Finite and Infinite Goods

This book, an incredible work of philosophy/theology by Robert Merrihew Adams, has been the core of my educational reading for the last month. I'm writing a philosophy essay on the christian concept of love and how it links to the meta-ethics of motivation in a variety of theories of moral obligation (yeh it's a genuinely fun topic), and this has been my bulk inspiration book. I've been struggling to get it finished over the last couple of weeks because it's christmas-season and I've moved home, hence my reading of several less strenuous materials (see every other post this December), but have been thoroughly enjoyed it with interest nonetheless. I don't say this about many academic sources, but it's awesome.
   Adams has attempted to construct a framework for ethics centred around the Platonic concept of a transcendent Good and our relation to it. Strongly compatible with theism, especially christian belief systems, Adams takes this Good to be God. As the transcendent Good, all "good" things in the world can therefore be said to in some way resemble God in their intrinsic properties (which he calls "excellences") and are therefore appealing to a rational well-oriented human mind, because the universe was made by God in his nature as Good and so goodness is a naturally-diffuse characteristic of recognisable creation; that aspect specifically which lends value and rightness to it by affirming its unity and coherence. All excellences, especially morality, are good in that they are God-like and are to be encouraged, enjoyed, exercised, treasured. Evil then is not an equatable opposite power, simply an absence of or opposition to the Good.
   I am far too unskilled a philosophy-abstractioner to do justice in summarising Adams' book properly here, particularly because I myself so deeply enjoyed and agreed with it. I've ended up with several thousand pages of wrist-crampingly handwritten notes on it which at some point, bugger everything as a I now realise, I will have to transcribe onto a computer are they to have any use for my essay. However I hope the rough overview I've just given has made it sound interesting. If it hasn't, here's a very brief description of the topic of each chapter:

1. God as the Good - why is the metaphysical/theological person of a God the best fit for his central concept of transcendent Good?
2. the Transcendence of the Good - what are the implications of this Good's being better and definitive of other goods?
3. Well-being and Excellence - how are we to judge good outcomes in human lives?
4. the Sacred and the Bad - what significance does the Good lend to this that do (or don't) resemble it, and what does this imply for right attitudes towards them?
5. Eros - how does God (and do we) love things for their own sake?
6. Grace - how does God (and do we) love things for the Good's sake?
7. Devotion - how do/should we organise our motivational structures in making decisions involving goodness?
8. Idolatry - what happens what the Good is not the centre of the motivational structures discussed in the previous chapter?
9. Symbolic Value - is there a place in relating to the Good for acts that proclaim but do not effectively serve it?
10. Obligation - given systematic social use of guilt as a structure for obligating certain behaviours, how does this apply here?
11. Divine Commands - how do social-style obligations work when it is the Good (i.e. God) themselves that obligates certain behaviours?
12. Abraham's Dilemma - are the obliged commands of the Good always good?
13. Vocation - are there particular decisions or behaviours specific to individuals that we can take to be obligatory goods but not universals?
14. Politics and the Good - what are the implications of everything discussed so far for how we approach political systems and concepts?
15. Revelation of the Good - how do we even find out what goodness is in the first place, or relate it to a Good?
16. Moral Faith - is a certain trusting leap required to accept any system of morality, including this one?

   What struck me hard from the book is how coherent his system of ideas is, though drawing so deeply on academic philosophy and on sets of ideas completely alien to it. Adams has refashioned the divine command theory of moral obligation (hardly a popular theory anyway) in a way that is bold, efficient, edifying, and makes a lot of sense; it doesn't depend upon assuming but fits perfectly well with vast chunks of theist thinking, mostly christian theology, especially given the primacy of love as an importance in our relation to the Good.
   Robert Merrihew Adams, to me, has gone from being being a name on the module's recommended reading list (when I first heard of him) to being a world-famous eminent philosopher on theological ethics and metaphysics (when I googled him later) to being a supremely agreeable and intelligent man with whom I find immense common ground and cannot commend for his excellences enough (when I finished his book). This book meshed with and enhanced my own thinking really well: so much of what I have always vaguely felt but never articulated philosophically about ethics he outlines with casual accuracy; so much of what I have given much intense thought to about theology, politics, metaphysics and faith he adroitly encompasses in a cogent intelligible system that helps justify and unify my own thinking about these things.
   Anyone who is interested in ethics, anyone who is a thinking christian, and especially anyone who is both, I wholeheartedly exhort you to put this, my last book of 2014, on your reading lists for next year.

Beano annual 2015

This book is the annual compendium of special comics from that archaic weekly sort-of-funny children's comic and relic of when your parents were kids, the Beano. I've been at the family home over the week surrounding Christmas, and I found myself stuck in inactivity.* My brothers are elsewhere so games, conversations, or just annoying them with my presence aren't doable; the books I brought with me have tired me somewhat in their length and seriousness; the three inches of snow outside froze over in the night and I'm too cowardly of an Englishman to go for a slippery walk in it; the internet is a bottomless hole of boredom-inducing-boredom-prevention material; TV is obsolete and I don't know entirely how the new remote control works. I found this annual on the coffee table and decided to shoot my nostalgia in the face by reading it.

   The Beano is a weekly children's comic published in the UK since 1938, familiar to any English people who were children during the second half of the 20th century (or in the early noughties, if your parents swamp you as they did me and my siblings with hundreds of back-issues to keep you so occupied in reading them that you neglect to notice and thus ask for such expensive new-fangled contraptions as Playstations or SNES consoles). It features a host of characters that I will not be able to fully list at their present population (some of them have died because of cutbacks or retiring cartoonists, others have been absorbed from complementary "rival" comic the Dandy, others have been newly created to try desperately to find something that will turn the comic into a product that doesn't routinely hemorrhage its printers through children these days simply having far too many better things to do). To give some disappointedly-cynical overviews of examples of characters (most of whom have been around for decades) from the heyday of Beanodom back when I was aged 3-9 and a devoted a reader as there ever was, characters included:

• Dennis the Menace, a boy with spiky black hair who wears a red-and-black striped jumper and deliberately irritates people. Vocations range from systematic bullying of wimpy kids, subversion of all generic authorities,** and causing mess and upset. He has a dog called Gnasher who helps with these endeavours, which also for some reason looks almost identical to his hair given eyes, legs and teeth.
• Minnie the Minx, literally just the girl version of the above but ginger and wearing a beret with an inexplicable pompom.
• Roger the Dodger, a classic anti-authority wise-guy who uses far-fetched pranks and tricks to avoid doing work, get out of trouble, avoid normal healthy social interactions, and so on.
• Ivy the Terrible, a toddler who pretty much just shouts and causes mess and upsets her dad lots.
• The Bash Street Kids; the incorrigible class 2B at an ineptly-run school. One of the favourite classics, probably because it's the only one that was funny more than 40% of the time. It was always my favourite as well, so I'll do it the justice of listing the characters - of whom there are about as many as there are in all the other Beano comics combined. Comprising them are:
• Teacher (the teacher, duh). Like Dennis' dad he also has a Hitler moustache; stoically resigned to a life of misery, he very rarely manages to teach anything.
• Danny, the gang's supposed leader; he proclaims naughtiness more than any of the others and managed to be the favourite of none of the readers. The comic-runners should have picked up on this and had more cartoons about people being funny instead of people just throwing tomatoes at policemen.
• Sidney, generic boisterous child.
• Toots, token female, who is Sidney's twin.
• Smiffy, a boy whose borderline-severe learning difficulties are accommodated for laughingly by his inclusive classmates. Or maybe he is all there and, for want of better-defined personality and friendship, has taken to saying and doing silly things all the time so as to retain a niche as the beloved social joke-butt.
• Wilfrid, a very short kid whose entire gimmick is that he is shaped like R2D2. Turtleneck extends halfway up his face. Says very little but seems well-meaning.
• 'Erbert, shortsighted boy who walks into things when people are looking at him but the rest of the time is perfectly able to join in the mayhem-causing.
• Plug, who always gave me the impression that he was one of the smartest in the group, but will never fully find acceptance because his whole being is centred around his Shrek-like ugliness.
• Spotty. Has a gimmick that his name makes rather predictable. Bald. Also has a very long tie for some reason.
• Fatty. Guess.
• Head (the headteacher); looks identical to Teacher but fat and in a suit. Eats biscuits. Avoids responsibility. My personal favourite, possibly tied with Spotty.
• Janitor (guess what his job is); looks identical to Head but in scruffy clothes. Gets annoyed when the kids make mess, which is like, every week.
• Winston, janitor's long-suffering cat. Can handle a broom. Possibly enslaved.
• Olive, the cook, all of whose concoctions are burblingly hideous.
• Cuthbert, the one good kid in class 2B, who looks like a miniature version of teacher and gets lots of stuff thrown at him for being sensible.
• Billy Whizz, a kid who can run very fast. All his comic strips are basically just not-even-funny explorations of what it would be like to be a really fast kid in a variety of mildly inconvenient situations.
• Calamity James, an unfortunate soul to whom everything bad that would likely be socially ruinous and/or actually fatal happens. Used to have a really visually-witty cartoonist, but in this book there's a new one, very closely imitating the style of the character's inventor with none of the panache.
• Bananaman, a boy called Eric who is really dumb and turns into a superhero whenever he eats a banana. This superhero is great at saving the day but is still really dumb. Imported from the Dandy after it collapsed from shifting demand.
• The Three Bears, literally just a family of three bears who, instead of hunting normally, devote endless outrageous plots to stealing food from the supermarket of a blunderbuss-toting rightly-annoyed man called Hank.
• Lord Snooty, basically Billy Whizz but he's rich instead of fast.
• The Numskulls, five tiny things that live inside a guy called Edd and respectively control his brain, eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Things happen to Edd because of them which are apparently amusing.
• Little Plum, a probably-racist portrayal of a Native American kid whose main task in life is to follow the orders of Big Chief regarding something to be done to buffalo.
• Crazy for Daisy, a girl called Daisy who has to frequently resort to pugilism in repelling the advances of a devoted stalker called Ernest. He is ignorant of being repeatedly spurned in his efforts to woo her.
• Ball Boy, the captain of Beanotown's (yes all the characters live in the same fictional town, calm right down) incompetent football team.

