June Reading Log

Preaching, ethics, Philip Roth, and Daredevil...here's a look at what I was reading in June!

6 Articles I Like This Month

"Prospect and Pariah" by S.L. Price, Sports Illustrated. 36 minutes.
"Winning at the Cost of Silence" by Beth Davies, Baseball Prospectus. 9 minutes.

The most talked about player of this year's MLB Draft was undoubtedly Luke Heimlich, a pitcher with the talent to go in the first round but a guilty plea for child molestation that repelled any team from drafting him at all. The SI article does a great job explaining the complexities of the story, while the shorter piece from Baseball Prospectus writes from the perspective of a writer who was molested as a child herself.

"A Journey into the Righteous, Risk-Averse World of Faith-Based Films" by Joanna Rothkopf, Jezebel. 20 minutes.

An overview of how, why, and for whom faith-based films, which are growing in both popularity and professionalism, are made. Surprisingly objective, particularly given the loaded topic and the site that published the article.

"The Great High School Impostor" by Daniel Riley, GQ. 28 minutes.

A crazy story about a 19-year old Ukrainian who, in pursuit of the American dream, posed as a high school freshman and nearly made it through all 4 years of high school before getting caught.

"How Houston Lost Its Mind Over a Trump Shirt" by R.G. Ratcliffe, Texas Monthly. 24 minutes.

An all-too-believable example of our modern outrage culture run amok: the story of how one woman's outburst at the sight of a Donald Trump T-shirt led to a firestorm online and in a Houston suburb. Also serves as a reminder that conflict is ALWAYS best handled in person instead of on social media.

"Pay the Homeless" by Bryce Covert, Longreads. 10 minutes.

There are indisputably better ways to help the homeless than by giving them your spare change, and at a systemic level, doing so may actually contribute to poverty instead of helping solve it. But when it comes to that real-life, on-the-ground moment when a panhandler asks you for money, is it more compassionate to give what you can or to keep walking? This essay convincingly makes the case for the former.

SPIRIT, WORD, AND STORY: A PHILOSOPHY OF PREACHING by Calvin Miller

I'm always interested in a book on preaching, so this was a great find at our local used bookstore. As the subtitle indicates, Spirit, Word, and Story is not so much a manual for preachers as it as a book about the philosophy behind one's hermeneutics, i.e. how the preacher approaches his craft.

Calvin Miller, an evangelical pastor and author, organizes his thoughts based on the three parts of the title. First, he argues that the preacher's words must be grounded in the movement of the Holy Spirit, and that the preacher will not be effective if he or she is not actively engaged in regular prayer, study, and devotional practices. Second, Miller makes the important point that all sermons should be Bible-based, and provides his own tips on illuminating and applying what Scripture teaches. Third and finally, Miller advocates for the relevance and effectiveness of narrative sermons, arguing that when done well stories are more effective at conveying a message than precepts.

The meat of this book is admittedly not really treading any new ground, especially for those who have studied under narrative preachers like Fred Craddock and Eugene Lowry. However, it was a delight to read because of Miller's eloquence on the subject—as I mentioned, Miller is an author as well as pastor, and you can see why. Extremely well read, deft with turns of phrase, and able to cogently organize and deliver his thoughts, Miller is an excellent writer, and most of my highlighting in the book had less to do with what he was saying than how well he said it. Eloquence is not the most important thing in preaching, (that would be, of course, the proclamation of the Gospel), but it is important, and Miller has it in spades. I'd recommend Spirit, Word, and Story for any preacher looking for validation and encouragement in their work—it won't necessarily tell you how to preach well, but it will remind you how important good preaching is.

BOTH-AND: A MASTON READER by T.B. Maston, edited by William M. Tillman, Jr., Rodney S. Taylor, and Lauren C. Brewer

During his decades of ministry and scholarship, T.B. Maston was the unquestioned dean of Christian ethics in Southern Baptist life, a constant advocate for not only proclaiming but living out the Christian faith in every area of life. His legacy continues today through the 27 books he authored, annual lecture series bearing his name at both Logsdon Seminary and Truett Theological Seminary, and the students who sat under his tutelage for his more than 4 decades of teaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Both-And is, as the subtitle indicates, a primer for his writings, and a fantastic overview on what Baptists believe (at least officially speaking) on everything from separation of church and state to the role of women in the church to issues of war and peace. Drawn from both his books and regular articles he wrote for the Baptist Standard newspaper, each topic is tackled concisely and memorably. My copy is now marked over with blue highlighter and annotations on virtually every page, due to both the high quality of scholarship and his ability to turn a phrase—there's a quote worth remembering on literally every page.

