Literature and Theology
A journal I'm always promising myself I'll read over but never seem to get to is Literature and Theology from the Oxford University Press. Next best thing .....
One of the blogs I visit - Faith and Theology - had a list today, and a list from a past post, of novels worth reading for those interested in theology (or not :-). I've read most of the books on the first list, but I'm ashamed to say I haven't read any on today's list (see below) which were all published in or after 2000. Here are links to the books, and also to the writers, some of whom are pretty interesting ...
1. Kazuo Ishiguro ...... When We Were Orphans (2000)
2. Salley Vickers ...... Miss Garnet's Angel (2000)
3. Ian McEwan ...... Atonement (2001)
4. Yann Martel ...... Life of Pi (2002)
5. Douglas Coupland ...... Hey Nostradamus! (2003)
6. Khaled Hosseini ...... The Kite Runner (2003)
7. Valerie Martin ...... Property (2003)
8. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ...... Purple Hibiscus (2004)
9. Orhan Pamuk ...... Snow (2004)
10. Marilynne Robinson ...... Gilead (2004)
One of the blogs I visit - Faith and Theology - had a list today, and a list from a past post, of novels worth reading for those interested in theology (or not :-). I've read most of the books on the first list, but I'm ashamed to say I haven't read any on today's list (see below) which were all published in or after 2000. Here are links to the books, and also to the writers, some of whom are pretty interesting ...
1. Kazuo Ishiguro ...... When We Were Orphans (2000)
2. Salley Vickers ...... Miss Garnet's Angel (2000)
3. Ian McEwan ...... Atonement (2001)
4. Yann Martel ...... Life of Pi (2002)
5. Douglas Coupland ...... Hey Nostradamus! (2003)
6. Khaled Hosseini ...... The Kite Runner (2003)
7. Valerie Martin ...... Property (2003)
8. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ...... Purple Hibiscus (2004)
9. Orhan Pamuk ...... Snow (2004)
10. Marilynne Robinson ...... Gilead (2004)
posted by crystal | 11:29 AM
9 Comments:
Miss Garnet's Angel is great, a warm and moving story with the Book of Tobit thrown in!
Thanks for the comment, Rob, that sounds like a book worth checking out.
Lol, I've read all the books on list one, but of this, only Atonement. Shows I'm not an avid reader of contemporary literature. ;)
A book that could be added to the list is Daniel Kehlmann, Measuring the World. The religious subtext is hidden, but it's there.
Hi Gabriele - you're doing better than I am as I've not read any of the new ones.
Oh, I looked up the book you mentioned, at the US Amazon.com - my german's not that good :-) - and it sounds really interesting. I love stories that have real people from the past in them (Kant!) and it also has the Amazon ... who could resist?
Crystal,
Thanks for the two lists. I'm disappointed by the absence of Latin American writers on both lists, though. Someone commenting on the first list finally mentioned Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the most important books of the 20th century. Given the importance of the Latin American church, and the growing number of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the U.S., I'd like to think that U.S. theologians are reading some of the masterworks of Latin American fiction from the last 50 years. There's such a rich and deep heritage there: Cortazar, Sabato, Fuentes, etc. Not to mention teh poetry of Nruda, Huidobro and others.
And no one mentioned Jose Saramago!!! That's a miss.
I like that someone brought up Franny and Zooey! That had a big impact on me when I read it.
I'm curious about the choice of Anna Karenina. What would be the theological aspect of that?
And don't feel bad, I haven't read any of the books on this new list either.
I didn't clarify that Saramago is Portugese. Nobel Prize Winner a few years ago. Theologically speaking, his novel Blindness, a kind of sci-fi-ish tale in which an entire society goes blind, may be the most interesting. He's also written the Gospel According to Jesus Christ, which I haven't read yet, but I imagine it has something to say about theology. My favorites are probably A History of the Siege of Lisbon, which definitely has theological elements, and The Stone Raft, in which the Iberian peninsula literally breaks off from Europe and starts floating away. Very fun, that one.
Guillaume, the blog from which the list came is British - I wonder if that might have anything to do with the lack of Latin American writers? I like the "magical realism" genre.
I have never read Franny and Zooey ... just looked it up and it sounds interesting. When I was growing up I read mostly science fiction and missed a lot of the classics, though in the area of "religion" I read stuff like the books of Carlos Castaneda and Yogananda :-)
Among many other things, Anna Karenina is a novel that is very much preoccupied with Christianity and atheism, largely involving the character of Levin, who constantly questions religious truths and forges a kind of circuitous path from unbelief to a rather wobbly faith. The novel contrasts two relationships, that of Anna and her lover Vronsky, which is based purely in desire and which becomes destructive to all concerned, and that of Levin and Kitty, which gets off to a very rocky start but only gets better. The two couples serve somewhat as critiques of the other; Anna becomes more and more abusive and dishonest, Dolly goes from being superficial to substantial, etc. I know this makes it sound as if I'm setting up Tolstoy as a cranky moralist -- and he is, somewhat -- but the beauty of the novel is not in his morality but in the way he weaves these stories in and out of each other. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky both wrestled with the philosophical problems of their age -- unbelief, nihilism, etc. -- and the debate carries over into their books.
RW, thanks for the comment. I'm ashamed to say I have not read any of Tolstoy's books, but I've read a little about him ... his ideas of non-violence and Christian anarchism. A very interesting guy.
Post a Comment
<< Home