In that last desperate sprint of reading, I read Marvels written by Kurt Busiek and painted by Alex Ross.   I was too cool to be seen reading comics in 1994.  My loss.  This is a phenomenal series, and one of the most original concepts in comics I’ve seen.

The series covers some of Marvels classic stories, but the events are told from the street-level perspective of a common man- photojournalist Phil Sheldon.  It examines how real people might act and feel in a world full of superheroes.  Busiek’s writing captures some pretty interesting themes.  The philosophical and theological implications the series brings up are interesting.  When the masses need saving, they love the marvels like idols.  When the masses are bored, they fall into celebrity worship and consumerism.  When the masses feel small in comparison to the marvels, the masses want them dead.  What’s also interesting is that the marvels continue to “save” the masses, even though they know how fickle the masses’ devotion is.

Alex Ross’s artwork is exceptional.  The series covers the 1940s to the 1970s, and Ross captures each time period perfectly.  His street-level views are cinematic and completely original.   The story combined with the art puts this one near the top of my graphic novels list.

Memory is a theme throughout this collection. She begins with “Maybe I’m seven in the open field-” as she goes on to describe running through the field as the rain begins, her head back and mouth open to catch the drops. In many of these poems she eulogizes her father’s death, weaving together memories of fishing trips, farms, and hospitals. She writes at the end of “Boat Ride,” “Good memory,/ if you are such a boat, tell me/ we did not falter in the vastness /when we walked ashore.” In fact, several poems are about caring for others who are either sick or mourning, but she is never heavy-handed. There is always a sense of light in these poems.

And there is room for humor too. She meditates on the strangeness of long distance phone calls, and on a trip to Asia where she ate sparrow. In “Linoleum” she contemplates spirituality and materialism as she documents a journey to the grocery store.

She ends with  “Woodcutting on Lost Mountain,” which captures a conversation and trip with her brother and niece to cut wood. Her brother has taken on traits of their father, and Gallagher sees herself in her niece. The refrain is “It’s a wonder we ever grew up.”

The book is about the Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish religious text that tells the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.  It’s believed that this Haggadah originated some time in the 14th century in Spain and made it’s way to Sarajevo, surviving Jewish expulsion, the Spanish Inquisition, World War II, and the Bosnian War.  The Haggadah contains some beautiful illustrations similar to Christian prayer books, and one of them includes a Moorish woman.  This raises several historical questions about why this Jewish text has Christian influenced artwork and a Moorish woman. Brooks’ fictional protagonist is a conservationist of ancient texts.  She finds several clues as to the Haggadah’s origins and history while restoring it for the museum in Sarajevo.  The chapters take the reader back in time to tell the fictional story behind each clue, which is pretty interesting, but several times Brooks uses corny plot twists along the lines of something from a Dan Brown novel. Most are in the present and involve the protagonist and her own little storyline. Overall, the book is about how multiculturalism is great and created this wonderful work of art, but I have to say I felt the Christians in this book took a beating.  I know, the Inquisition. I can’t argue with that.  I don’t want to give any spoilers, but there are several times Brooks could have gone in a different direction with certain characters. Again, the Dan Brown nonsense really turns me off.  It wasn’t a lot, but that’s my pet peeve, especially coming from a writer who won the Pulitzer.

People of the Book is good, and it kept my interest, but it’s not as good as I thought it would be. I guess that’s what I get for not buying March, but I figured her follow up to the Pulitzer could only be better…right?

It’s challenging because it presses that “uncomfortable button.”  You know the one.  It’s the you-profess-that-you-believe-this-but-you-don’t-live-it button.  It hurts your feelings a little at first because the preacher is talking specifically about things you have said and things you have done.  You can’t deny it, even to yourself.  And then you get angry and defensive, and you don’t like the preacher at that moment.  Then you say, “That message really spoke to me,” and you feel good, and you tell yourself you’re going to “be better” and change.  But you go home and watch football and go to work on Monday and forget all about it before next Sunday, because… well, we like to be comfortable.

Francis Chan mashes that button over and over and over hoping that it sticks.  In that discomfort and uneasiness, we know we are saved by grace, but we realize we are not doing what God has called us to do.  We are not taking up our cross. Our fruits are not a testament to our beliefs.  We are lukewarm.

We go to church.  We try to be nice, polite people, but Chan writes, “When we face the Holy God, nice isn’t what we will be concerned with, and it definitely isn’t what He will be thinking about.” He quotes 1 Corinthians 3:13-15- Each person’s works will be tested in the fire.  If it burns up, he will lose everything but himself, like a person barely escaping through the flames.  Chan says, “Perhaps that sounds harsh, but harsh words and the loving truth often go hand and hand.”

Chan emphasizes that our relationship with God has to be everything in our lives.  We have to literally depend on him for everything.  Not say we do, and do our own thing anyway just in case He doesn’t come through.  He also heavily emphasizes sacrificial giving and Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:40- “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brother’s of mine, you did for me.”  Chan challenges us to literally treat everyone we come in contact with as though they were Jesus.

When you get to the last chapter, Chan realizes you are at that point of saying “That message really spoke to me,” and you feel good, and you tell yourself you’re going to “be better” and change, but then you’re paralyzed because you’re not really sure what it means in terms of your life. You put the book down and go back to being comfortable.  Chan quotes Annie Dillard: “How we live our days is… how we live our lives.” He writes, “We each need to discover for ourselves how to live this day [Chan's italics] in faithful surrender to God as we ‘continue to work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling’” (Phil. 2:12).  Chan says we have to learn to listen to and obey God day to day “…in a society where it’s easy and expected to do what is most comfortable.”

