Thanks, Stephen. I read a little bit about the book, and it looks fascinating.
I’d not heard of the author, which isn’t surprising as the only books I recall reading by Polish authors are “Hospital of the Transfiguration” (Stanislaw Lem) and “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” (Tadeusz Borowski). Both excellent.
I just started Adele Berlin’s commentary on Lamentations.
Thanks, Stephen. I read a little bit about the book, and it looks fascinating.
Your description Stephen makes the author’s work worth a go at reading even though I am not a fan of sci-fi –this looks like a good place to try again.
At the moment I am reading a book authored by Christine Hayes titled What’s Divine About Divine Law. The book is really well put together with introductions to each section. It actually begins with what she calls biblical discourses of law that she says is “best understood as a complex entanglement of reason, will, history; of wisdom, power, and myth.” There are five biblical discourses. Then a section on discourses in Greek and Roman philosophy(s) of divine law of which there are seven involving what is natural law and what is human positive law; what is realism compared with nominalism. She moves through G-R and then covers Biblical adaptations to G-R at the Hellenic period including Philo of Alexandria, Letter of Aristeas, Enoch, Qumran, to Paul; and then to the early Rabbinic approach.
I’m just up to Rabbinic interpretation and that involves the difference between authentication and validation. Also pluralism versus monism and the spectrum between them. She’ll be tying everything all together later in the book.
It’s a read over again kind of book because it’s so packed with ideas and interesting details. I like Christine Hayes’ work. She’s very clear and well-ordered in her thinking and writing.
BJH1960 I am a huge fan of Stanislaw Lem. His Master’s Voice is my favorite. He was an admirer of Zulawski and it was through Lem that I first heard of him. Earlier this year I read a terrific book about Lem and his experience as a Polish Jew in the Holocaust and its effect on his writing. It really transformed my view of his work.
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Jill, Christine Hayes’s book on divine law sounds interesting. Thanks. I’ll put it on my list.
My view at this point is that for a book to be “good” science fiction it must first be a good book. Everyone has tastes of course but no matter the genre what truly creative artist wants to simply follow a formula? Back in the old days I used to know literary snoots who looked down on science fiction. I had a list of books I would recommend to such folks to confound their expectations. Surely I could add Zulawski to that list. But you don’t see many of those sorts anymore. In our culture science fiction has rather won the day. We are at the other extreme. People lap up a lot of garbage simply because it has aliens and spaceships. (I won’t name any names lest I fear for my life.)
Jill
“It’s a read over again kind of book because it’s so packed with ideas and interesting details. I like Christine Hayes’ work. She’s very clear and well-ordered in her thinking and writing.”
Clarity is so important and often not so easy to find when writing about difficult topics connected to the Bible. I’ll make a note of the book and author. I’d love to hear other writers you’ve come across that you feel the same about.
Stephen
“I am a huge fan of Stanislaw Lem. His Master’s Voice is my favorite. He was an admirer of Zulawski and it was through Lem that I first heard of him. Earlier this year I read a terrific book about Lem and his experience as a Polish Jew in the Holocaust and its effect on his writing. It really transformed my view of his work.
Holocaust and the Stars “
Excellent. I’m really looking forward to reading both and also the Zulawski.
It’s about time I start adding more fiction to my reading. Up into my 40s, I was reading almost exclusively fiction but somehow things got turned around, and I was led astray. Time to get a little balance.
It’s about time I start adding more fiction to my reading. Up into my 40s, I was reading almost exclusively fiction but somehow things got turned around, and I was led astray. Time to get a little balance.
Go and sin no more. When I reach saturation point with non-fiction I get this tight, gritty feeling inside and I know it’s time to dream.
Tomos, yes, I did tackle the Karamazov Brothers thanks to the folks here who influenced me to try his work again. Since then, I’ve gone on to more biblical subjects. I seem to be mostly focused in (the first 5 books of) Genesis. But after reading Brothers I researching a bit stumbled onto a Dostoevsky society where I found an interesting title by Paul J. Contino, Dostoevsky’s Incarnational Realism, Finding Christ among the Karamazovs. Author Contino is known for his work in this circle. I have not read the book yet but for your interest here is a link to an interview with Paul Contino back to June of ’23 with Peter Gregory Winsky.