   There are many others who have come and gone over the years, but these are the core bunch that I recall. It definitely used to be funnier; this isn't just a nostalgic projection of my endless childhood afternoons reading these cartoons onto the disappointment that this annual was, nor is it that my age has tripled since my peak enjoyment of them and a more mature sensibility cannot as much find pleasure in them. No. They've actually got worse, and it's no fault of the publishers, whose commitment to still making a product that almost nobody wants I find kind of inspiring. Kids these days just aren't bothered about a cartoon boy throwing flour at his neighbour - why would they be if the alternative source of entertainment for them is throwing grenades at digital soldiers controlled by their friends? I feel like such an old person. Dammit.

* Yes, it's fair to say that December has thrown an odd spanner into the spokes of my reading habits: rather than plodding through a half-dozen pretentious novels and a half-dozen even-more-pretentious non-fiction books at a time and finishing them almost by accident, this month I have read a fair few random easy-go lazy-books. Cat poetry, regional trivia, weird cartoons, this; it's that time of year. Allow it.

** His dad used to have a Hitler-style moustache back in the 1990's. New artist now though. Thought you should know.

The Chickens Are Restless

This book, one of the many collections of The Far Side cartoons that lay so ubiquitous around my family's home that they are outnumbered on the bookshelves there only by John Grisham novels, Beano annuals and books on childcare, is, like all other collections of Gary Larson's superb comic, amusing and bizarre.

   I've moved back into the Stovell family home for the week surrounding Christmas, which is very generous of my parents (even though they did convert my bedroom into some sort of waiting lounge in my absence), and has the added benefits of free food and warmth, pushing my negligible budget that extra bit further until student loans come back in. I jest, material security is but an extra gratefulness; I love my family. Even the new dog, though she may never live up to the standards set by the brilliantly useless mongrel preceding her.

   Anyway, I hadn't unpacked yet and everyone was busy, so the first hour or so after getting home and making a brew I spent perusing this collection of comic strips. This blog is for any book I read, after all, not just the intellectual or deliberately interesting ones that I ostentatiously purchase and progress through.

   For those of you who don't know The Far Side, it's hilarious. A single-panel newpaper comic that ran from 1980 to 1995, it never fails to be weird. Comics are hard to discuss without dumping loads of links to examples them; the pictures and words are inseparable in most of the jokes, so I'll try to explain what characterises them. Mad existential retorts and logical fallacies, anthropomorphism and civilisation run amok, childishness and maturity blended together in the pits of half-recognisable awkwardness, the familiar and common turned inside-out and upside-down and still comprehensible enough to provoke a chuckle - these are the styles Gary Larson uses in his distinctive style of surreal comedy. The content of each strip is thoroughly unpredictable, even within this short collection of (still very random) ones, and there are no recurring characters, though regularly featured are overweight suburban humans, insects, nerds, monkeys, men trapped on desert islands, farmers, aliens, fish, dogs, scientists (including mad ones), exotic wildlife, amoebas, hunters, farm animals (yep, including chickens), and a plethora of others that I cannot possibly hope to list. Each strip is as unexpected and yet as similar as every other; the main thing you can rely upon The Far Side to do upon reading is a brief moment of uncomprehension followed by a strange lateral click when you notice a particular choice of word or frame of situation or detail of image that propels the whole comic into something so utterly odd (and occasionally genuinely witty) that you cannot help but laugh. This of course goes for the comic as a whole, and so if surreal humour does tickle your fancy and you weren't already aware of this comic, simply googling it will yield thousands of strips online, and collections of them such as this one are almost always to be found in the discount cheap section of comedy shelves in second-hand shops.

   Anyway, it's mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve and here I am talking to a handful of future strangers on the internet about a weird comic I've just read. I'm going to go get a refill of tea and see if my brothers want a Mariokart tournament. Merry tomorrow, dear whoever.

I Could Pee on This

This book, a collection of poetry "by cats" by humour-journalist Francesco Marciuliano, is not one to which I will devote much discussion. Much like the previous post's book, this was bought because of Secret Santa, albeit here I bought it expecting to be able to bestow it upon a friend who has an almost unhealthy predisposition toward all things cat-related (I have three of these, and planned to give the book to whomever I saw first). Sadly, all three of such felinist acquaintances of mine left Sheffield before I saw them while I had the book with me, and so I was left with a book of cat poetry. It's quite short, so literally in the time since I wrote the last post I've just been for a leisurely toilet sitting and read it then. Probably won't give it to any of them now - unless I can be certain that they do not also read this blog from time to time. Nobody wants a book that has accompanied a friend's turd.
   Despite my fairly ambivalent attitude toward cats, I seem to have read lots of books attempting to enter their psyche this year (one through Japanese literature and one through artsy satire). Perhaps I am gaining a subconscious affinity for them by spending too much procrastinatory time in the corners of the internet devoted to gifs of their failings. I probably am, but who isn't these days?
   Anyway, sorry, the book. It's alright.
   If you find human-verbal constructed interpretations of the mindsets and internal monologues of cats amusing, you'll enjoy this, but only about as much as the average stint of scrolling through funny online cat material anyway. The book is pretty much redundant in that respect, except as a present for someone who you know likes amusing cat-related stuff, which was my intended use for it, and while it did vaguely entertain me as I casually emptied my bowels earlier, it did so for less than half an hour, an infinitesimal fraction of the time one could invest in laughing at silly cats on the internet if one were so inclined. Not to mention that the latter is effectively free whereas the book goes for an inexplicable £8.99 recommended retail price. 
   If you're looking for a token gift for someone who does like funny cat-related stuff, then this is, while probably far from the best among the plethora of choices you have, not a bad choice; as long as you don't repeat my mistakes of rendering it ungiftable. I now find myself with a book of cat poetry that I will never re-read and cannot really give away given the situations in which I read it. Ah well. Sometimes that's just life.


