of the episodes, especially the ones incorporating other DC Comics, are painfully shallow. The last few, though, including the gruesome “24 hours” are near brilliant. I can’t say strongly enough that “24 hours” is brutal, and horrible. But it’s how it is sometimes.

The Doll’s House, vol. 2, was the first that I read, and it hooked me. The dark comedy (a mass-murderer convention with intervention by G.K. Chesterton) almost turned me off, but I kept reading and was glad I did.

Dream Country, vol. 3, containts tales of the cats, a near-immortal seeking death, the kidnapped muse, and Midsummer Night’s Dream are the best stand-alone stories in the series. This volume contributes little to the overall mythology, but is one of the best to read and ponder.

Seasons of Mists, vol. 4, begins the mid-series slump. So, who’s stronger: Dream or Hell? This is one of the few volumes that follows a linear storyline start to finish, with a collection of minor characters instead of a truly ensemble cast of equals. It’s occasionally gruesome, but amusing. The attempt to fit the Endless into a Judeo-Christian ontology is necessary for the series (given Dream’s repeated claims to be part of all religions and beliefs, and Gaiman’s well-founded choice to avoid trying to incorporate Jesus) sort of succeeds, but it’s probably not worth the time spent on it. I’d recommend skimming this one, and jumping to Fables and Reflections.

A Season of You, vol. 5, is extremely gruesome, and easily the most twisted of the Sandman series. I don’t recommend it. The story is essential for understanding the mythology of the series, but isn’t in itself compelling, and it pushes the boundaries both in theme (gender identity) characters (lesbians, witches, transsexuals, and sluts), and visuals (zombie baby cannibals and degloved faces that talk). I tried reading it a second time for insights in the female or better, non-male psyche, but the insights weren’t worth the experience.

Fables and Reflections, vol. 6. Page for page, this is the most enjoyable volume of the series because in it, Gaiman seems to simply let himself excel at what he’s best at: amazing stories in new mythology, as opposed to a cohesive mythology without a plot. Many of the stories (the prologue of the aspiring actor, the Emperor of America, Robespierre, The Family, Caesar Augustus, and Ramadan) are among the most optimistic of the epic. The introduction of Orpheus isn’t especially intriguing, but it’s necessary to understand the rest of the series.

Brief Lives, vol. 7: As part of the overall myth, this volume is essential, and more accessible than The Kindly Ones or A Game of You. The horror still rises at points, but doesnt’ get out of hand, as it did in Game. The basic story–Dream and Delirium look for Destruction, and can only find him through a death pact Dream makes with his son, Orpheus–isn’t as intriguing as the short stories in the series, but there’s more intentional humor and development of the Endless as characters than available in the other volumes. In fact, this is one of the few volumes which overtly treats The Sandman as a protagonist.

World’s End, vol. 8, is where Gaiman finally reaches his stride in a delightful Chaucerian collection of stories told by characters at an inn where worlds meet and end. Each story stands well by itself, and they’re woven smoothly into the larger Sandman mythology.

The Kindly Ones, vol. 9: Like some of the other Sandman volumes that tell a single story instead of intertwined short stories, this one falls short of the every-page dazzle I’d come to expect. The mythology angle comes on strong, but it gets to be such a self-referential mess that I started to wonder if it was worth it.

The Wake, vol. 10: The Sandman’s clearly not the same once he’s dead, but this one picks up well, revivifying some of the most ingenuous minor characters and bringing back Shakespeare himself for some of the best analyses of writing and art in the series. The first few chapters don’t stand alone well, as they simply wrap up the myth. The return of Hobs, the never-dying man, on a visit to a Renaissance Festival, though, is one of the most optimistic of the stories in the series, and the reworking of The Tempest is self-referential symbology at its finest.

Endless Nights, vol. 11, probably would have scored two numbers higher if it had been my first Sandman book. As a sequel, though, this collection of stories (one per “endless” character) lacks the depth and general motivation of the original series.

So I guess the summary is that’s it’s usually bizarre, often confusing, and frequently grotesque, but somehow I think he’s worth it.

Philip Yancey and Paul Brand

 

Do you like smart, witty Christian apologists, but aren’t crazy about Brits? Well, the West side of the Atlantic hasn’t produced a great selection, but it does have Philip Yancey.

Where is God When it Hurts? and Disappointment With God both deal with the … well, the title topics, but in a compassion, humility, and grace that giants like Lewis and Chesterton don’t always convey. Possibly as a result, Yancey’s arguments seem somewhat inconclusive. I’m not sure how much they’d help someone who’s grieving, but they would probably help someone who’s preparing to grieve or preparing to help others who are grieving.

The Jesus I Never Knew comes from a different side of Yancey—still personal, respectful, and fun, but this time looking at the life the “pre-creed” Jesus, through devices such as “let’s watch 10 movie clips of the same scene from the gospels, and discuss”. It lacks the wit of Chesterton, but I liked it.

For Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Yancey combined his writing talents with Paul Brand’s medical knowledge to result in a wonderful, wonder-filled meditation on the implications of the metaphor of the Church as the Body of Christ. The subject matter would probably attract fewer readers than some of his other titles, but it’s my favorite of his books.

 

Elizabeth Elliot

Start with the bad: Passion and Purity was decidedly non-motivating to remain virginal before marriage. It had great intentions, but so much is in the examples, and the examples seemed comically prudish.

But what she does well, she does very well, and Elizabeth Elliot’s writings about others who loved God are among the best I’ve read.

I’m talking specifically about A Chance to Die and The Shadow of the Almighty. The first is a biography of Amy Carmichael, an early 20^th-century single woman who decided to help reach India for Christ. The second is the edited journals of her first husband, Jim Elliot, who was martyred when trying to contact a South American tribe.

Both books have that wonderful, rare trait of letting the readers see the subjects for themselves, instead of seeing them in a way that makes the authors look good. I haven’t found any better books on the subject of the spread of the gospel in the 20^th century.

And, I’m forever grateful to Elliot for an almost throw-away reference to G.K. Chesterton about half-way through A Chance to Die that introduced me to one of my most loveable masters.

Joyce Carole Oates

I’ve read enough of Oates’ short stories to convince me that I’m not a fan, and On Boxing didn’t change that. She loves long sentences and profound-ish phrases more than character, plot, or thesis. (Reminds me of Chesterton’s maxim that small ideas hide behind long words.)

However, I’ll say this in support of this collection of verbose meditations on hitting people as sport:

1. it doesn’t over-use the phrases “manly science” or “sweet science”

2. it doesn’t try to prove that women should box

3. it doesn’t try to analyze the fighters without talking to them.

If you’re not sure whether boxing has any redemptive value, and you’re the type of person who can be swayed by personal reflection, then give this a try.