Love Wins – Rob Bell

I don’t read a lot of Christian apologia.  Though I am a Catholic Christian, I don’t enjoy reading about my faith.  I honestly don’t enjoy reading the Bible either – it’s a struggle for me.  My true love in reading is the escape that it provides…so when I read, I want plot and characters and twists and surprises.  I like to think, but I don’t really want to philosophize, if that makes sense.  So my review of this book feels clumsy to me, and for that I apologize.  I’m out of my league in this genre, honestly.

However, this book has been popping up in conversations and my Facebook feed for a while now, so I thought I’d give it a go.  I’m glad I did.  Overall, I loved the point of the book.  Love Wins is a back-to-basics message – not at all revolutionary in terms of my personal beliefs, but a nice affirmation about what I believe to be right in terms of how to live and interact with others.  Life, according to Bell, is not about getting somewhere else (heaven, or whathaveyou), but about loving others (no matter what their faith, politics, sexual orientation, etc.) and living your best life now.  Eternity starts today, says Bell, and the way we live now in terms of the good work we do and the way we treat others indicates our future path. 

Or something like that. 

Bell also makes the excellent point that there’s not one “right way” to everlasting nirvana, and that judgment is not ours but God’s (or whatever force each one of us calls “God” ) and that God/“God” is truly merciful and loving and wants us to be with her/him forever in eternal joy.  God, in other words, is bigger than our belief in Her/Him.  Most satisfyingly, Bell trounces the idea that if we don’t respond to God in the right way, we will be eternally tortured.  Because in what way does “eternal torture” fit with the idea of a loving and perfect God?  Love wins – the title really says it all.

(The book is about 200 pages, and though it is easy reading – most paragraphs being of the 3-sentence variety – the previous paragraphs are in no way the entire message.  That above rambling is just a couple of the points that held the most weight with me.)

From the first, Bell admits that nothing he says is new – but I think that everything in the book bears repeating, especially in the charged and Bible-thumping climate we live in today.  It’s the kind of book that every member of the Westboro Baptist Church needs to read about twenty times in a row, in other words.  People need to be reminded that love is the answer, no matter what the question…and that questioning one’s faith and philosophies is an exercise that is essential.  He reminds Christians that questioning is where understanding and strength are born.

However.  (Of course there’s a however.)  While I agree completely with Bell’s message, I take issue with his rhetoric.  To put it bluntly, his argument commits a logical fallacy.  For those of us who don’t know what this is (confession:  I totally had to look it up), here’s a definition:

A fallacy is an argument that uses poor reasoning.  

An argument can be fallacious whether or not its conclusion is true.

To explain.  Bell’s central argument (or thesis) is advocating for a non-literal interpretation of scripture.  (As a Catholic and an academic, this is not an issue for me.  I read the Bible as a product of history, as a product of many translations, as a work that came into being hundreds of years after the death of Christ.  I read the Bible as a masculine text – written and compiled and read exclusively by men for most of its history.  I read the Bible as a literary work – dependent on the interaction and partnership between writer’s word and reader’s interpretation.  I read the Bible as allegorical, as symbolic.  All that jazz about the world being created in seven days?  Who knows?  Who cares?  Maybe God’s definition of a day was 8,000 years!  And so on. 

So reading the Bible in a non-literal way is obvious, to me.) 

My problem with Love Wins is that the proof and support Bell uses for his thesis is literal Bible quotes.  Bell says we need to read the Bible non-literally, using literal quotes to back up his assertion.

Do you see the issue here? 

So, anyway.  Again, loved the message about love and life and God’s love and all that.  But I wish that Bell could have found more relevant proof for his assertion – proof that would perhaps address a wider audience.

So I wonder, have you read the book?  What did you think?  Which parts were helpful to you?

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I've only had the book a few months, but already it looks like somebody put it through a garbage disposal.  That should show you how well-loved it is already.

So it won the Pulitzer, and so that should be enough.  But really, and as much as this word is a complete cop-out, it’s utterly amazing.

Tartt first came on the literary scene with The Secret History in 1992, and followed up with The Little Friend in 2002.  The Goldfinch came out last year (2013).  Are you noticing a pattern?  The woman takes ten years to write a book, a thing that’s quite unique in this era of “publish or perish.”  (Actually, some of the first sketches of the book date back as far as 1993!)  Tartt virtually refuses to be a slave to the publishing machine, giving few interviews or readings, and generally bowing out of the promotions side of book sales.  She’s not even on Twitter and largely lets the work speak for itself.  What?

Anyway, the story itself is great and her characters positively transcendent.  In terms of plot:  It is laden with bad decisions and terrible situations and hard drugs and art and esoteric shit about furniture restoration (which, really, were some of my favorite bits, because I’m like, ALL IN when it comes to esoteric shit nobody knows anything about.  I mean, all that restoration stuff could’ve been one hundred percent made up and I’d be like, “Great.  Love it anyway.”  Moving on.)  The centerpoint of the novel is an actual painting entitled “The Goldfinch” by Fabritius, who Tartt describes as “the missing link between Rembrandt and Vermeer.”  Not to give too much away:  The painting survives an explosion in New York City (shades of 9/11) and then moves through the novel as a talisman to Theo, the main character.  And if you want more than that, you’ll have to read it. 

But here’s the BEAUTY.

Boris is the best-drawn character I’ve EVER READ.  Ever.  Ever. 

He’s compared to Dickens’ artful dodger, and he is so real he throbs.  He moves; he tears up the pages and walks into your living room.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever had as much of an experience of character-LOSS as I had at the end of this novel – HE WAS THAT REAL. 

And if that isn’t enough, Tartt herself has been compared both to Tolstoy and Dickens themselves.  The woman is only fifty and has only three books to her name, but you can’t read a review of her work without seeing yet another comparison to those behemoths.  (Tartt admits to being raised on a steady diet of Dickens and recognizes that she’s internalized his style.  Also, she loves the comparison.  “Who wouldn’t?” she asks.)

A couple of asides.  During my mourning of the book’s end, I scoured the internet and found a couple of amazing things about this novel that are just so cool I had to share. 

One:  The actual painting “The Goldfinch” really did survive an explosion back in 1654, in Delft, yet Tartt didn’t even realize this until after she wrote her own explosion scenes in the novel.  Read more here.

Two:  The original publication of the novel coincided to the day with an art show opening at Manhattan’s Frick Collection.  (This was not intentionally orchestrated.)  And guess which painting was included in the exhibition?  Yep.  More here.

Basically, STOP EVERYTHING YOU’RE DOING AND READ THIS RIGHT NOW.  It’s in my top ten all-time list.  (OMG, that’s a total blog post.  Sarah’s Top Ten.  What’s in yours?)