November Reading Log

 

November was the month I'd been alternately looking forward to and dreading all year long, as South Garland Baptist Church simultaneously celebrated its 50th anniversary and brought its sanctuary renovation capital campaign to a conclusion. Needless to say, I was working a lot of hours in early November.

So, like October, I still got some reading in, but there were definitely days where reading for pleasure took a backseat. Here's what I did read:

2 Articles I Like This Month

"The 20 Essential Texas Rap Tracks" by Staff, Texas Monthly. 30 minutes.

While hip-hop is typically regarded as strictly an East Coast-West Coast enterprise, Texas (and especially Houston) has been a key contributor to the past and present of the genre. In this delightful set of essays, writers at Texas Monthly pick out the twenty tracks that trace how rap has evolved over the last 40 years in our state.

"Kevin Durant and (Possibly) the Greatest Basketball Team of All Time" by Sam Anderson, The New York Times Magazine. 39 minutes.

I came for the profile of the Brooklyn Nets, I stayed for the delightful writing of Sam Anderson. If you like good sportswriting, you're guaranteed to love this article.

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #194-208, Annual #13

When I left off last month, the FF had just broken up, a split that would last a surprisingly long time by comic book standards, with the team finally reuniting just in time for the 200th issue. In the interim, writer Marv Wolfman gives readers a series of solo issues for the foursome's characters, which primarily serve (by intention) to frustrate readers at the team's demise and long for them to get back together.

So when they join back up for issue #200, you're expecting a slam-bang extravaganza, and that's what you get, in one of the more epic confrontations the team's ever had with arch-nemesis Doctor Doom. This one sees the FF helping a group of Latverian revolutionaries overthrow Doom even as Doom is determined to destroy his hated foes. It all culminates in a one-on-one fight between Doom and Reed Richards in which Wolfman explicitly says what has long been hinted at: Doom's hatred for Reed stems from the stubborn refusal to acknowledge that Reed is his intellectual equal, if not his superior. The fight ends not with Reed physically overpowering Doom, but outwitting and psychologically breaking him.

That 200th issue is understandably the high point, with later Wolfman-penned stories failing to excite me too much, especially the trying-too-hard multi-issue story that sees the FF taking on the Skrulls, the Sphinx, and eventually Galactus in a messy would-be epic crossover with Nova (another Wolfman book). By issue #208, Wolfman's run is nearing its end, and it's for the best; the guy was running on creative fumes.

As for the art, Keith Pollard and Company provide standard Bronze Age fare, a house style that's easy to look at but rarely stunning. Think of it like baked chicken: it's fine. Not great, gets the job done. Fine. But next month we get the beginning of John Byrne's run on the FF. And then we'll get to see the sparks fly!

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF DALLAS by Leon McBeth

In 1968, the centennial year for the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas Baptist historian Leon McBeth was enlisted to write a history of the church. Given that my own church had a big anniversary this month, it seemed a fortuitous time to read this book. And to my surprise, it was a pretty captivating read!

As the book's cover indicates, most of the book (and the church's history) is covered by the pastorates of two men, George W. Truett and W.A. Criswell, but the early pioneer days of the church, when 8 pastors served over a period of 29 years, are fascinating in their own right. Starting with only 11 members, FBC Dallas was a true frontier church in its early days, almost indistinguishable from the global prestige it would hold beginning under Truett.

The section on Truett's pastorate was my favorite (I'm biased, being a graduate of George W. Truett Theological Seminary.) With a powerful preaching ministry, a shepherd's heart, and a commitment to Scripture, the church grew by leaps and bounds both spiritually and numerically under his leadership, a period which lasted from 1897 until his death in 1944. I was particularly touched by the church's love for their pastor—when, slowed by his waning health, he submitted his resignation in 1944, the church voted to refuse it because they couldn't imagine having another pastor.

Criswell, Truett's immediate predecessor, was a more controversial leader but one under whom the church continued to grow in size and scope. Unfortunately, the section of the book covering his tenure is duller, likely because the key players were still alive at the time of the book's publication. While most of the book is filled with anecdotes and compelling narratives, the Criswell years fall into a repetitive cycle of 'This staff member was hired, then this building was built, then this ministry was started. Rinse, lather, repeat.'

To this day, FBC remains an institution in downtown Dallas. It's a much different church than it was in 1968, to say nothing of 1868. But for those who want to know about its first hundred years, who want to see what a successful Baptist church looked like in those days, this book is a fascinating time capsule.