Ours is a time when a firm grounding in Christian ethics is perhaps more important for pastors than at any time in recent memory. I'm grateful for a resource like this reader and highly recommend it for pastors and teachers, as well as laypeople with an interest in the subject.

AMERICAN PASTORAL by Philip Roth

Let's not beat around the bush—this was one of the best books I've ever read.

Philip Roth was one of those important modern authors who I knew I was going to read one of these days, when I got around to it. His death on May 22 prompted me to finally prompted me to to pick up American Pastoral, which won him the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and further secured a literary legacy that was already cemented. And I was blown away.

Ostensibly, American Pastoral is the story of Seymour "Swede" Levov, an All-American family man whose world is shattered when his daughter bombs the local post office and becomes a fugitive from justice. If that's all the book was about, it would still be worth reading...I mean, that summary interested you, didn't it? But American Pastoral, like all great novels, is about much more than just walking through its plot. It's about marriage and fatherhood, about work and leisure, about perfection and imperfection, and ultimately, about what it means to be American.

The writing is incredible, complex without being hard to follow. The characters manage to simultaneously be archetypes—the athlete, the beauty queen, the revolutionary—and fully formed, three-dimensional people. The plot progression jumps forward and backward in time, but you somehow never get lost in the shuffle. The themes are apparent without ever beating you over the head. This book, simply put, is a masterclass in creative writing.

American Pastoral is not a happy book—its three acts are titled 'Paradise Remembered,' 'The Fall,' and 'Paradise Lost' in that order—but it is a satisfying one, leaving you with indelible insights into how the United States changed between the 1950s and the 1970s, and what was gained and lost along the way. For those who like good literature, I can't recommend American Pastoral strongly enough.

EVERYMAN by Philip Roth

Well, they can't all be American Pastoral. I picked up Everyman on a clearance shelf once upon a time at Half Price Books, so after the joy of reading one of the best books (if not the best) in Philip Roth's bibliography, I decided to give this one a try. And it was...fine.

Everyman, as the title suggests, tells the story of a perfectly normal American man, narrating his life story from beginning to end in a sparse 182 pages. It turns out to be a life marked by loss—from the death of his parents to his three divorces to his fading youth, each turning point in the unnamed protagonist's life is a loss of some sort. There is little in the way of drama, just the normal ebbs and flows of a normal life. The task of the reader is to reflect upon this everyman's life and see what you can learn about yourself and the human experience in general.

In one sense this book is ambitious—after all, it is trying to sum up what life is all about through the eyes of one man, and trying to do it in less than 200 pages. But on the whole, this feels like a small book in more than just length, so subtle in its themes that you start to wonder if they're actually even there. I see what Roth was going for with this snack of a book, but I wonder if readers wouldn't have been better served with a meal.

The writing is still excellent, and despite the lack of any real plot it's an easy read (I finished it in 3 days.) Not sure I'd recommend it to someone wanting to try Philip Roth for the first time, but it was an enjoyable enough read.

WHY BASEBALL MATTERS by Susan Jacoby

With a title like Why Baseball Matters, you probably assume I loved this book. That's what I expected too. Unfortunately, this new release from Yale University Press was a rambling, redundant gripefest about 'kids these days.'

The stated purpose of freelance writer Susan Jacoby, a lifelong baseball fan, is to explain to the reader both the beauty of the national pastime and the complaints it faces, especially from young would-be fans, in the 21st century. The problems she points out are nothing new (it's too slow, there's not enough action, etc.), so as a reader you're assuming she'll shed new light on these problems and even offer solutions that will make baseball more relevant to young people in 2018. Unfortunately, virtually all of her 'solutions' boil down to "get those darned kids to put their phones down."