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A good commentary should help one better understand and appreciate what is being read. Adele Berlin’s commentary on Lamentations certainly did that. It allowed me to see it in ways I had not previously.
It is as she says, a book that holds out no comfort– one long plea to be heard is never answered.
Her focus is not on the historical background, which is so well known, but rather on its literary aspects, diving into the imagery and the metaphors and the religious belief that underly them, defilement of the land and moral impurity.
One of my favorite parts of her commentary was her discussion of Lam 3:1-13, which is constructed on the metaphor of a sheep and shepherd. No, this is not the shepherd of Psalm 23, and where is he leading them? Into exile.
Atra-Hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood,
with the Sumerian Flood Story
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I’ve always had a particular affinity for the Cynics, and since it’s been a while since I’ve read anything by or about them, I’m giving this a go:
I’d be interested in hearing what others are reading.
One of the great things about this forum besides all the well-thought-out posts and responses are the books that are mentioned or recommended.
About a year ago I discovered the novels of Benjamín Labatut, born in the Netherlands but a resident of Chile since he was 14. His novels are translations from the Spanish.
First I read ** you do not have permission to see this link **. This book combines an essay, two short stories, a short novel, and a semi-biographical prose piece. It sounds like a mess but it is brilliantly structured and the language is masterful.
It’s been called a “non-fiction novel” or “fictionalized biographies”. The book concerns itself with a series of early 20th century physicists: their visions, their struggles, their relationships, their madnesses. I really love the Borgesian pseudo-essay & fictionalized memoir style.
Recently I finished the companion novel, ** you do not have permission to see this link ** which continues the stylistic approach of the other novel but focuses on the life and career of John von Neumann, either a genius or batsh*t crazy or most likely, both, since from sufficient altitude the boundaries of those neighboring countries are notoriously hard to trace. This novel is even better than the preceding work, but I would defintely start with WWCTUTW just to appreciate the spirit of the books.
My problem with most modern novels, as well written as they might be, is that their sensibility is little different than parlor novels of the 1850s. Sure they may take place in the present day and deal with current social concerns but they haven’t internalized the profound conceptual visions made available through our understanding of the universe, Deep Space and Deep Time. I’m not demanding everyone write about science, much less science fiction, but if literature cannot explore the universe in which we actually live then it really is reduced to fantasy. Labatut is writing true 21st century literature. The kind of thing I would want to write if I had any talent.
Thanks, Stephen. My knowledge of Chilean writers is abysmal. Besides Neruda and Allende (“The House of the Spirits” is a favorite) I don’t know of any others offhand, which is a pity, since Chile is a place I’ve always wanted to visit ever since coming across a collection of young Chilean poets in the early 80s and then working with a woman who with her husband had spent a year there and told me of its wonders. I best get there in the next few years while I’m still mobile and relatively sane.
“The Maniac” sounds like something I’d love. Not so sure about the other one, but I’ll likely take your advice and read it first. I’ll put them both on my list of books to get.
I love genre-bending. We were discussing Stanislaw Lem. He wrote
** you do not have permission to see this link **
a collection of introductions to imaginary books. One such book concerns the “new” science of Bitistics, the study of non-human writing, i.e., computer generated literature, which seems awfully relevant now for a book, imaginary or not, written in 1981!
Also see ** you do not have permission to see this link **, a collection of book reviews of, you guessed it, imaginary books. The introduction to the book is an erudite parody of the classic bloviating literary critic.
I’ve just finished the following:
While I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it is very long, and there is not much of a plot or action. Think of the narrator as a feline Tristram Shandy.
On occasion, there are verses of exquisite beauty:
“The autumn leaves, arranged in two or three scarlet terraces among the pine trees, have fallen like ancient dreams.”
However, mainly it’s just very funny.
Humor is, of course, subjective, so I’ve included two excerpts:
“Being a Japanese cat, I naturally side with Japan. I have even been cherishing a vague ambition to organize some kind of Cats Brigade which, if only a scratch formation, could still inflict claw-damage on the Russian horde. Being thus magnificently militant, why should I dither over a miserable rat or two? So long as the will to catch them burns within me, why, I could rake them in with my eyes shut.”
