The Last Testament by David Javerbaum

Posted on April 15, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 18 March, 2013

This is an extended, 364-page joke in which God has been convinced by his publisher to write a new testament, his first since the Quran, in which he finally answers all those questions people have been asking about Him and His work.

Despite really being a single joke wrought out into a full length novel, The Last Testament did mostly hold my interest. It was very funny, funny enough to have me laughing out loud in several places, even if many of the jokes have been done before (“Actually, it really was Adam and Steve…”).

The book is written in a King James-ish style, full of thees and thous and -ests, and it’s broken up into chapters and verses. This works for the larger joke and, in several places, really added to the humour of what was being said, but it made for difficult and tiresome reading. It ended up taking me a long time to get through the book because I could only read in short bursts or I’d just get bored with the writing style.

I’m probably the worst person to judge, but I found the jokes to be more or less unheretical. I mean, obviously, he’s poking fun at the Trinity and all that, but at no point did I get the sense that he was deliberately trying to offend anyone. If anything, the jokes were mostly in the same vein that I heard in Church and Meeting growing up.

Since I’m working on reading through his first Testament, so I really enjoyed the first part of the book where Javerbaum gives a “behind the scenes tell all.” While the rest of the book can be read and appreciated by anyone with a reasonably good pop culture knowledge, the first part is definitely much (MUCH!) funnier with a good overall knowledge of the Old Testament.

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Don’t Know Much About the Bible by Kenneth C. Davis

Posted on March 30, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 1 March, 2013

I’ve been working on my Bible reading project over at Carpe Scriptura and I came across a recommendation to read this book. Though the stated objective of my project is just to chronicle my personal impressions of the text, I do like to cheat and get some outside perspectives occasionally, particularly when I raise questions that require more historically-founded answers.

Don’t Know Much About the Bible is a great introduction to the Old and New Testaments. Davis has a summary of each book, including a discussion of the themes, issues, and current scholarly thoughts for most. He also covers some of the bible basics, such as the Document Hypothesis. In that sense, I found it to be a perfect little primer for cultural Christians and others who just want a crash course on the contents of the Bible but lack the patience to slog through the actual text (which I fully understand). I could also see it working well as a quick reference book for someone who does enough Bible-talk to need one, but not enough to memorize all the information.

I found the information to be well presented and the writing style to be accessible. That being said, I did notice a few issues. Most notably, Davis seems rather intent on calling women in the bible prostitutes, such as Rahab (which is a little iffy). Worse, he presents their professions as if they were undisputed facts, stated explicitly in the text. I suppose he should get some credit for dispelling the myth about Mary of Magdala being a prostitute – though that correction is nearly more famous than the original myth by now.

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The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

Posted on March 25, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 27 February, 2013

When I’m not reading and reviewing books here, I’m reading and reviewing the Bible over at my other blog, Carpe Scriptura. As a result, I’m more than a little familiar with Genesis.

Since Crumb, in his own words, “do[es] not believe the Bible is “the word of God”,” I was paying particular attention to the accuracy in his depictions. Even though he reproduces nearly all of the text in the pages, it would be easy enough to use the illustrations to poke fun at the text. Yet I found his depictions to be quite fair. Where some interpreting was needed, I found him to generally opt for the uncontroversial.

The art style is quite neat, and I get the sense that Crumb is a fan of muscles. His drawings reminded me of the woodcarvings used to illustrate many older Bibles, so I found that the style was fitting the cultural context of the material quite well.

Crumb does provide a few extra thoughts in a “Commentaries” section as a back (which I found quite interesting), but mostly he just straightforwardly presents the text of the Bible with illustrations and speech rendered as speech bubbles. Compared to many of the other similar attempts I’ve seen where the stories are paraphrased and abridged, I actually found this to be a very neutral retelling.

If you are interested in reading the first book of the Bible but find the text a little too daunting, this is a fantastic alternative.

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Looking For Alaska by John Green

Posted on November 15, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 10 November, 2012

I watch the Vlogbrothers on YouTube, so I’d heard a lot about Looking For Alaska, but still knew very few details. All I knew going in was that it would be about a nerdy boy falling in love with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl named Alaska.That’s it. And while my general stance is along the lines of “it’s the journey, not the end, that counts,” I actually feel that not knowing is important with this novel. Not knowing let it whack me. I generally like to think of myself as a nice person, and I want you to be whacked too.

So here’s my attempt at a totally spoiler-free review:

Miles Halter is friendless and bored, so he goes in search of the Great Perhaps in the form of a boarding school. There, his life is changed when he starts making friends, takes up smoking, and meets Alaska.

I dislike the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, and I found Alaska to be generally an unpleasant person. Miles and the Colonel also made a lot of very insensitive mistakes that hurt the people around them. But it captured so well my experience of being that age – the total lack of social graces, the exhibition of self-destruction, the “I’m crazier than you are” pissing contests… Have I ever mentioned how embarrassed I am of my teenage years?