Edit [April 2015]: this book was resident in the bathroom of our student house, next to a pair of lavatory trivia books (you know the type). Following a recent house party, it has gone missing, presumed stolen by one of the party-goers. If you're reading this, I unflinchingly forgive you immediately, because, as the rest of this post made clear, it wasn't a book I really desired to retain, and also, it was probably covered in micro-flecks of excreta from spending several months within three feet of our toilet. I also have a reserved sort of admiration for minor inconsequential antisocial acts such as this, so well done you for stealing a book of cat poetry from the bathroom during a party that had so much else to do at it. Enjoy. You could pee on it.
Edit [July 2017]: it occurs to me now that one of my housemates could quite plausibly also have thrown it away, for all the reasons already cited.

The "Northern Monkey" Survival Guide

This book, a slim humourous compendium of trivia on and tributes to the North of England by Tim Collins, was bestowed upon me as a Secret Santa present by my good friend, future housemate and (most importantly) fellow-Yorkshireman Andrew Robertson.

   My current leisure-reading life is largely non-existent, as I have realised with a panic simply how much research for my philosophy essay I haven't done yet and so have been scrutinising lengthy tomes on christian meta-ethics; therefore I can firmly say that to have a book thrust into my life that was deliberately light-heartedly entertaining was a relief, especially with it being one that could quite easily be read in an afternoon of stoic Northern amusement.

   It's not a hugely thought-provoking book, as you'd expect, nor did I have many gripes with it: in the 140ish A5 pages we are toured through the customs, complaints, accents, foods, places, histories, characters, prides and follies that comprise the caricatured cultural landscape of England's top half. To a Northern reader it cannot fail to be pleasantly familiar as it raises a chortle of recognition here and there (there is one part in particular I found extremely funny - a "currency conversion" chart, whereby 35p in the North would get one, say, "crisps" whereas the southern equivalent would be £1.25 for "hand-cut vegetable shavings").

   However, rules is rules, sorry Andrew - having read the book I must react to it somewhat moreso than descriptively, and so here are a few constructive critical responses:

• Having been originally published in 2009, recent events have somewhat skewed the pleasantness of certain folks presented as otherwise grand heroes of the uplands. Leeds doesn't want any cigar-toting paedophile to go down as legend there, thanks.
• On the topic of what celebrities to include - a whole book celebrating the North with literally no mention of Patrick Stewart, Brain Blessed, or Sean Bean? Come on man.
• Though I can (and half-do) forgive this somewhat given the very evident caricatured nature of the book's humour, much of the jokery is a tad classist, sexist, racist, and homophobic, in various parts and degrees, which isn't really okay.

   These aside, this book was expected to provide a diverting afternoon of chuckling and feeling proud about my not-southern roots (psh nobody cares about the Midlands anyway), and that's exactly what it did. It's not a book I ever would have bought myself, but it's the kind of book one can't help but enjoy if one identifies with it; if you're struggling to find a cracking Secret Santa gift for a fellow-Northerner, take a tip from Andrew Robertson and go for this.

   Although most of us wouldn't say no to a chip butty drenched in gravy either.

Feral

This book, an extended study on rewilding by veteran environmental activist and journalist George Monbiot, was, even moreso than are most of his books, eye-opening and incredible. I was lucky enough to pick up a pre-release signed copy at a SPERI lecture he gave at my uni last year, browsed through a couple of chapters over summer, and have finished it in a spurt of ecological interest over the last few days.

   It's about our misjudged place in nature: how this has been lost over the past few millennia of human civilisation gradually conquering and flattening the ecosystems it moves into; how this has been forgotten over the enforced retention* of systems that prevent those ecosystems from properly recovering; how this has been distorted by vast industrial processes reaping finite natural stocks and processes as though they were limitless income. Running common to these scenes of destruction and degradation are veins of hope and potential - rewilding, the main topic of the book. Rewilding is basically handing over control of ecosystems to nature; reintroducing missing species that play key ecological roles of predation, habitat manipulation, resource creation and such, helps revitalise the balanced diversity of flora and fauna in those systems.**

   The text resembles a sort of ecosystem of prose in itself: a jumbledly overlapping yet coherent and cogent mix of writing. There are impeccably-researched-and-referenced scrutinies of ecosystem development policy successes and failures, insightful discourses on biological and philosophical perspectives of man's place and part in nature, and enthralling anecdotes of George's personal experiences with people, plants, animals, landscapes that have helped inform and shape his perspectives. You will be bowled over by gorgeous descriptions of sublime natural explorations and encounters, wholeheartedly inspired by introductions to selfless hippy-type individuals involved in rewilding projects, shunted into enlightenment by a chunk of analysis and into astonished outrage or delight by a series of statistics or facts, often all within a page or two of each other. It really is a bizarrely multitudinous reading experience, and make so much the better for it. It strikes the head, the heart and the gut with equal measure, never supplanting reason for emotion but finding the root human passions that lie at the base of all his arguments and laying them together perfectly.

   It's a book that makes one want to re-engage with nature, to do all within one's power to remove human corruption from the ecosystems it has enslaved and despoilt, to hand control back to Mother Gaia. Anyone interested in ecology should read it for enjoyment, anyone interested in social and natural justice should read it to inform their opinions, most people should probably read it to broaden their anthropocentric worldviews and bring about pressure for change. Quality, timely, and deeply important.

* This book might make you rightly despise grouse hunters, fishing trawlers, and especially sheep.

** This book might make you rightly adore beavers, oysters, wolves and dead trees.

Is God anti-gay?

This book, a concise 80-page response to the controversial topics of homosexuality and Christianity by Sam Allberry, was roughly what I expected it would be. It was on a discount bookstall on a christian weekend away (I never can resist those discount bookstalls, but fortunately this time I only bought one book - this - so my wallet remained unbattered), and given its shortness I ran away from one of the ludicrously christian-weekend-away-esque sessions of organised "fun" and read it in a prolonged tea-fuelled sitting.

   Sam's book claims to answer its provocative titular question,* among other questions about homosexuality, the Bible and same-sex attraction. It does so quite well; the author identifies himself as experiencing SSA so clearly he is able to approach the issue in a thoughtful and sensitive way, avoiding the patronising, homophobic assumptiveness which often characterises christian viewpoints on issues of sexuality and gender. His points are strongly-reasoned, biblically grounded and gospel-centred, and though I half-wanted to I couldn't find anything that I disagreed with on theological grounds. His conclusions are positive (the chapter on how we construct our identities is particularly liberating), but one would have to subscribe to christianity to think so - which is where I think the book falls short. It is mainly aimed at christians: both those "struggling" with their sexuality to reaffirm the gospel to their context, and those who need their views on how to deal with the topic more sensitively while retaining a biblical grounding for it. Given these aims I think it's an excellent little resource. Obviously no 80-page book is going to revolutionise christian views on homosexuality, but if accessible enough one may ease the psychological and emotional distress of gay christians, and push other christians into dealing with them in a more reasoned, human, loving way - and I think this book may well do that.

   Returning to its shortfalls, I would've liked more discussion of mission to non-christians and homosexuality. There are many deep issues in how non-christians are to percieve God's commands in relation to the gospel and their [un]acceptance of it, and therefore how christians are to talk to them or relate to their lifestyles. Westborough Baptist-style public condemning of homosexuals who don't know Jesus is utterly useless, unfounded, even evil; it excludes them hatefully and prevents them from ever wanting to know more of the "gospel" that such "christian" groups proclaim. I also would've liked a more critical assessment of some of the biblical passages: fair enough they were already exposited very tactfully and with substantial contextual explanation, but surely a more in-depth analysis or consideration of normative aspects of language, culture, sexual psychology and such and how they might change the way we approach such passages could have shed light on the possibility of some different conclusions. It's only a short book though, so avoiding these deep bogs of meta-ethical and postmodernist-historical argument was probably wise.

   Overall, it's a decent book. If you're a christian who thinks they might not be entirely hetero, this book will assuage some doubts you might be having. If you're a christian whose views on issues of sexuality are lacking, this book will help bring you into a more thoughtful and tactful way to talk about them. If you're a non-christian, this book will probably offend you because its fundamental premise is Gospel-as-core-identity rather than sexuality-as-core-identity: so in the interests of me, a liberal freethinking christian, not wanting you to be put off the gospel by a book you approached with the wrong mindset, I only recommend reading it if you do so understanding that it is aimed at christian readers and certain aspects may grate.

* SPOILER ALERT: no.

