God in the library

Mikael Niemi's novel To Cook a Bear, set in northern Sweden in the middle of the 19th century, includes a wonderful conversation about libraries.

Jussi, the uneducated young man being tutored by the pastor Laestadius, finds it hard to believe that large buildings filled with books actually exist. "That must be dreadful," he says, dreadful because no one but God could ever hope to read them all.

Laestadius replies, "Maybe that's the purpose of libraries, that we should witness God's greatness in them."

Yet it is Jussi who has the last word when he says, "But if libraries exist, do we need churches?"

This exchange makes three points I would like to comment on:

1. Even my own personal library includes more books than I will ever be able to read. I find that thought dreadful. Not only do I wish to read them all, but I want to reread many of those I have already read. It is not the existence of the books themselves that is dreadful, and I don't think Jussi means this. Even speed readers, and I am not among them, cannot read all they would like to read. It truly is a dreadful thought for lovers of books.

2. Do libraries reveal the greatness of God? It is a matter of perspective, of course. Just as some see the vast universe or the amazing natural world around us as evidence of a Creator, while others don't, so the vast knowledge, points of view and creativity assembled in a library may or may not be viewed as evidence of God's greatness. The Bible speaks of mankind as being made in God's image, suggesting that people are also creators, their work, as well as God's own, on display at the local library.

3. A library and a church are alike in that as a library consists of the books, not the building in which they are housed, so a church consists of a group of believers, not the building where they worship. Those who find evidence of God in a library are the church.

Hiding an elephant

How does one hide an elephant? This is one of the questions facing Hettie Quin in S. Kirk Walsh's intriguing first novel, The Elephant of Belfast (2021). Another is, which of three flawed men might be the one for her? Yet another is, how to stay alive when the Germans are bombing Belfast every night?

Hettie works in a private zoo in Belfast in 1940, and she is thrilled when a young elephant, Violet, is placed in her care. She lives with her mother after her father deserted the family and after her older sister died in childbirth. Living with her depressed mother becomes difficult, so Hettie spends more and more time at the zoo.

The men in her life include Liam, her sister's handsome husband, a committed and violent IRA follower whose advances prove hard to resist. Then there is Samuel, who seems charming and sometimes heroic, yet becomes brutish whenever they are alone, and Ferris, a fellow zookeeper who is steady but bland.

As the bombing of the city becomes more severe, Belfast officials fear zoo animals could escape and threaten citizens, and so the police, which now include Samuel on the force, are ordered to kill large predators and even the elephants. Hettie flees with Violet, raising the dilemma of where to hide her.

The novel, based partly on a real person and a true story, proves irresistible, although it seems to end before the story does. What happens to Violet? What happens to Hettie? Does she choose any of those three men? Readers are left with as many questions as they started with?

Excluded books

School libraries, like most public libraries, routinely discard old books to make room for new ones. This is an unfortunate, yet necessary, concession to the fact that new books are being published all the time, yet shelf space is limited. Ideally classics, as well as older books that still have a high readership, remain on the shelves after these purges occur.

A public high school in Ontario, Canada, discarded roughly half of the books in the school library over the summer, reportedly including every book published prior to 2008, or just 15 years ago. This followed a directive from Canada's minister of education to make school libraries more inclusive. Inclusivity, unfortunately, generally means excluding something, in this case older books containing older ideas.

As the library now has many empty shelves, shelf space was obviously not the reason for discarding so many books.

The school board explained, "Books published prior to 2008 that are damaged, inaccurate, or do not have strong circulation data ... are removed." The troubling part of this statement is the word inaccurate. What does accuracy mean in a work of fiction? And who read through all those nonfiction books to determine which statements are true and which are false?

The statement went on to say that older titles can remain if they are "accurate, serve the curriculum, align with board initiatives and are responsive to student interest." All this vague language suggests that only books with approved points of view will be allowed. In other words, not inclusive at all.

Consider some of the books published before 2008 that have long been found in high school libraries and in high school curriculums: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Animal Farm, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Flowers for Algernon, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, Little Women and Treasure Island. Canada, no doubt, has its own classics from before 2008 that have often been read by teenagers. Even the Harry Potter books were published before 2008, as were those Judy Blume books once so controversial.

