This was a month spent with books that required some extra time and concentration, which meant fewer pages read and more days where laziness had me drifting away from books and toward the siren song of TikTok and YouTube. Nevertheless, there's a sense of accomplishment that comes with this month's log...two classics checked off the list, 40+ comics read, a favorite kids' book, and a new pastoral favorite. Take a look!
DIARY OF A PASTOR'S SOUL by M. Craig Barnes
I picked this up on a whim from the clearance section at Half Price Books, enticed by the title and vaguely aware that I'd heard of it from somewhere (thanks Jeff Gravens!) What I didn't know then would become clear within the first 20 pages: that this would become one of my favorite books I've ever read.
Written as a fictional memoir, Diary of a Pastor's Soul contains first-person snippets from the final year of a pastor's congregational ministry. As this imaginary pastor chronicles that year, when he is simultaneously doing the daily work of church ministry while also tying up his career, the reader gets tremendous insight into the joys and trials of life for a minister.
An overused phrase these days is, "I feel seen," something you say when it seems like someone has peered right into your soul, when you've been truly noticed after a lengthy time toiling in obscurity. Reading Diary of a Pastor's Soul, I felt seen by the author, who truly speaks the language of pastors. He narrates not only the pragmatic realities of the profession—the committee meetings, the budgetary concerns, the ins and outs of event planning—but also the deep, spiritual toll it takes, the divine calling that draws people into ministry and keeps them awake at night.
I don't know whether laypeople will appreciate this book to the degree I did, but it is absolutely required reading for clergy, a book that supplants even Eugene Peterson's masterful The Pastor in my estimation. The 15 minutes I spent in my office every morning reading Diary of a Pastor's Soul were sometimes the best part of my day. It is a book I will return to again and again for as long as the Lord lets me remain in his service.
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS by John Bunyan
The Pilgrim's Progress is often regarded as the most important work of theological literature ever written. It has been translated into more than 200 languages, has never fallen out of print since its initial publication in 1678, and shaped the thoughts and works of writers from Charles Dickens to Herman Melville to C.S. Lewis. So given its reputation and influence, I've always been a little surprised that it was never required reading for my undergraduate degree or in seminary.
I owe those professors a thank you letter.
Now, there can be no disputing the importance of The Pilgrim's Progress in sharing the gospel. Written as an allegorical tale of the path to salvation, the novel brought Scripture to life by turning systematic theology into a quest narrative. It tells the story of an everyman named Christian and his journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, followed by a similar journey undertaken by his wife and children. Accompanied by friends with names like Faithful and Hopfeul and assailed by everyone from Ignorance to Hypocrisy, Christian encounters all manner of temptations and difficulties before finally making it through the Narrow Gate and into the Land of Beulah.
As you might imagine, anyone who thought The Chronicles of Narnia were a little on the nose would find utterly Bunyan exhausting, and you can count me in that group. It doesn't take long before you stop reading this as a story and start immediately translating every line through a theological filter, which then naturally makes you lose track of the plot. And as for those who find this more readable than the New Testament...how??? I'll take Paul at his wordiest over Bunyan, whose style I found dry as a Phoenix afternoon.
I don't question the value of The Pilgrim's Progress to the kingdom, and maybe I'd have had more appreciation for it if I'd read it in the context of a class, where study and discussion would accompany the reading. But as it is, my experience was a lot like running a marathon: glad to cross it off my bucket list, but I have no intention of ever doing it again.
THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES: THE FINCA VIGIA EDITION by Ernest Hemingway
One of my quirks is that, for better and for worse, I am a completist. I don't want a band's greatest hits, I want their whole discography. I don't want to watch the most popular Marvel movies, I want to watch all the Marvel movies. And I don't want to read an author's selected works, I want to read their complete works. So when I decided to spend the month with arguably America's greatest short stories writer, I went whole hog: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition.
This edition, first published in 1987, contains 70 stories in total—49 which were initially published in 1938's First Forty-Nine Stories, 14 more which were published subsequently, and 7 which were seeing the light of day for the first time with the Finca Vigia edition. Some run as little as 3 pages; the longest is more of a novella at 50 pages. And, as you might expect from a complete collection, it's a mixed bag in terms of quality.
In spots, this is Hemingway at its finest. Often associated with the "iceberg theory" of writing, Hemingway's sparse, unadorned style gives you little on the surface while containing a wealth of meaning and pathos beneath. My favorite story of his, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a classic example of this—a simple story about a man in an empty bar that leaves the reader aching with melancholy. Similarly, "The Battler," "Snows of Kilimanjaro," and "Hills Like White Elephants" are masterful tales that highlight Hemingway's brilliance.
When you work your way through all 70 of these stories, the stories can start to feel repetitive, even ponderous—another war story? Another bullfighting story? And, not surprisingly, the best stuff is almost exclusively found in the the first 49 stories he and his editor has seen fit to publish in his lifetime, making the last third of the book a bit of a slog at times. But throughout the book, readers like me who aren't naturally drawn to short stories over novels will marvel at Hemingway's ability to create well-rounded characters, interesting scenarios, and resonant themes in just a few pages.
It's a cliché among literary critics that Hemingway was a better short story writer than a novelist. You probably don't need to read all 70 of his stories to decide whether you agree—but I'm happy to give you my top 10!
JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH by Roald Dahl
ESSENTIAL X-MEN VOL. 3-4 by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith, John Romita, Jr., et al.
These were actually rereads for me—coming off of the excitement from Deadpool & Wolverine, I decided it was time to dive back into my <gulp> 11 volumes of Essential X-Men and I needed a refresher on where I left off with America's favorite mutants. So below is my review from September 2020, the first time I read these books:
In the 1980s, no comic was bigger than Uncanny X-Men. Propelled by soap operatic melodrama, cool costumes and powers, and Chris Claremont's world-building, mutants carved out their own corner of the Marvel Universe, one to which readers swarmed in droves. Essential X-Men Vol. 3-4 lays the foundation for that popularity, building upon stories like The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past even as it moves boldly into the future.
The highlight of this period is the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, printed in its entirety in vol. 4. The story tells of a televangelist who uses his platform to advocate for the elimination of all mutants .While X-Men titles had flirted with social commentary dating back to the 1960s, this is the story that most clearly establishes the mutants-as-oppressed-minorities metaphor that would come to define the book. And, while dated in some respects, the story holds up pretty well.
These books also see the introduction of Rogue, the power-stealing mutant who makes her debut as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants only to eventually switch sides and join the X-Men; the Morlocks, a society of mutant outcasts living underground; and Madelynn Pryor, a mysterious Jean Grey lookalike whom Cyclops impulsively marries (with consequences in future issues.) Other story developments include Storm's metamorphosis from innocent fish out of water to battle-hardened killer, Magneto's shift from villain to antihero, and the maturation of Kitty Pryde from novice to full-fledged X-Man.
These stories are not as crucial to X-Men lore as the ones told by Claremont and John Byrne in Essential X-Men Vol. 2, but they're still plenty of fun, and more imaginative than much of what was coming out in the same time period. For X-Men fans wanting to see the expansion of the mutant world before that mythology became convoluted and overwhelming, these are key issues.
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