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.

Logic: A Graphic Introduction

This book, part of The Guardian's series of free little graphic introductions to complex ideas or isms (this one by Dan Cryan, Sharron Shatil and Bill Mayblin), was surprisingly good. I salvaged it from the room of my brother who recently moved out and read it because I had nothing better to do and it's quite short and logic is quite a fascinating thing really. As a philosophy student, logic is something that I'm not unfamiliar with, but it's still an alien field that I could likely explore for months without being able to provide much insight beyond mere understanding - this is a field of study only meaningfully advanced once or twice a century by the keenest dedicated minds. The book, written in laymans' English replete with vaguely amusing illustrations demonstrating points, ideas and thinkers, gives an excellent introductory overview of logic: its roots in argumental structures, moving onto its relations to algebraic thought, the foundations of mathematics, ways of thinking about science and computing, how it deals with problems such as paradoxes and proofs, and how concepts such as truth and possibility fit in. In terms of critical content there wasn't much to grapple with here (hence why this post is only one paragraph), but it did make me zone out a few times in sheer overwhelmed wonder as to how some of the deeper "discoveries" could have been made - in logic there is nothing to observe, test for, experiment on or respond to, just pure thought structures analysed in abstraction to see how watertight they are; which doesn't sound like an easy task. Still, thinking about thinking and how similar it is to arithmetic or code or electronic systems or whatever, is quite interesting. As far as graphic introductory overviews go, this is pretty good, but for people genuinely interested in logic, there are sure to be easily accessible books out there that are way better at providing an academic entry to understanding.

Areopagus

This book, arguably more of a booklet, is a great little work by evangelist Roger Carswell. It's only about fifty pages long and very speedy-easy to read, being as it is designed for mass dissemination by christian students to their friends who they want to give more thought about the gospel. I had a stack of a dozen of them from somewhere, quickly read through it to get the gist, and hopefully will disperse them throughout the next year.

   Anyway, it's centred around Paul's missional speech at the Areopagus in Athens (see actual passage): basically he's alone in the city for a few days, and notices idols strewn about to multitudinous gods - which provokes him to start speaking to everyone there about the one true God and the grace shown by him in the person of Jesus. Ancient Greece was, of course, a fantastic place for bandying about philosophies at the time; critical intellectual debate was a pretty common public pastime, but when Paul's message of the gospel is heard, it's strikingly different to any other current ideas in Athens - and people engage. They invite him to the Areopagus, formerly a court but turned into a public debating arena, where new ideas are presented for critical reception. Here Paul lays out starkly the gospel, emphasising especially Jesus' exclusivity in truth and salvation. Carswell discusses the passage to show how Paul's message speaks deeply to a key focus in modern evangelism; worldview pluralism. Just as Athens' streets were lined with many gods, some even without name, representing many differing conflicting interpretations of truth and rightness; so too in postmodernism-laden 21st-century England are people's worldviews various beyond apparent necessity. However, unlike then, public critical debate of the ideas and values one lives by is not a social norm: many people hold worldviews out of convenience rather than intellectual assent; it's not that they think they know best how to live, but that they like living how they are doing and so would prefer not to bother thinking too much about the reasons, values and motives underlying it. Which makes evangelism bloody difficult, speaking from experience (hello christian philosophy students everywhere).

   So, as to this book, it's not one to buy to read yourself (unless you're an interested non-christian, in which case, maybe do and get stuck into critical thought). It was designed to be bought en-masse by christians and given to friends, and for that purpose it's good I think, though not just by itself. As a starter to probe ideas, fine, but accompany it with slatherings of prayer, and if your friend is genuinely digging their intellect into gospel, then suggest to them Tim Keller's The Reason For God or similar excellent titles to smooth out apologetic issues, or even critically going through scripture together. Anyway, this is meant to be about Roger's book, not general how-to-do-evangelism spewage from a definite amateur, sorry - but yes, as a buy-twenty-to-prayerfully-give-away kind of little book, it's a good one.