The Humans

This book, a contemporary novel by Matt Haig, was entirely different to and better than what I expected. I received it as a 21st birthday present roughly a week ago and have devoured it already (it elbowed aside the other nine books I'm partway through by dint of being more engrossing), finally finishing it on the train to and from Manchester last night. I was expecting it to be a fairly standard funny-sharp-interesting read, but it had a completely unforeseen depth and strength which made it an enormously resonant experience. I guess one has to admit certain aspects of it make it indisputably a sci-fi but its core is a thoroughly feels-heavy drama.

   What's it about? Yikes. So, without giving too much of the plot away... There's a race of hyperintelligent aliens, who have achieved immortality and live in a perfectly logical utilitarian civilisation across the galaxy. They have reduced universal functions of all fields of knowledge - psychology, history, physics, whatever - into mathematics, which forms the basis of their mindset, and the means by which they assess goings-on around the universe, intervening whenever inefficiencies arise. An inefficiency arises: human mathematician Professor Andrew Martin proving the Riemann hypothesis, which has the potential to thrust humanity into a new epoch of technological capability, and humans are not psychologically well-equipped enough to deal with their explosively broadened potential, so the aliens intervene. Martin is killed, his physical form copied exactly and adopted by an alien agent (our compelling nameless narrator), whose purpose is then to remove all trace of the hypothesis's proof from Earth. This mission will entail deleting a few emails and killing a few people, including Martin's wife and son. However, the agent encounters steep learning curves: learning his way around human language and culture, learning his way around Andrew Martin's life, and learning his way around the emotional illogical aspects of humanity that are utterly alien to him. The first of these learning curves he overcomes quickly, albeit with some amusingly painful scenes toward the beginning. The second he blags largely, realising several aspects of the life of the man he's living in were not quite satisfactory (a depressed son, a neglected wife, an ill dog, a lack of appreciation for anything beautiful outside his work, an affair, no real friends, etc) and so in his stranger's assessment of them he makes fundamental character changes to "Andrew Martin" which throws up a variety of personal dramas. The third forms the central thread of the novel, heavily intertwined with the alien's learning to relate to Martin's wife and son, as he begins to experience feeling and see significance separate from blunt logic, even starting to question himself and his mission. All three pull together well, and the weirdness of the events befalling the human characters isn't clouded over by sentiment but are dealt with in ways that feel believable, driving up to a very hard-earned reward at the end.

   To pull off such a deep-relationship-feeling theme with such a weird-science-fiction premise is an undertaking of immense skill and sapience, and Matt Haig has done it pretty much bang on. The narration is as confusedly translucent as one would expect from a hyperintelligent being stuck learning his way about a human life; the dialogue feels natural and the characters are well-drawn; there is a rawness to the emotional aspects that is geniunely heart-tugging at points; and there is wisdom in spades. Not the motivational-poster contemporary-novel apothegms of it that we're so often hit with nowadays, but fully poignant nuggets of reasoned insightful wisdom that sound like exactly the kinds of things a hyperintelligent alien being would come out with once it had started reading Emily Dickinson and grown the ability to love.

   I'd like to go into detail with things it made me think about, but there were far too many, so expansive is the book's coverage of topics and yet contained its themes. Science and space and aliens, dogs' relationship to humans, technology's relationship to biology, peanut butter sandwiches, why poetry and music and wine are worth it, why clothes might not be and suicide certainly not so, fatherhood and matrimony and fidelity and the indefinable strings of semi-rationality that bind them in what we call "love", the links between logic and duty and emotion and how we define rightness based on them, how all subjects are effectively mathematics except the most important one which is living happily. There is much to provoke thought in this novel. 

   It's a very memorable book, written with equally warm intensity of head and heart and soul, very alien aspects melded into very human parts in an impressive and engaging character development. Even if sci-fi or drama isn't your thing, I recommend checking it out.

Generous Justice

This book, yep, another one by Tim Keller (what can I say? he writes excellent books), was also great. I think it's probably one of the most important christian books currently in existence. I'd kind of skim-read it a couple of years ago, but recently we've been trying to get more christian students at Sheffield uni involved with social justice campaigns, and so I reread it more thoroughly to refresh my theological motivation for Jesus-style activism. Having just finished it I feel very convicted and challenged and encouraged and joyously grateful for God's grace and goodness, so I guess that implies that to that end my rereading the book worked somewhat. We'll see over the coming months and years how truly I stick my life to it though (hopefully very). I'm also doing a philosophy module this semester about moral obligation, and christian ethics has a lot of interesting stuff to say on the matter (not least from everyone's favourite Danish existentialist with an "ø" in his name).

   The book itself is easy to explain. It's an instrument for kickstarting christians who aren't actively concerned with justice, and spurring onward those who are. Strong biblical foundations (from both old and new testaments) and theological bases are laid for a vision of justice that we should be striving toward. The reasons why we should be striving as such are given with Keller's usual calm clarity that drives home enormous truths warmly, comprehensibly, and in a way which forces you to reassess your attitudes and habits. Methods in which we could strive as such are explained broadly but helpfully. Powerful challenges are drilled down through the question of "who is my neighbour" through and extended analysis of the Good Samaritan, and powerful encouragements similarly offered through consideration of God's intentions, plans and character.
   We are to care about justice as Jesus did: serving and embracing and loving the marginalised poor. Doing so, argues Keller compellingly, is the true mark of the Spirit's work in one's heart.
   My reception, as a relatively-left-wing ethically-concerned liberal young christian aspiring-economist-and-philosopher, was as you may predict wholeheartedly positive. I don't think there was anything in the entire book which I disagreed with in any meaningful way (there was a certain aspect I thought maybe could have been good but I'll discuss later why I think its exclusion was probably a good thing). I sincerely hope and pray that this book is read and absorbed extremely widely across the world, especially in America (as God knows there's far too many "christian" bestsellers over there that turn out to be as heretical as they are badly-written and generally wrong). Much of what discourages non-christians from engaging properly with the gospel is the elitism, materialism, and general hypocritical evil which so many "christians" espouse. Such likely-to-upset-Jesus folk in the extreme form are fortunately quite rare, with a pseudo-theological preacher of prosperity here and an entire political party bent on remoulding christianity into neoliberalism there, but the vaguer attitudes of individualism and not-caring-about-the-poor have seeped into the wider christian community. This hasn't been too difficult given the overwhelmingly middle-class status of most western christians. Anyway, the prevalence of these hypocrisies make christianity unappealing, laughable, false in the eyes of observers who can very easy read Jesus' words about feeding the hungry and watch a churchful of his supposed followers do their utmost to ignore the homeless man sat in the doorway near where they parked their SUV. More christian involvement in active development of social justice would be as excellent for alleviating human suffering as it would excellent for creating opportunities to share the gospel by actually living its implications and demands out properly.
   The one gripe-that-isn't-really-a-gripe I had with it, as I mentioned earlier, was that Keller steered away from engaging with christian involvement in politics. The methods he outlined as ways in which to work towards God's justice in society were all to do with altering personal habits, reinvigorating communities, collectively solving problems - which is all very well and good, but I think if we have a moral responsibility from God to care for the vulnerable then that must influence whether/how we vote, protest, campaign and act politically. Keller avoided having to discuss this by allowing some flexibility in his readers' definitions of justice (especially economically), to cater to liberal and conservative readers, though I'm sure that thought through properly, his arguments strongly imply that a conservative position is simply contrary to Jesus' position.*
   However, he didn't include an extended discussion of how christians should engage with the political sphere: why? Because the book is a motivation-changer for all christians. In keeping his arguments as theological as possible without straying too far from political neutrality, he doesn't automatically alienate and so lose the readership (and potential to motivate into action) of more conservative christians. I therefore think it's reasonable for him to exclude such a section, but also I prayerfully hope that conservative christians, having read the book, will have their attitudes reshaped, and give serious thought to the implications Christ's ethics have on their politics.
   Anyway. Should you read this book? Well, as a general all-round, yes. If you're a christian who's actively concerned with social justice, it'll give you enormous boosts of motivation and plenty of theological grounding for your actions that will aid evangelism alongside it. If you're a christian who's not that actively concerned, it might start making you one. If you're not a christian, it may give you a radically new understanding of the character and purposes of God and the world and our place in it, which may provoke you to rethink your stance on them.
   Praise God for his glory as the Father's sovereignty, his grace in Jesus' death, his goodness in the Spirit's ongoing work - and for giving us Tim Keller as a popular, intelligent signpost towards his Kingdom!