But despite the unlikeable characters, Green really did capture the experience of being a teen, and he used that backdrop to explore some pretty interesting stuff (which I won’t discuss any further because… well… see above). And while I certainly wouldn’t want any of these kids in my real life, it was a riot to read about their adventures and mishaps, and their little witticisms.

Nothing I have said about Looking For Alaska has been a flaw. The ending – the epiphany, if you can call it that – was a little weak, but that’s really it. That’s the only flaw. I loved reading this book so much that I had trouble putting it down, even when my services as a parent were required. I couldn’t recommend it enough!

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Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway

Posted on March 5, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 2006

Kiss of the Fur Queen is the story of two Cree brothers who were taken from their families to be raised in one of Canada’s infamous residential schools. The story follows them as adults as they come to terms with what happened to them.

It’s a magical story that interweaves the compelling story of the brothers and the more mystical elements of Cree tradition. Highway’s style is lyrical, but with a gritty realism that prevents it from ever seeming too purple.

I read Kiss of the Fur Queen as part of my university course on First Nations literature (as the “modern fiction” entry) and it was by far my favourite book of the course, perhaps of the entire year; and the beauty of the novel has stayed with me over the years. I can’t recommend it enough!

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Dune #4: God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

Posted on March 1, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 30 August, 2010

Over three thousand years have passed since Paul Atreides died and his son, Leto, became emperor. Since then, Arrakis has been fully transformed, the sand worms have gone extinct, and the universe is held together solely by Emperor Leto’s stockpiles of spice. Leto himself has also been transformed, into the great sand worm Shai Hulud.

God Emperor is written in a very different style than the other books in the series. While all have spent a good deal of time on political/religious theory, this one is nearly devoted to it, at the expense of plot and characters. Duncan Idaho makes a reappearance and his reaction to having been resurrected time and time again over the course of three millennia is interesting, but it isn’t enough to fill 400 pages.

Leto’s rantings about the patterns of human civilization are sometimes interesting, but often laughably silly. One reader commented that this is the lowest point in the series. With the prospect of two more books ahead of me, I hope that this was an accurate assessment!

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Dune #2: Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Posted on February 25, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 2007

The Atreides star has risen. Paul is emperor and rules the universe from his seat on Arrakis, transforming the empire into a theocracy. And yet Chani, the imperial concubine, has still not produced an heir.

Dune Messiah was not nearly as good as Dune, but it was still very interesting. Paul’s reaction to becoming Muad-Dib – a kind of prophet – have greatly shaped my views on religion and on those who seem eager to speak on behalf of a god. This book does suffer from some sequelitis (trying to be both the original and it’s own book, but failing to strike the right balance between the two), but it’s still very much worth the read.

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Dune #1: Dune by Frank Herbert

Posted on February 20, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 2006

The Atreides are strangers to Arrakis, called Dune. The planet is the only place where spice – the most valuable commodity in the universe – can be produced. Their presence re-ignites an ancient conflict with House Harkonnen, bitter enemies of the Atreides. Amidst political intrigue, a sisterhood called the Bene Gesserit try to breed a superhuman they call the Kwisatz Haderach, and the desert people, the Fremen, look on at the universe that fights over their dunes.

The series, taken as a whole, scores only slightly above “meh.” But the original, Dune is a masterpiece. While fantastical, the fictional universe is just similar enough to our real world to provide a great deal of food for thought. The setting is enchanting and the characters are interesting. This book captivated me right from the start and I still think of it as one of my favourites.

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The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Posted on February 8, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 3 February, 2012

Hazel has terminal cancer. She sits in her Cancer Kid Support Group rolling her eyes as she listens to the other children, children who will get better, who will beat their cancer, who will grow into adulthood. She’s tired of being told how brave she is. She’s tired of the refusal of those around her to face mortality.

Then she met Augustus Waters.

John Green doesn’t believe in epiphanies. It was odd reading a book about the intersection between love and terminal illness without a tidy epiphany to pull the narrative threads together at the end. That’s not to say that nothing is learned. The characters grow and change, they touch the lives around them and are touched, but there are no epiphanies.

I don’t want to go into more detail out of respect for the author’s wishes that no plot points be revealed. But I will say that this isn’t your average tear-jerker that relies on the inherent emotionality of the set-up to play at depth. Rather, The Fault In Our Stars is legitimately clever and thought-provoking (and, of course, very sad). I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys books that stay with you and keep you thinking long after the final page has been turned.

As an aside, I’ve been watching John Green (and his brother Hank) on YouTube for quite a while. It changed the experience of the reading, in that I could spot some of the influences Green was drawing from in creating his fictional world (such as the goat milk soap detail), and I felt that I had some insight into his opinions and arguments that he was fictionalizing. I feel that this enriched my experience of the book, allowing me to see a broader dimension than just what found its way onto the page.

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P.S. Library

A chronicle of that which passes before my eyes…

Category Archives: Religion