After an uproar by parents in the school district, the education minister reportedly ordered the school to end the practice of discarding books arbitrarily by date. But by then the shelves were already empty.

A warning for the church

In Letter to the American Church (2022), Eric Metaxas draws parallels between the American church today and the German church of the 1930s. And as the biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas knows something about the German church during the rise of Hitler.

What the two churches, 90 years apart, have in common, he says, is the fear to speak the truth, a desire to stay on the sidelines and a belief that in time everything will right itself without pastors and congregations having to do anything. This strategy didn't work for the German church, most of which chose to ignore the persecution of Jews, the undemocratic power grab by the Nazis and the militarization of their country.

Nor, says Metaxas, will it work for the American churches choosing to turn their back on the killing of babies in the womb, on the expansion of government power, on the loss of freedoms, on the lie that men can become women and women can become men simply by wishing it so, on the acceptance of promiscuous sex, even among children. Most churches, my own included, have nothing to say on issues that threaten America and, in fact, the church itself.

Metaxas devotes much of his book to challenging the idea that the church should stay out of politics. On the contrary, he argues that the Bible tells believers that they must be separate from the world around them, yet an active part of it at the same time. "Believers have always been called to speak the truth and to fight against injustice of any kind," he writes. "As we have said, we are obliged courageously to bring our faith to bear on all issues."

Bonhoeffer's warning to the German church was largely ignored, and perhaps this warning given by Eric Metaxas will be ignored as well. And perhaps 90 years from now, someone will find this book and feel inspired to give remnants of the Christian church much the same warning.

No surrender

In mystery fiction, apparent suicides that turn out to be murders are something of a cliche. So in Caleb Carr's 2016 novel Surrender, New York, when apparent murders turn out to be suicides you already have something original.

The novel qualifies as a sequel to Carr's successful The Alienist, even if the story takes place a century later. The narrator, criminal psychologist Dr. Trajan Jones, is an expert on Laszlo Kreisler, the hero of the earlier novel, and along with his college, Dr. Michael Li, he follows Kreisler's crime-solving methods even though they often conflict with the forensic methods of modern police departments. Partly for this reason, Jones and Li have been exiled from New York City to the upstate town of Surrender, where a series of bodies of teenagers appear under unusual circumstances.

State and local police suspect a serial killer preying on runaway children, and they don't welcome interference from Jones and Li, who suspect the teens are actually throwaway children who killed themselves, but whose bodies were then moved and arranged into something like tableaus.

The difference between runaway and throwaway is significant. Throwaways are a political sensitive issue in the state. They are children and teenagers abandoned by their often drug-addled parents. These particular kids seem to have been funneled to wealthy people in New York City. Whether because of sexual exploitation or other reasons, the teens returned to Surrender, where they committed suicide.

This is a 600-page novel, so there is obviously much more going on. Both Jones and Li find romance. Jones has a pet cheetah, which figures prominently in the story. A bright teenage boy, himself a throwaway, becomes their assistant detective and an important character. A sniper in the hills around Surrender threatens Jones and his team, an apparent attempt to get them to back off.

The pair do not surrender, however, and all this buildup eventually powers into an exciting conclusion that proves rewarding, even if not entirely believable.

Unpublishable books

Would anyone ever publish a sequel to the Bible? Well don't give anybody ideas, but Graham Johnson and Rob Hibbert imagine Holy Bible II in their audacious parody book Rejected Books: The Most Unpublishable Books of All Time.

Theirs is a hit-or-miss book, with as many misses as hits, yet those hits are indeed entertaining. I particularly enjoy Unalphabetized Dictionary (although even an alphabetized dictionary may be unpublishable now), Thatcher in the Rye (the cover showing an image of Margaret Thatcher on a slice of rye toast) and Rhetorical Questions Answered. The latter proposed book includes a couple of sample pages that are good fun.

Sometimes  Johnson and Hibbert provide an imagined publisher's reason for rejecting a book proposal. In the case of  Holy Bible II the comment is: "All of the authors from the first book are dead."