Judd especially dreads going home, because he recently walked in on his wife having sex with his boss. And not just any sex, but porn-star-like sex during which she was making noises he had never heard her make before. It was her birthday. He brought her favorite cake home. His life is falling apart. To top things off, as he’s leaving the basement apartment he now rents because he has been cuckolded, his wife shows up to tell him she’s pregnant.

This sounds like pretty heavy stuff. How could it possibly be laugh-out-loud funny? Tropper sets up scenes that surprise you the way seeing someone unexpectedly fall surprises you. You know you shouldn’t laugh. It’s inappropriate. But you can’t help it. For instance, when Foxman catches his boss on top of his wife, he throws the cake on his boss’s humping posterior, lit candles and all. Unbeknown to Judd, his boss used some cream on his genitals to heighten the sexual experience. The cream was flammable. I’ll let you read the rest. Over the top scenes that make you lose your breath are not the only thing Tropper has going for him. His dialogue is exceptional. The interplay between siblings and their mother is hilarious.

Although the antics pretty much never stop, Tropper creates characters that you really care about, because they are so human. Judd’s wit and — although he pretends to be lost — his insight create the emotional pull of the book. As he tries to process losing his father and marriage, Judd stumbles on thirty-something wisdom with all its contradictions, regrets, and intricacies. He states, “Sometimes, contentment is a matter of will. You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you’ve lost. I know this to be wise and true, just as I know that pretty much no one can do it.” And it’s not just Judd that the reader starts to care about. Each of Judd’s siblings holds a mirror up to us as well: wanting to relive the past, holding on to resentment, refusing to grow up.

It’s a little bit The Big Chill with a Jewish family, and it’s a little predictable in places, but I still loved it. This is simply a fun read. It’s funny. It’s human.

IJustFinished.com

5°

The book also includes twenty-five lyrical and narrative poems, including one of my favorites, “Terminus.”  These poems range from the reflective coming-of-age poem “The Quiñero Sisters” to a reflection on the Los Angeles riots in 1992 in “May Day, 1992.”   “The Palm Reader” gives the reader a glimpse into the all-too-human life of a – wait for it – palm reader. Her husband, drinking a beer, serves lunch to the kids in the living room on paper plates. Several of these poems also contain mystical elements, which seem to be a favorite of Christopher’s.  “Your Father’s Ghost” contains a taxi driver with one are, one eye, and one ear.  The car only has wheels on one side.  In “Bees,” each of the five stanzas give a short magical quality of bees, ending with Cellini’s statue of Medusa with bees for hair instead of snakes.  The statue emitted a low hum.  These poems are intelligent and well-crafted; every reader can find something valuable that he or she can take away from this collection.

Hedges divides his argument into five sections.  The first deals with Americans’ obsession with entertainment.  Hedges argues that we have become a polytheistic society worshiping celebrities, athletes, and charismatic politicians and preachers, because they represent what we wish to be. We no longer want to deal with the complexities of reality.  We don’t want to have to think too hard about complex issues.  We want to live in the fantasy world of celebrities, reality TV, and sports. We want to be lied to, because the lie makes us feel so much better about our lives.  We have created a culture of illusion.

Hedges next section deals with the porn industry in America and what he calls “the illusion of love.”  I felt this section was unnecessary and didn’t flow with the rest book.  Basically it is a more extreme example of what is discussed in the first chapter.  The illusion men get from the product is that they can control and use women as commodities.  Interesting stats- porn made $97 billion in 2007, and GM and AT&T rake in 80 percent of the profits from porn made in the U.S. Hedges connects the moral decay and desensitizing nature of porn to Abu Ghraib and war in general.  It destroys compassion and empathy and creates a feeling in the user that he/she is a god.

In the third section Hedges attacks what he calls the “elite” schools of higher education.  Hedges argues that Harvard, Princeton, Yale and the like create the next leaders of corporations and government; however, these schools have failed society by become corporatist themselves.  They no longer teach true critical thinking. Professors who question the system or challenge the status quo are ostracized.  Morality and the common good are not mentioned.  Finding solutions to maintain the current corporate systems and defense projects are the top priorities.

The next section attacks “positive psychology,” which many corporations and institutions, including the United Nations, are adopting.  Essentially, there are psychologists who make a living from teaching/brainwashing people to lie to themselves. It is terrifyingly similar to Huxley’s Brave New World where citizens walk around quoting happy slogans they’ve been taught from birth totally unaware that they live in a totalitarian state.  Scary stuff.

The last section encapsulates everything and deals the death blow.  While we have been watching coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, fantasizing about “gonzo” porn, and repeating the new happy slogan we learned at work; corporations and the industrial-military complex have bankrupted the country and are preparing for a police state.  Almost everything you see, read, and hear is controlled by 5 or 6 corporations.  Hedges states that they are already under-reporting how bad the economic crisis is and will be.  The Obama administration has no power against these forces.  In fact, no one is allowed to run for President in this country without millions of dollars from the corporations.  It sounds like doomsday prophesies, but Hedges’ evidence is very convincing.  He quotes reports from the Senate Armed Services Committee and the U.S. Army War College, among many other credible sources.  What I found most convincing is the reminder that history shows us that after the economic collapse in the 1930s, America experienced the most extremism it has ever seen.  When the Wiemar Republic collapsed economically, Adolf Hitler came to power.  When Czarist Russia failed, Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power. What kind of demagogue will America produce?  We are not prepared to face that kind of reality. I’m afraid we will embrace any illusion presented to us, no matter how immoral or deadly.