* Yes, this is genuinely my position. I think that someone who both holds the gospel to be true and holds a neoliberal (or similar) political stance has either not given enough thought to the relationship between their faith and their ethics, or is just an unrepentant hypocrite stubbornly trying to force camels through needle-eyes.

Veganomicon

This book, an American vegan cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, will not be done justice in this post due to haphazardity of circumstance, which will also be discussed but likewise probably not done justice in this post.

   I found the book on an evil monopolistic tax-dodging online store (which I shall not name) while searching for vegan cookbooks. It seemed like the best one, so I bought it from elsewhere. I've finished reading through it already since it arrived yesterday morning - not even cooking from it yet, just reading through for drool-inducing interest and getting a familiarity-feel for animal-product-free kitchen-work. Perhaps a cookbook is an odd choice for casual reading, but perhaps a bean is an odd choice for primary protein sourcing, and besides, I read lots of not-so-odd things recreationally too, so shush. I will continue to abuse hyphenation and thereby make up lots of words in this post, sorry. It is very early in the morning as I write. The main stint of reading was done last night, as all my housemates and most of our shared friends were going to fun, and I wasn't, so I hid in my room reading this cookbook to minimise my feelings-of-missing-out during predrinks; regrettably the numerous so-delicious-in-my-imagination-that-reading-them-became-genuinely-gripping recipes and my atrocious sleeping pattern conspired together such that I was still awake when the gang arrived home, and since I have work to do for uni tomorrow anyway it seemed wasteful to go to sleep. I finished the book, chilled with the others briefly, made a cafetiere of coffee and am writing this at around 6am. Once finished with this I'm going to make a start on a chunky problem sheet for a tutorial about economic inequality and poverty.

   Yes. Anyway, the book, apologies.

   It's great. Notsomuch for normal recreational reading (unless you get easily stimulated by descriptions of food and explanations of how to make it), but as a vegan cookbook, heck, even just as a cookbook, it's fabulous. There are brilliant helpful sections on really basic things that everyone kind of knows but a bit of expert advice shines new light on doing them well - like getting to know your kitchen implements, and preparing vegetables, grains and beans in certain ways. If our communal student kitchen were wholly my own I would likely go out tomorrow and fill it with quinoa, kale, squash, avocados, chickpeas and all the other glorious stereotypically-hipsterish eatable-plant-bits, but as I share it with three other young adult males of similar messiness to myself, doing so might cause cupboard-space-havoc. You know. The book's written really accessibly* and even amusingly, the recipe instructions are clear (especially given the helpful introductory chapters on how to prepare basics and use tools), the ingredients nutritionally diverse and relatively easy to find. I actually can't wait to start cooking some of them.

   What was that? Because it's a vegan cookbook you expect me to start trying to proselytise for a vegan lifestyle?** I shouldn't, because [a] strangers' life choices, unless morally detrimental, shouldn't be any of your business to question, and therefore I'm under no obligation to justify a legitimate choice to others, [b] I'll end up getting carried away and doing a huge rant about it, [c] even responding to these hypothetical clamours for explanation will no doubt result in accusations of my own preachiness, and most importantly [d] I really do need to start that tutorial sheet. But regardless, okay then mate, I will (briefly), because people who genuinely believe that a cause is important shouldn't be afraid of proselytising for it, and guess what, veganism is important.
   So basically, I went vegetarian a couple of months before starting uni because I'm proactively terrified of the prospects of climate change. The animal product industry is one of the worst global culprits in emissions, and consumer habits can and do change social trends - so I decided to aim for a meatless diet. I've since gained a growing sympathetic support for animal rights and even learned a fair bit about health benefits of being veggie, but the environmental case still forms the core of my dietary-choice-motivations. Veganism, in cutting out dairy as well as meat from one's intake, further substantially reduces your food's carbon footprint, so it was the logical next step. See the double-asterisk-footnote if you want more on the topic.

   Well, that's me done, hope you enjoyed what's been a considerably-sarkier-than-usual and less-actually-about-a-book-than-usual post. I'm going to go to the library to apply algebraic models to poor people (economics is a weird subject).

* Except for its being American; but while inserting u's into "color" and translating "zucchini" to "courgette" in my head aren't too tricky, converting medieval °F and ounces into sensible °C and grams was. Fortunately there was a conversion table in the back, which unfortunately I found after scrawling my own guides to converting everything in the back of the intro chapter. Ah well.

** Cards on the table, I'm not a hardline dogmatist when it comes to this. My shoes and satchel and wallet and belts, which (vegan friends reading this please note) I bought before going herbivore, are leather. Since taking the plunge into trying to become a citizen of plant-food-world, I've eaten things with dairy products in them from time to time out of convenience, and even the cooked flesh of dead creatures (mostly either in politeness when given food from friends from other cultures, or fried chicken after West Street Live). Nobody's adherence to their own ideal lifestyle is perfect, and I count myself as normal in that regard: consider my veganism more of a guideline I follow as much as expectable. However, these deviances are rare, and increasingly rarer, and so while I'll maybe never be self-disciplined enough to gain full vegan powers, my diet has got healthier, more ethical and much more sustainable, so who's complaining?

Neverwhere

This book, the stunningly cunningly twistily mistily delightful first novel from storyteller extraordinaire Neil Gaiman, was (you can probably tell from the parts of this sentence you've already read) very enjoyable indeed. I picked it up second-hand years ago, and in this last week of my abhorrently long student summer, ploughed through it in a couple of days. I loved it.*
   To explain what the book is about would basically require a full synopsis, which I cannot be bothered to write and you shouldn't be bothered to read. You should just read the book. It's brilliant. The basic premise though is that another London exists, under and inbetween the gaps and forgotten areas of England's capital; this London Below (as it is called) is populated by weird conglomerations of cultures and peoples left behind in time and reality, by stern indefatigable warriors and people who idolise rats and immortal hitmen (Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar are hilarious and terrifying in equal measure) and medieval courts based on the Underground and black tea-drinking monks and dark life-sucking temptresses and some fantastically pompous dude called the Marquis de Carabas and even an angel called Islington. By accident, Richard Mayhew (a man with the stereotypical yuppie lifestyle and an appropriate unease at it) finds himself inextricably sucked into this world, and caught up in the murder plot of Door, the last surviving daughter from a noble family with the magical powers of opening anything. Richard, dragged along by Door, the Marquis and Hunter (a bodyguard with a penchant for slaying giant beasts), must come to terms with the weird new magical London he finds himself stuck in, and if possible return to his old life - all the while accompanying the others on their increasingly-dangerous quest to avenge Door's family.
   In terms of deeper thoughts and reflections on the content and themes and such of what I've read (which is what this blog's meant to be about) - well, I don't have any. Sorry. This book doesn't probe at concepts, it's not philosophical, it has no real agenda and makes no real points**, and I actually really enjoyed that about it. Sometimes it's nicer for a novel not to have one. It's only a story, but that doesn't diminish it, as in fully embracing what it is, it's a superb one. Neil Gaiman is probably one of the most genuinely imaginative writers alive. The world created is so unique, so inventive in odd yet comprehensible ways, so filled with characters real enough to care about (even the bad ones); the prose is intelligent and witty and deliciously descriptive; the plot is tight and neat and winds at the perfect pace to a fully satisfying resolution. It's punky and ethereal and postmodern and easily-accessible and wondrously entertaining.
   If you like great stories, read this book.

* A few days later, I acquired the 1996 TV-miniseries that Neil Gaiman originally wrote Neverwhere as (the novel was an extended in-depth adaptation of his previous work), only to be thoroughly disappointed. DO NOT WATCH THE MINISERIES. Almost everything about it is horrendous, except the writing (obviously) and the fact that Johnson from Peep Show plays the Marquis de Carabas and Malcolm Tucker plays the Angel Islington.