THE YOSEMITE by John Muir

No one this side of Theodore Roosevelt ever did more to support America's National Parks system than author, naturalist, and scientist John Muir, a Scottish-American whose week exploring Yosemite National Park in his early adulthood inspired a lifelong love for the country's natural wonders. In The Yosemite, Muir provides what amounts to a tourist's guide to the park's most prominent flora and fauna.

I bought this book as a souvenir following my own trip to Yosemite, and I'm glad I did; it's tough to imagine deriving much enjoyment from the book without some point of personal reference. This is not to denigrate Muir's writing by any means—in fact, Muir is an excellent writer, providing vivid details and plenty of color. But at the end of the day, this is 262 pages describing mountains, glaciers, flowers, and trees...if you've never been there, it would be pretty dull.

It's in the final chapter that the book's true purpose comes to the forefront. At the end of his life, Muir fought bitterly against a legislative effort to dam the Hetch Hetchy valley, a natural wonder that neighbored Yosemite. Proponents of the dam argued it would bring cheap, fresh  water to San Francisco for generations to come. Muir and other environmentalists fired back that Hetch Hetchy's natural value far exceeded its investment opportunities. Muir ultimately lost that fight, though the battle has since become an Alamo-esque symbol in the environmental community.

The Yosemite gives you a glimpse at Muir's abiding love for Yosemite and a readable (if dated) guide to the park, but ultimately makes a better keepsake than a page-turner. For more Muir, check out his letters and essays.

A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is considered by many critics to be the Great American Novel, a story balancing the perils of love and war which ushered in a new form of American writing. It is considered required reading for any lover of American literature, the sort of novel you must read to properly understand this country.

I thought it was...fine.

Look, I can understand the reasons it's important. In age when war was often glorified, Hemingway (who had served overseas himself) was one of the first to write about not just war's horrors, but its absurdities. Instead of portraying war as an epic struggle, he showed what life was like for ordinary soldiers, bringing a degree of realism that was rarely seen in those days.

As for the prose, while Hemingway was still developing the sparse, staccato voice that would be perfected by the time he won the Nobel Prize for 1952's The Old Man and the Sea, he does write some beautiful sentences. The writing is stylistic without being showy, getting across complicated themes and ideas without ever bordering on pretentiousness.

But something about it just didn't click with me. Maybe it was the story, which seems directionless at times (possibly intentionally, given the stalemate of a war Hemingway was describing.) Maybe it was his portrayal of love interest Catherine Barkley, which could best be explained as "misogynist describes the perfect woman." Maybe I'm just not a Hemingway guy, I don't know.

I'd be open to reading this again or discussing with any of you Hemingway lovers, but A Farewell to Arms just didn't do it for me. Anybody want to tell me what I missed?

ESSENTIAL GHOST RIDER VOL. 2 by Gerry Conway, Roger McKenzie, Michael Fleisher, Don Perlin, Gil Kane, et al.

If you recall last month's review of Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 1, I wasn't very high on this book after the first 25 issues. My overall take was that Ghost Rider was a cool design in search of a personality; that he was more an amalgam of trends than a fleshed out character; the kind of superhero that's fine on a team book or in a guest star role, but not one you give a solo title.

Good news: by the end of vol. 2, it's getting better!

The first smart move the writers make is ditching Johnny Blaze's supporting cast, none of whom were remotely compelling, and making him more of a wandering lone wolf. The second is establishing a vague Jekyll-Hyde relationship between Blaze and the demonic Ghost Rider, with the Spirit of Vengeance adopting different speech patterns than Blaze and acting out more violently—it's not quite Bruce Banner and the Hulk, but it works.

But probably the most important step the writers took was giving up on making Ghost Rider a traditional superhero and turning this into more of an adventure book than a "hero fights villain" book. While Ghost Rider surely does face off against evildoers, they are often not even superpowered, much less costumed. Instead, this is more about "what would happen in a biker got into a scrape but also had super powers"? And it's fun!

By the 50th issue, Ghost Rider is still far from a classic book, but it has a much clearer sense of what it is than was the case 25 issues in. It's Bronze Age fun, mixing 70s fads with comic book sensibilities. Not something I'm likely to revisit, but by the time it came to put this volume down and move on to volume 3, I was excited to do so. And that's a big improvement over last month!