While quick to point out that the game has always had flaws, even in its so-called golden age of the 1940-1950s, Jacoby nevertheless comes off as a writer who just wants the game to be exactly like it was when she was 8 years old. Having promised the reader she has ideas on how to make the game culturally relevant, she instead demands that American culture must change instead of America's pastime, which...good luck, I guess?

Books like this one (and articles and podcasts and e-mail chains with family members) are typically catnip to me, but this one tread no new ground and, instead of showing me why baseball still matters, gave me a hard look at the kind of fans who prevent it from mattering today, fans who refuse to give an inch to a culture that wants more action, fan involvement, celebrity, and fun in the national pastime. I read this book wanting a warm blanket and got a bucket of cold water to the face instead. If you think baseball is perfect as is and that whippersnappers are the real problem, knock yourself out. Otherwise, look elsewhere for your summer baseball read.

SOLDIERS' PAY by William Faulkner

On a weekend trip to New Orleans a few months ago, my family and I stopped inside a tiny bookstore in the French Quarter called Faulkner House Books. Along with being a quaint little (and I do mean little) shop, the building is also a historical landmark, because in another time, when it was a boarding house, William Faulkner wrote his first novel there. So as a souvenir, I bought a copy of that book, Soldiers' Pay, and read it this month. How was it? Well, it's a nice souvenir, anyway.

Soldiers' Pay tells the story of an aviator who returns home from World War I a broken man, physically and mentally scarred by his experience. There to welcome him are a cast of characters ranging from a fiancée who found another lover in his absence, a war widow who wants to take care of him, and several brothers in arms. The overall theme of the book is that war demands a heavy price, both from those who fight and those on the homefront who must then tend to the returning soldiers.

Unfortunately, the writing in Soldiers' Pay isn't great. There are plenty of glimmers of potential (which I assume paid off in later works since, you know, he's William Faulkner), but as a whole it was a slog to get through. Several times while reading I had to adopt power-through strategies I hadn't used since the days of high school summer reading assignments. Thankfully it was a relatively short book at 305 pages, and improved as it went on and the characters were fleshed out. But if you see "William Faulkner" on the cover and think it's a classic, think again.

Soldiers' Pay is my only exposure to Faulker and critics seem to universally agree it's a bad place to start, so...oops. I'll try him again one of these days. In the meantime, my copy of Soldiers' Pay and the free bookmark that came with it make for fine souvenirs.

ESSENTIAL DAREDEVIL VOL. 3-4 by Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Gary Friedrich, Gene Colon, et al.

In the 1960s, Daredevil was basically the antithesis of the grim vigilante he would eventually become in the 1980s— he was a high-flying, witty, devil-may-care (pun intended) hero who was as quick with a quip as a punch. His book went crazy directions, with Matt Murdock (Daredevil's secret identity) once inventing and posing as his fictional twin brother to get out of a jam, only to later stage that fake brother's death.  The book was wild, exciting fun.

By the early 1970s, the era covered in Essential Daredevil Vol. 3-4, things had calmed down...and it's kind of a drag. With Roy Thomas and then Gerry Conway at the wheel, Daredevil becomes an angst-ridden hero who literally spends entire fights with supervillains thinking about his cursed love life. Indeed, some issues are arguably closer to the romance genre than action, a direction I can't imagine was received any better by readers in the '70s than it was by me. Look, I don't mind a superhero mooning over his one true love—it's part of the Marvel formula from that era—but this was too much.

So in Daredevil #87, with Marvel brass perhaps sensing that their train was off its tracks, Matt Murdock up and moved to San Francisco, leaving behind Foggy Nelson and Karen Page (a.k.a. his entire supporting cast) to fight crime alongside his new lady love, the Black Widow. The move did indeed inject some life into the book, and gave longtime artist Gene Colon, who'd been around since Stan Lee was writing the book, some new backgrounds to draw. The move to San Francisco and partnership/romance with Black Widow proved, of course, to be short-lived, but they make for an interesting read and at least give the book a revived feeling that anything can happen.

All in all, volume 4 of Essential Daredevil is superior to volume 3 because of these changes and the willingness they showed to shake things up, but neither of these books should really be considered "essential." Perfectly fine work, but nothing to write home about, like most of Marvel's mainstream '70s books. Fun, but nothing I'm likely to revisit again.