** Other than arguably a slight comment about individualism leading to antisociality, isolation and lack of interpersonal compassion in modern urban culture; the contrasts between London Below and London portrayed paint a picture of our normal world as one in which it becomes supremely easy to ignore everything and everyone outside one's own neat little life, which makes us both boring and complacent to others' ills. This isn't a central theme, though it is interesting and well-put (if somewhat socioeconomicoculturally (is that a word? I'm having that as a word) outdated, as a post-2008-recession reader).

Economics: The User's Guide

This book, a swift but penetrating introduction to the social science of economics from the veritable iconoclast Ha-Joon Chang, should be compulsory reading for voters and politicians and students and probably most other people. Chang is of the [excellent] opinion that economics, being as it is the shady force that drives global human society, is too important to be left to dubious academics. Widespread public understanding of the principles, arguments, theories and difficulties of economics is essential to a healthy democracy; our daily lives are shaped by economics and the policy decisions informed by it - how can we assent to government actions that we don't even vaguely comprehend for ourselves? In the prologue he puts forward a compelling case for even those who haven't touched a supply/demand diagram* with a bargepole to engage with the dismal science - 95% of which he says is common sense, and which is of course too important to be left to economists.

   His purpose in place, Chang then dives in to explain, in subject-divided chapters covering broad topics:

• a critical look at what economics actually is
• and an overview of how it has changed with the economies it studies, from Adam Smith in 1776 to current day
• followed by a brief history of the world's [mainly] capitalist economy
• then an open-minded insight into the varying methodologies, core theories and models of economics
• and of the economic actors' characteristics, behaviours, and interactions

[then an interlude]

• overview of issues in output, income and happiness
• overview of issues in economic production
• overview of issues in money and financial systems
• overview of issues in inequality and poverty
• overview of issues in work and unemployment
• overview of issues and debates in the role of the state
• final summative look at how we can use economics to improve the world

   The first half is an excellent orientation to economics as a thing, placing it in context of how we understand changing systems and providing insights from which one can begin to question and consider economists' points of view. The second half is an excellent introduction to some of the most hotly-contested-in-the-media important social concerns stemming from economics, which will allow a lay-reader to better engage with debate in such issues.

   The entire book is both a superbly educative primer for someone who has never properly encountered economics before, and a thought-provoking stir-from-ignorance for students of economics who have never been taught or shown (leastways, not in their course) how the subject should really be working. There are many schools of thought, and looking through a different lens or ten every so often is a great way of seeing complex issues more clearly - so why do economics departments (such as mine) focus their curriculum almost exclusively onto Neoclassical? The rational self-interest of economic actors is called into question by a host of empirical findings, but this is still taught as fact - why? How come economic policy is still taught as if it were the scientific deductions from infallible theoretical models, despite dozens of historical examples showing that the world doesn't work quite so neatly? These are questions Chang raises, curiosities he arouses in those both currently engaged with economics and those not; he intends to create a stir of educated shrewdness toward those who would otherwise blindside us with jargon and statistics. And I applaud him for it.**

   One (the only one I can think of without being overly pedantic) criticism I do have is of Chang's style of explanation. Not so much his actual explanatory sections - he writes with a clarity, levity and sensitivity to jargon and numbers; in plain English that makes the whole thing a breeze to read. He does have a habit though of peppering his descriptions with largely-irrelevant pop-culture references which themselves he then over-explains. Once or twice these actually do add to the point he's making or make a concept easier to grasp, but mostly they just seem to be there as unnecessary layman-accessibility window-dressing. I got used to them quickly, as they fit in with his relaxed tone, but it's still an irritating distraction whenever a paragraph-long explanation of a film pops up so he can employ a single short quote that he could have just said in his own words.

   Anyway.

   If you are, were, or will be an economics student; read this book. It won't teach you anything new about the content of your subject, but will teach you a huge amount about its context; it will help you weigh up your maybe-beloved-maybe-behated subject more objectively and healthily. If, as is more likely, you aren't, weren't and won't be an economics student - read it anyway. It's not at all academic so don't be scared off (it really is more of a "user's guide" than an introductory textbook, it's designed for laypeople), and will broaden your understanding of the world immensely, better equipping you to discerningly engage with political, social and business problems.

* The introductory reader will be pleased to hear there are no diagrams in the whole book. There's a few tables and numbers, but all very easily comprehensible in context. Chang is an excellent layman's explainer.

** For those interested in how current campaigns to reform economics syllabuses to something that better reflects a more humbly inquisitive subject, something less  insistent on diagrams as truth and more willing to accept pluralist schools of thought in critical debate - well, here's the facebook group for the Alternative Thinking for Economics Society at Sheffield University (where I be), and the website for Rethinking Economics, an international network of such student groups. They can probably put you in touch with an academic campaigning group near you.

Every Good Endeavour

This book, a treatise on work from super-reasonable super-accessible theologian Tim Keller, was a cracker indeed. Yet another bargain from last year's Forum bookstall, I'd been taking occasional strides through a chapter at a time for pretty much the year since, which worked out nicely as the chapters are self-contained enough to make potent points on their own and yet reinforce enough of the general theme to continue building the wider perspective of the book in an easily-retained way.
   The topic is, of course, work. In our modern western economies, "work" has become something very dissimilar to God's biblical plan for it, argues Keller. With his piercing gospel-centred biblically-grounded insights and characteristic clarity of argument, he outlines God's original intentions for the design of human work, as dignified, diligent, and delightful, taking joy in serving together and cultivating the natural, social and cultural elements of creation. Then he explains why we have problems in our relationship with work, as it all too often becomes selfish, fruitless or pointless; and these shortcoming are rooted in our idolatrous heart, which in striving to immerse our lives in self-service and sin lead us to approach all things, including work, wrongly. Our working lives can lay bare those disjointed attitudes and idols; be they prestige in posterity, a stable family, material security, raw power, whatever - the way we approach our work reflects our heart's priorities, and if we've put something other than God in top place then problems will arise in our relationship with the world (including work). Finally he brings the gospel to bear on our relationship with work and shows the liberating power it has on it; by rooting our attitude to work in the framework of God's plan for creation, our adoption into Christ, and the Spirit's influence in us, we as working christians can embrace work as something both humble and dignified, to take pride in doing but not root our value in, to strive for loving practice to the wider world both in our conduct and choice of workplace, to commit to excellence in service yet recognise the importance of rest. The new perspective offered is starkly different to how our world treats work, and is far more appealing with the christian worldview taken into account.
   I found this book really helpful. As per the stereotype of humanities students, even though I love my degree subjects and am passionate about other projects I'm involved with, I'm not prone to the best work ethic. Reading through Keller's book though made me think through a lot more thoroughly about the meaning and motivation of the work I do, finding purpose in its outcome and joyful service in actually doing it, by showing how my work and other people's work fits into God's bigger work - which is a good work. I'm trying to prayerfully reshape my attitudes to work to do it not for the salary, prestige, feelings of self-fulfilment, pride at social betterment, or even ethical outcomes themselves; but for the glory and spread of the kingdom of God. Old attitudes and habits die hard though, and having the truth laid bare in very lucid terms applicable to most working lives helps show us where to start. So, if you're a christian I strongly recommend this book to give you a solid grounding of practical theological applications of the gospel to the work that you do, and how it relates to the work that God's doing.