Regrets either way

Mikael Niemi

Words that are only thought become crumbs; they may be enough for the moment, but they're forgotten just as quickly. It is only when they are uttered by the mouth that we see what they are worth.

Mikael Niemi, To Cook a Bear

I may have as many regrets about words I didn't say, but thought, as words I did say but should have given more thought to.

We have all said things we later regret. They may have simply been wrong, whether factually or morally. We may have spoken about someone we didn't realize was within hearing distance. We may have said something in jest that the other person took seriously. We may have said things intended to be hurtful, and were, yet we regret them when our temper cools. Spoken words have repercussions, both good and bad.

Yet we also regret things left unsaid after a loved one dies. We regret funny remarks that occurred to us a second too late. We regret that the fine words we frame in our minds are too often not the words we actually say. We regret not speaking up before bad decisions are made.

Words that are only thought become crumbs, says the character in Mikael Niemi's novel. Yet crumbs at least have substance. Unspoken words may amount to nothing but regrets, or in some cases a sense of relief. To see what words are worth they must be spoken — or better yet, written down. They must have an audience, someone else who will determine their true value.

Something to prove

I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice — they all make fine fuel.

Edna Ferber

So many fine writers were outcasts in high school. They were bullied, picked on, rejected, ignored. And so later, when they try their hand at writing, they carry a grudge. They want to show them. The jocks and homecoming queens have just gotten older, while these aspiring writers keep pushing to excel and make a name for themselves.

Edna Ferber

As Edna Ferber put it, resentments and a sense of injustice make fine fuel for writers, giving them something to prove.

The flip side of this is that early success for a writer can ruin a promising career. What else is there to prove once one has written a best-seller? Harper Lee provides a good example. She published nothing after To Kill a Mockingbird. Her childhood friend, Truman Capote, wrote more, but nothing important after the success of In Cold Blood. There are numerous other examples of authors who produced nothing of significance after an early success.

In his book The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes remembers, "A Pulitzer committee member once told me that they'd hesitated to award this prize to a gifted twenty-five-year-old because — based on past experience — they knew that winning a Pulitzer too young could make a subsequent career seem anticlimactic. Nobel laureates in literature seldom write anything major thereafter."

Having something to prove can inspire writers, or anyone else, to greatness. When it has already been proven, what's the point?

Good vs. evil

Early in To Cook a Bear (2017), Swedish author Mikael Niemi's amazing novel, one finds a discussion of what makes a person good. Jussi, the outcast boy whom Laestadius, a famous pastor (and true historical figure) has adopted informally as his son, suggests the pastor himself as the model of a good person. The pastor, in turn, points to Jussi. "If you're so quiet that you disappear, how could you be evil?" he says.

This question of what makes a person good or evil becomes a dominant theme in the novel, which is ultimately a murder mystery. Both Jussi and Laestadius are placed in situations where they must do evil deeds for good ends.

The savage killing of the first young woman is blamed on a bear, which is later caught, killed and eaten. The pastor, however, notices evidence the sheriff chooses to ignore, evidence that points to a human attacker. Then another girl is assaulted. When she later dies, the sheriff attributes it to suicide. Again the pastor knows better.

Eventually, after the sheriff finally agrees there must be a human culprit, it is Jussi who is arrested, convicted and sentenced to decapitation. When Laestadius identifies the true murderer, the question becomes whether evil is the only way to fight evil. Who then is good?

Niemi writes a beautiful novel, which even in translation often reads like poetry.

The bravery of writers

Ask a non-writer which sounds scarier, writing a book or climbing Mount Everest, and the answer you hear will likely be the latter. Writers know better.

In his fine 1995 book The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes explores just how scary writing can be, even for and perhaps especially for the best writers. The fears are many: Can I actually do this? Will anyone publish it? Will anyone want to read it? Will they like it? Will people laugh at me? What if I make embarrassing mistakes? What if people realize I am actually writing about them? What if I expose my true self in my writing?

Keyes shares the words and stories of many writers who have addressed their fears. E.B. White worried over every word, he tells us. "I write in terror," Cynthia Ozick said. "I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, sometimes every syllable." Erica Jong wrote, "Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads."

