March Reading Log

March brought spring break and with it, my first reading slump of the year. For nearly 2 weeks this month I just couldn't bring myself to read more than a few pages a day...not the fault of the books necessarily, just general laziness and fatigue. But I rallied late in the month (this log is good at giving me motivation to finish books), and I wound up finishing 5 books in March. Take a look!

THE SOUL OF AMERICA by Jon Meacham

No matter where you stand politically, chances are you're worried. We had four years of Donald Trump as president, we're in the middle of four years of Joe Biden as president, the next four years we're going to get one of the two of them all over again, and nobody seems particularly happy about it. People are anxious, angry, and afraid.

The tumultuousness of the last few years has led to a lot of talk about what it really means to be an American, about which characteristics can progress and evolve over time and which values must endure through all the ebbs and flows. In The Soul of America, author and historian Jon Meacham looks to American history for answers, pinpointing specific times in our past when the "soul" of the nation has been endangered by forces without and within and examining how we made it through.

In each chapter of the book, Meacham chooses an era of American history—from Reconstruction to the Great Depression to the Civil Rights Movement—and lays out how and why the nation's character was tested. Sometimes there's a scapegoat to point to (the Ku Klux Klan, for example), but more often, the threat arises organically, the natural byproduct of a diverse nation built on an idea instead of along ethnic lines.

And the solution, frustratingly, doesn't always come in one bold moment or courtesy of one heroic figure. Leaders matter, to be sure—in every chapter, at least one figure emerges to call the nation back to its better angels—but the fever only breaks when the American people are ready.

Nevertheless, again and again Meacham describes how we have been tugged away from the precipice by a commitment to the American ideal of liberty and justice for all. For the anxious, this book offers the hope of history—not a promise that we will do the right thing now, but at least the reassurance that what we face is not a new fight.

One disclaimer: this book was published in 2018 and is pretty transparently—especially in the foreword and afterward—making the case that Donald Trump is the kind of existential threat to America that the chapters of this book describe. Given that the 2024 presidential election is going to feature Trump again, that means your level of appreciation for the book will almost certainly depend on which candidate is getting your vote. Don't say I didn't warn you.

DESERT SOLITAIRE by Edward Abbey

One of the joys of visiting America's national parks is the opportunity for true solitude. Miles away from the nearest human being, much less any semblance of civilization, one is able to think, to get perspective, and to appreciate the simple things in life. In the National Parks, modernity's distractions are set aside for something more primal and beautiful.

Desert Solitaire is writer Edward Abbey's account of his time spent in Arches National Park (a national monument at the time of his stay; it was later upgraded). Living in a small trailer and working several days a week as a ranger, the rest of his time is his own, leaving him free to wander and explore the wonders of the Utah desert.

The book does two things well. The first is to serve as the preeminent nature book for the Southwest, a Walden for the region. With his descriptions of the flora and fauna and his clear affection for the area, Abbey is a compelling tour guide who makes you want to strap on a backpack and head westward in search of both the peace and the adventure that the desert brings.

The second is periodic polemics against modernity, specifically urban and suburban development. Most readers, I suspect, will not share his extreme views of conservation—in one section he argues, without irony, for the abolition of drivable roads in our national parks—but his passion is compelling and his writing entertaining. These are the kinds of views to which it's valuable to be exposed, even if you can't get on board with what he's saying.

I read Desert Solitaire after our spring break trip to Big Bend, where it was available in every visitor's center I saw in that park. Not sure how Abbey would feel about that—I suspect he would find those centers, which are 90% gift shops, appalling—but I'm glad I gave it a read.

BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is on the short list of greatest authors of the last 50 years, perhaps at the very top. With books like The Road, All the Pretty Horses, and No Country for Old Men, he established a reputation for bleak, violent, yet beautiful prose, often in a Western setting. Blood Meridian is generally considered his finest and most difficult work.

Telling the story of a frontier teenager, "the kid," who joins up with a band of scalp hunters making their way along the Texas-Mexico border, the book is an anti-Western in the mold of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, shattering the romantic notions given to us by Hollywood with its relentless violence, nihilistic characters, and bleak outlook. The kid's time with the gang exposes him to all the worst mankind has to offer as he is on both the giving and receiving ends of profound terror.