“Of course inside his skull, deep below the dandruff, universal truths may be spinning around in a shower of fiery sparks like so many Catherine Wheels. It’s possible, but judging from his external appearance, not likely even in one’s wildest imaginings.”
Y’all are going off on Stanislaw Lem but haven’t mentioned his most famous work. Solaris is a top-ten sci fi book for sure. I had not heard of Master’s Voice but will order it now.
I am working through Dale Allison’s The Resurrection of Jesus, which is (seems to me) a very rare case of forthright and intelligent apologetics. The 2021 edition post-dates Professor Ehrman’s books on the subject – has he commented or addressed it?
The only reference to the work of Dale Allison I could find on the blog, admittedly after a cursory search, was this-
We could obviously have a year-long thread on the topic of what it was Jesus taught during his itinerant preaching ministry. Many people have written very long books on the subject – and the books just keep comin’ out. If you want a more extended discussion of my views on the matter, you can see my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. I include bibliography of other works to consult. For my money, among the best and most influential have been John Meier, E. P. Sanders, Dale Allison, and Paula Fredriksen – all of whom agree that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptic preacher.
As far as Solaris let me recommend that readers avoid the unfortunately most easily attained English translation from Harper, based on another translation from Polish to French. Lem, fluent in English, disliked it. It changed some of the character’s names and even altered the text. Seek out instead the Bill Johnston translation, directly from Polish to English. Because of legal issues it is now only available on Audible and Kindle. It seems however that sometime next year Faber & Faber is going to come out with a print edition of Johnston’s much superior translation. However it’s likely to be a limited, specialty item so probably pricey. I possess a MP3 CD audiobook version. (You’ll need a CD player that plays MP3s of course.)
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I just finished ** you do not have permission to see this link ** by Samantha Harvey. Orbital is the 2024 Book Prize winner although I had no idea it was even nominated when I bought it a while back. I was drawn to it by the subject matter.
The novel takes place over a span of 24 hours aboard the International Space Station. It follows six astronauts from Japan, the US, the UK, Italy, and Russia through 16 orbits, each lasting 90 minutes, each chapter a single orbit. We observe them at their duties and assignments but also enter into their memories and dreams and reflections. As the earth rolls along beneath them it becomes another character in the book. We experience both the astronauts’ detachment from and connection with the earth.
The novel has been criticized in some quarters because it is virtually plotless. If by plot we mean love affairs, gunfights, or car chases that is certainly true. We do watch a typhoon slowly envelope the Philippines and another ship in orbit being prepped for a return to the Moon. The book is a beautifully written meditation. To avoid spoilers I won’t describe the episode that made me cry.
There was a brief absurd controversy because the book treats a Russian character sympathetically. It was accused of being “pro-Putin” because of the Ukraine invasion. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists the bulk of the work was written during the pandemic and completed before the invasion in 2022. And it’s real dang hard to see how you could have a novel take place aboard the ISS without dealing with the Russians.
Harvey said she had the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** on all during the time of the novel’s composition. As I write this the ISS just crossed the Great Lakes region although a pretty heavy cloud cover restricted the view.
The Science Fiction community has latched on to this work doubtless because of its success. Is it science fiction? It takes place in space. But there is nothing present in the book in the realm of the fantastic. Currently there are plans to return to the moon. So, if we mean genre science fiction, then I would say no. But if we mean fiction about science and how it has transformed our views of the universe then yes, of course.
The novel has been criticized in some quarters because it is virtually plotless. If by plot we mean love affairs, gunfights, or car chases that is certainly true. We do watch a typhoon slowly envelope the Philippines and another ship in orbit being prepped for a return to the Moon. The book is a beautifully written meditation. To avoid spoilers I won’t describe the episode that made me cry.
It sounds well worth reading. Nothing quite like being carried away by beautiful prose.
I was reading a little on the author, and her other books seem interesting as well (e.g. The Wilderness and The Shapeless Unease).
I’m about halfway through Kafka: The Decisive Years by Reiner Stach, which is quite good.
BDEhrman
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