Yet fear in a writer is not necessarily a bad thing, assuming that writers possess the kind of courage Jong speaks about. Toni Morrison put it this way: "When you stiffen" (in anxiety while writing) "you know that whatever you stiffen about is very important. The stuff is important, the fear itself is information."

Or as Robert Cormier put it, "As much as there is joy in writing, there's always the little bit of terror to keep you on your toes."

There are plenty of how-to books out there for writers, but this book by Keyes is different in that it addresses not so much the writing itself as the courage it takes to actually do that writing, day after day after day. How much easier it would be to climb a mountain.

Books as events

Stendhal

Stendhal once said that a good book "is an event in my life." How true that is.

Just as we who are old enough remember where we were when JFK was assassinated, when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and when the Twin Towers collapsed, so we may remember where we were when we read certain notable books.

Most of the books I've read over the years bring back no specific memories of actually reading them. Some books I cannot remember reading at all. Yet I remember reading Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne while stretched out on my bed when I was in my early teens. I remember reading 1984 in my college dormitory. I recall reading Lonesome Dove on a family vacation trip to Arkansas. 

To be sure, these memories can have as much to do with circumstances as with the books themselves. Excellent books read in my comfortable reading chair are less likely to carry vivid memories into the future, simply because I read so many book there. But read a good book under unusual circumstances, such as on a cruise or in a hospital bed, and the memory may last forever, or at least for as long as you do. 

It's not about making friends

When we read a novel we place ourselves in the mind of the protagonist, especially if there is a first-person narrator. It can be unsettling when we don't identify with that protagonist, when we would make different moral choices, when we have a different world view, a different sex, a different time of life, a different political philosophy. We may be tempted to abandon such books midway, as I was when reading John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies a year ago. Not being a homosexual, I was uncomfortable upon discovering the novel's narrator is gay. Yet the story was so engrossing and well-written that I kept reading, and I am glad I did.

Vendela Vida

Novelist Vendela Vida comments on this sort of thing in The Writer's Library. She tells of assigning J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace to her grad students, who objected because they were upset by the main character's politics.

Vida says she told them, "Well, you don't read novels to make friends. You can go make friends in the real world, you know. We don't read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment or Nabokov's Lolita, for example, to make friends with the protagonists. You read novels to see how other people think."

I have read similar accounts from others who teach literature — students strongly objecting to being assigned novels they find morally or politically objectionable. Just as today's students refuse to tolerate campus speakers with views they find objectionable, so they sometimes refuse to tolerate literature for the same reasons. Yet this attitude could eliminate from curriculums much, if not most, of the greatest literature ever written. Attitudes about many things have changed over the years. Young people today do not behave in the same manner as those in a Jane Austen novel. Does this mean they shouldn't read Pride and Prejudice? Should we avoid Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of one objectionable word?

As Vida says, you read novels to see how other people think. If they think just like you, what's the point? What have you learned?

Tall tales galore

Multi-generational novels of the sort James Mitchener and Edward Rutherfurd are known for are a different kind of story, being several stories in one. Characters come and go. They grow up, grow old and die, leaving children and grandchildren to take over the narrative. What usually stays the same is the place where all this happens.

In the case of Michael Crummey’s Galore (2009), that place is Paradise Deep on the coast of Newfoundland. This fishing village, in a period from the early 19th century to the close of World War I, is home to people with names like King-me Sellers, Devine’s Widow,  Bride and Mary Tryphena. For all of them life is hard, but for some harder than others. Judah, for sample, is found in the belly of a beached whale. Bleached white, unable to speak and with an ever-present fish smell, he nevertheless marries Mary Tryphena and becomes the strange patriarch of an important family.

When a physician from the United States comes to town, Bride, a comely young woman, insists he pull out all her teeth so that she will not suffer from tooth decay when she gets older. The doctor eventually  falls in love with Bride, making her his bride.

Offbeat tales like this dominate the novel. There are conflicts, love stories, intrigues and struggles galore. I found Crummey's book often fascinating, yet often dull. That is usually the case with multi-generational novels. Some characters and some subplots are just more interesting than others.