Stoner

<disclaimer>Before you think it, no, it has nothing to do with Bob Marley or Michael Phelps or Seth Rogen or Zach Galifianakis or Snoop Dogg or marijuana at all.</disclaimer>

This book, a forgotten gem of 1965 by John Williams (that became a 2013 bestseller because Vintage dug it up from somewhere and printed a load of new ones and everyone unexpectedly realised it should probably be counted among 20th century classics), was one of the most absorbingly melancholic truly perfect novels I have ever encountered. I somehow avoided the phenomena when it was sweeping British reading-circles, but my literature-fiend housemate left a copy here after he shuttled off to Wolverhampton so I decided to see what the fuss was about, borrowed it (thanks Chris) and went on to endure 288 pages of glorious heartbreak. The prose is so engrossing that I had to read it in three or four long bursts, finishing the entire second half throughout last night.
   I'm going to break my rule about minimising spoilers for this post, because plot isn't the main driver or worth of this book, style and mood are, and though I can't really fully replicate those in a shortish blog, a rough overview of his life's trajectory is key to them. Anyway, here goes [SPOILER ALERT].
   William Stoner, the eponymous protagonist biographied by the novel, is born into a traditional midwestern farming family in 1891. He enters the University of Missouri to study agriculture at the behest of his parents, but under the influence of literature professor Archer Sloane, falls in love with English and secretly swaps courses. He befriends two fellow students called Gordon Finch and Dave Masters, and finishes his degree while his disappointed parents age and die. World War One breaks out; Dave enlists and dies while William and Gordon stay on as teachers. He meets and takes a liking to a young woman called Edith Bostwick; while her protective upbringing and privileged parentage make her overly proper, she reciprocates and the two soon enter what he soon realises is a lifeless loveless marriage. William withdraws into his work, publishing a book on his beloved field of expertise, and slowly rising in his standing as a teacher, until Archer Sloane dies and Hollis Lomax, his replacement, takes up an indomitable grudge against William over a minor squabble concerning a blagging student. Soon the Depression strikes, and Edith's legally-dubious-banker father commits suicide and her mother dies shortly afterward. She becomes more assertive in her prim meaninglessness, and decides they need a child, which a year later they do have - a daughter called Amber. The few precious genuine moments William has with his daughter are snatched away by the properness and delicate education bestowed upon Amber by Edith, and his family continue almost unknown by his cohabitation. He sparks up an affair with research student Katherine Driscoll, which alongside his work becomes the only truly-loved pleasure in his life, until they are suspected too broadly by the University and must end, under threat of Lomax and now-Dean Gordon. He retreats into continuity of a subdued life, almost passive as Lomax shunts him from his passion subjects into introductory classes and as his wife maintains a household of quiet impersonality and as his daughter grows into a young woman as emotionally stunted and psychologically damaged as one would expect from her environment. Eventually Amber becomes pregnant, a distraught Edith forces her into marriage with the impregnator, who shortly thereafter ships out during the outbreak of World War Two and is killed, though Amber stays to live with his parents as the Stoner house is too broken. Her son becomes effectively adopted by her in-laws and she turns to alcoholism, for which William is grateful, as at least she can find some comfort there. He embarks upon another book but falls ill, is diagnosed with cancer, and steadily declines; having enough fight left to retrieve his own classes back from Lomax, be promoted to full professorship by Gordon, and see Katherine's research come to fruition in a book dedicated to him. He looks back on the events of his life as his mind finally gives, and contented, holding his book, watching trespassing students playing in his garden, he dies.
   William Stoner's life is little remembered. The few who knew him well probably didn't miss much, and those who knew him less well likely didn't at all, and his mark left on the world was little. But the emotional core of the novel, while embracing this grim perspective, shows that there is still significance is the things that happen to us: the minor victories we can win by whatever determination and bravery are relevant to our struggles; the beauties and joys that we can hold in relationships, be they closely or at an arm's length; the passionate commitment to work in something we find meaning in - these matter. John Williams' writing style is hypnotic in its stark walk through the deepest feelings, motivations, character and relational traits of the people in his novel that they seem fully human: human enough to be broken and whole in equal measure as their meaningful choices (which are few and far between) can lead them into working enlightenedly, false security, marital stagnation, joyful infidelity, petty rivalries, lifelong friendships, and so on.
   The people and things we have in our lives cannot be guaranteed to remain, or remain good, at any stretch; but if we have had good things remain good and we have reasonably strived to preserve them as such, then their loss does not make them insignificant, it merely makes them memory. Dave Masters' wisecracking cynical friendship is a token of this: though he dies early in the novel, his happy ghost remains to bond Finch and Stoner, cropping up in conversation decades afterward and influencing William's actions, attitudes and responses. Likewise his affair with Katherine, short and ill-fated as it was, remains as something full of genuine pleasure and love that could not be lost. Again as with Stoner's first realisation of his love for English literature that led him to drop agriculture and set the path for the rest of his lifelong career; when Lomax leaves him in dull freshman composition classes he reaffirms his love for the subject by resolutely ignoring his orders and teaching what he delights in teaching. These relationships, moments, events, achievements, that lend significance to William Stoner are sparse but beautiful, and build up to make what is an otherwise depressing novel into something life-affirmingly common and great.
   The prose is perfectly crafted to carry you along this walk through Stoner's life; peering into the depths of emotion and memory and character that shape its resulting choices with a poignant clarity that has the power to halt the readers' breath with a well-placed sentence or an unexpected adverb. There is tragedy here, yes - plentifully and existentially so - but it's wrapped in beauty and good intentions that carries it far beyond sadness. It really does pull you in and the longer you read in one sitting the better, as the words pile up on each other and you begin to inhabit the biography of William Stoner, to see better the flickers of meaning hidden in an unassumingly averagely disappointing life.
   Just read it. It's among the best novels I've ever read. But be aware that reading it requires a commitment, of time and feeling - it is best read in as few sittings as possible (I want to reread it some time in one go) and with as few expectations as possible. It is not a novel to consume. It's a novel to live in for the duration.

Why Cats Paint

This book is a fantastic (though somewhat dated as my edition was from 1994) introduction to the fascinating world of cat art, with a specific focus on questioning the root motivational causes for feline aesthetic inclinations. The authors are among the best people to have written such a book; Heather Busch has been on the International Council for the Curation of Feline Art since its inception, and Burton Silver was a founder of the Australasian League of Feline Art Critics - and needless to say both are widely-recognised authorities on critiquing and exhibiting top-standard artworks by cats of all nations.

   The book firstly provides an historical overview of recorded cat art; from ancient Egypt where the revered felines' wall daubings were seen as messages of the gods to Victorian England where a cat skilled at painting became famous as Mrs Broadmoore's show cat Mattisa, where live "pawtraits" were painted of audience members, much to their delighted surprise. The next chapter examines various theories of why exactly cats do paint; and from psychic energy fields to aesthetic rebuttals to dullard biologists' notions of behaviourism, this chapter provides a superb overview of the current theories. The final chapter demonstrates the variety of non-painted cat art currently in experimental circulation.
   However, the highlight of the book is of course the central chapter, which in turn spotlights twelve of the most influentially groundbreaking cat artists in the world, showcasing their work and describing their methods, with quality commentary on the character of the artists and how this affects their work. I was deeply struck by the technical skill and poignant insights of the art by Tiger, a spontaneous reductionist and a middle-aged tabby - his 1991 mural Breakfast stirred things in me unfelt since I visited the Stedelijk modern art gallery. Undoubtedly though the height of artistic credit in contemporary feline circles must go to the collaborative works of Wong Wong and Lu Lu, who despite being so different (a young black female and old white male respectively) have so well-adjusted to duo painting that their 1993 work best exemplifying joint efforts was titled WongLu and auctioned for a record-breaking (in cat art) $19000.

   Okay, I'll be honest - this book is a joke. Not in a bad way; the book was intended as a satirical jibe* at both the helicopter-parenting-esque culture of ambitious cat owners and the pretentious pomp of art criticism. I was made aware of its existence during a boredom-induced inane Buzzfeed ramble, googled it out of curiousity and realised it was an actual book, was intrigued enough to read the Amazon description, had £3 left of a giftcard anyway and there was a second-hand one for that so I plumped for "why not this looks like an interesting laugh" and it arrived six days later and I read it immediately in one sitting while my tea went cold and my entire leg was replaced with pins and/or needles.
   During that sitting, whilst reading, I was half laughing intermittently at how bizarre the whole thing was, and half desperately wondering whether the book was genuinely seriously actually real. Turned out it wasn't, but it's still hilarious. Would make a great gift for someone whose opinions of cats, art, or especially both, are a tad high. Though read it yourself too, because it's properly funny.

* I only just found this out. While reading the book I was in a constant state of bafflement as to whether it was actually serious or not, and the more I read the more convinced I was that it was in fact seriously a book about a genuine thing that actually happens in the real world (i.e. cat art) but nay, having finished it and sat upon the internet to write this post, my curiousity took hold and I googled it, and it is in fact a hoax book. The whole thing about psychic energy fields should've tipped me off, but at the time I just put that down to the authors probably being typically weird cat people**. It genuinely really upset me that the book was a hoax. It's still hilarious, so big props to the authors, for being committed to superlative comedy instead of brilliantly obscure animal art academia.