I admired Blood Meridian more than I enjoyed it. McCarthy's writing style is objectively brilliant, written in a cadence that recalls both Moby Dick and the Bible. Yet this neo-biblical style, with its matter-of-factness, lack of detail, and avoidance of dialogue, requires a lot of concentration. If you let your eyes glide over a paragraph without truly reading it, you can get lost quickly.

What's more, the relentless violence—this book is absolutely soaked in blood—is more off-putting than I expected it to be. I'm far from squeamish, but even I was surprised by how gruesome the book could be in parts. In making the West seem like a savage, primal place instead of a romantic one, McCarthy is entirely successful—after 100 pages, the West he portrays is a place where no one would want to live.

For serious readers, Blood Meridian is an important contribution to American literature and one worthy of your time, but be warned that it's not an easy read. It took me the whole month to get through its 350 pages, and even that may have been too fast to fully appreciate it. But if you're willing to take your time, McCarthy will reward you.

STREAMS OF LIVING WATER by Richard Foster

There isn't one way to be a Christian. There are certain beliefs you must hold and certain commands you must obey, to be sure, but the apostle Paul and Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther and Billy Graham are far from spiritual clones of each other. So what are the normative paths of discipleship?

In Streams of Living Water, Richard Foster lays out what he calls the six great traditions of Christian faith—the contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice, evangelical, and incarnational traditions—to show the different routes faithful people have taken over the generations. Part religious biography, part exegesis, each chapter examines the life of a saint from church history and then another from the Bible before arriving at conclusions about that particular tradition, including the pros and cons of each approach.

As you might expect, the final conclusion is that no one way is perfect or even superior to the others—God gives us different spiritual gifts for a reason! But each of these streams is worthy of study, reflection, and application for the faithful believer.

One more thing: the appendices make for a great reference material. Appendix 1 looks at critical turning points in church history, with Appendix 2 offering one paragraph biographies of notable religious figures and movements throughout church history. An invaluable resource for those wanting bite-sized morsels of church history.

THE ETERNALS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION by Jack Kirby

In 1970, Jack "the King" Kirby, the co-creator of most of what we now call the Marvel Universe, did the unthinkable and jumped ship to make his mark at DC Comics. In 5 years there, he created what many fans consider his magnum opus, an entire modern mythology known as the Fourth World, including New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People. The series were bombastic, epic, and utterly imaginative, full of overwhelming dynamism.

They also didn't sell well. So in 1976, Kirby returned home to Marvel and was given a chance for a do-over. The result was The Eternals, a book with seeds of greatness but whose weaknesses signaled Kirby's career had reached its twilight phase.

First the good: this book, like the Fourth World books, is bursting with energy, especially the early issues. At age 51, Kirby still had a million ideas, and he was throwing them all on the page. In the first issue he introduces three races of immortal beings: the Eternals, their enemies the Deviants, and the immense, mysterious space gods Marvel would later name the Celestials. The Celestials are easily the most compelling of the three, looming throughout the series as an imminent force of judgment upon humanity.

Which brings us to the problem: the titular Eternals just aren't that interesting (and neither, for that matter, are the Deviants.) None, with the slight exception of the mischievous Sersi, are imbued with much personality, and after 19 issues I'm still not entirely clear what their powers are. Furthermore, there are so many that's it's hard to keep track (a problem the MCU's ill-fated movie adaptation suffered from too.)

But the biggest problem is one that Kirby faced at DC as well, though it's worse here: he's not a good writer. In his prime, Kirby's gorgeous art was paired with the voice of Stan Lee, and that partnership was the Lennon-McCartney of comics. Here, with Kirby doing it all, everything from pacing to dialogue to characterization is woefully inadequate. The ideas are there, but it's a slapdash mess instead of a cohesive story.

The 19 issues of The Eternals are pure, unbridled imagination, for better and for worse. There was enough for there for Marvel Studios to make a movie out of it...and it was flawed enough that the movie was soundly rejected by moviegoers. Both make sense to me after reading the source material. For Kirby fans and comics historians, this book is a must-read—but for casual readers just wanting a good time, there are at least 50 Kirby books I'd give you before this one.