** I am a cat person, sort of, so no offence intended. Cats are great. I just have residual connotations in my mind with people who obsess over cats and people who probably don't find "psychic energy fields" an unlikely explanation for impromptu pet-paintings.

Wild at Heart

This book, by enthusiastically-masculine church founder John Eldredge, is terrible, for so many reasons. As a pre-explanation justification for why I read it, it was at a swap shop (basically unwanted-item-bartering; the majority of items being blouses, cutlery or picture books) and I figured a book aimed at christian men was more interesting than the alternatives. So I took it, started reading it in April, hated it, got angered and depressed by it but determined myself to finish it despite it gradually driving a significant negative wedge in my active attitude to christian life, and eventually finished it, read a couple of articles from prominent pastors supporting my problems with the book (here's the best one), tore the book apart* and put it in the blue recycling box thing for waste paper.

   Eldredge's general premise is that men in modern society have become domesticated, stifled by boredom and the effeminate demands of a post-1945 world, and for christian men, this has meant we've lost touch with who God means us to be, and thus also with God. To reclaim our identity in ourselves and our faith, we need to look deeper into our manly hearts and bring forth the innate adventurous risk-loving desires of "being the hero, of beating the bad guys, of doing daring feats and rescuing the damsel in distress" (quote taken from the blurb, but the text inside reeks of just as much repressed childhood). I had a biggish problem with what he had to say about gender roles, and several other biggish-to-enormous problems with the way he wrote, argued, and handled his points through what was supposedly christian theology applied to manhood.

   To get it out of the way though, I'll state what I do agree with him on: masculinity in men is becoming less prevalent, even in christian circles, as a result of cultural and social trends.** I'm also very much supportive of his opinion that The Great Escape is a great movie.

   Now then for my quarrels with John Eldredge as regards his book's content, methods, and implications. This could run into an entire blog post of its own but this one's already relatively long for a book I disliked so I'll try to keep it brief. These can be boiled down into roughly five points of contention:

1. Unhealthy, unhelpful, unrealistic discussion of gender roles. This is to be expected in my response to pretty much any christian book's treatment of gender issues, as I still have some serious questions regarding those attitudes, but nevertheless John Eldredge's book brings them to the fore in new infuriating ways. He paints gross caricatures: ideal men as strong, unruly, brave, delighting in wilderness and beards and meat and potential violence; ideal women as pretty much not doing anything independent but being pretty and feeling really good about the fact that this ideal man is providing and caring and loving her. My sensibilities vomited as I read some of his descriptions. I'm a feminist and strong supporter of LGBT+ rights and I'm aware that much of those ideas will not be taken on board by christianity any time soon, but surely there must be some middle ground between fully liberal gender attitudes and such hopelessly primitive portraits as the men and women of John Eldredge's bleak binary imagination? Dunno. Anyway, the manhood he extols has its merits, but should by no means be allowably stamped as being central to our identities. I get the feeling that were I to meet him and honestly disclose that I have no interest in taming horses or mountain climbing or white-water-rafting, he would put down his shotgun, shove aside his steak, lay a tanned arm on my shoulder and offer to pray for what he perceived to be my struggles with homosexuality. (Hey, if he's allowed to caricature literally everyone of both genders, I'm allowed to caricature him).
2. Weak, structureless, and frequently ridiculous methods of argument, designed to garner mass-persuasion rather than reasonable conclusions. Unbecoming of a christian author and/or someone with the use of rational thought, (a) most of his points are very hazily drawn out and founded on very shaky assumptions (some of which turn out to be heresies, yippee), and (b) most of the evidence he turns to in support of these points turns out not to be scriptural or theological but cherry-picked out of an unusual selection of proverbial butts. Anecdotes about his friends, wife, children, himself, his adventures in the wilderness; lengthy explanations and quotes from action films; lengthy expositions of the lives and actions of great manly men (I  half-jestingly reckon William Wallace comes off as a stronger role model than Jesus from sheer quantity of mentions); absurd, maybe even ignorant generalisations about personal variables of sex (there's not even the slightest examination of gender psychology, probably because empiricism would destroy his premise), character, spirituality and worldview; quotes from a book he doesn't give (can't remember?) the name of and from many others he does, but with the same gravitas as Bible verses. Instead of realising a reasonable conclusion through searching scripture, philosophy, theology, etcetera, and pathing the way to it soundly referencing his research sources as support, he ploughs toward an unjustified conclusion using vague handfuls of irrelevant unreliable spewage to prop up his points. It relies on the strongly empathetic emotive content of much of his "evidence" overriding readers' propensity for realising that what they're being told is almost nonsense.
3. Distortion of biblical scripture to suit arguments. That is, when he actually uses scripture, instead of the much-more-frequently-employed tactics described above. The same article linked in the intro highlights some of the main examples. 
4. First actual heresy - strongly implies that God is less than sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient and independent. He somewhat humanises God, making him out to be (a) a lover of risk and uncertainty (which one cannot be unless there are things one doesn't know or control) and (b) at least partially dependent on human love to justify his existent character. This contradicts all solid theology on the matter. The linked article again highlights some of points where this is clear.
5. Second actual heresy - strongly implies, assumes, and argues that the human heart, other than being a dark well of sinful nature and selfishness, is something intrinsically good, to be trusted and relied upon in informing our thoughts/words/deeds/relationships, and that in better knowing and living from the depths of our own hearts we can better engage with the characteristics that God implanted in them to bring us to fulfilment. This is directly contrary to all actual theology of human nature and sin, and isn't just a mistaken casual aside-point but is the central assumption to his entire book. Again, that article highlights some of the main examples where the assumption surfaces, though very obvious threads following it run throughout.

   The first, I can intellectually forgive because I'm quite liberal in my theological approach to gender, and I realise that the gender roles he discusses are not overly dissimilar to a majority of christian opinion. This still annoys me because I think it's flawed but that's separate to deconstructing this awful book.

   The second, I absolutely cannot intellectually forgive because it shows clear signs of either laziness, stupidity or manipulative populism in thought about actually quite serious matters, especially when the conclusions he draws are so downright sketcky.

   The third, fourth and fifth, I intellectually object to and as a christian strongly object to. Misrepresenting the truth of God in ways that John Eldredge has done in this book is the sign of either (a) deliberately false preacher whose contra-orthodox theological teachings have no place in a published christian book, let alone the pulpit of a megachurch, or (b) accidentally ignorant preacher whose complete lack of understanding of basic theological concepts have no place in a published christian book, let alone the pulpit of a megachurch. John Eldredge, in promoting our independence upon knowing ourselves, has glorified the heart of man and humbled the person of God; exactly the opposite of sound christian advice. Daryl Wingerd wrote this long but excellent article (same link as before) critically analysing the book, which I strongly recommend if you've read the book and are seeking wisdom to affirm everything you may or may not have thought was wrong with it. I'm genuinely concerned for the spiritual wellbeing of the people who listen to macho-man's sermons every Sunday (given recent controversies surrounding Mark Driscoll also, something in me wonders if questionable leadership and overemphasis on manliness are correlated... probably), and moreso concerned for the upwards-of-two-million people who have contributed to this book's sales success. Such wobbly wrong messages do not deserve to be so widely disseminated. If you are a christian, I urge you not to read this book (or if you do, have loads of salt ready to sprinkle a pinch onto each page). This other book is an excellent gender-neutral alternative, full of legitimate gospel-centred biblically-grounded teaching about how to reclaim our identity in relationship with God.

   I think this is my longest post so far on this blog. Fitting, for the book I've despised most since I started blogging each one. I had a few more things to say about the responsibilities of reason and wisdom in authorship but never mind.

* A staunch bibliophile, I usually detest causing damage to books, but the sheer dungliness of this one drove me to ensure that at least my own copy could never be inflicted upon a human brain again - though over two million copies have sold worldwide, which is a bummer.

** Being objective here. He goes on to blame this for all manner of spiritually-stultifying evils, whereas I'm not at all sure it's that bad of a thing, but yeh, he nonetheless made the objective point, and I agreed with him on it.