la fin est douce
Among my half-dozen or so new year’s resolutions, one was to read one book a week. So far, I am failing. Today’s date (17th) indicates that I should be on book 3; I am only 60% done with book 2.
February will be better.
Nevertheless, here are two short book reviews of the stuff I’ve read so far:
- The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller. Keller opens his book by correcting two commonly held misconceptions of “The Prodigal Son” parable. He does this by first clarifying the term “prodigal” (i.e., extravagantly wasteful), and by noting that the parable’s oft-used title is not entirely descriptive: the parable begins with the words, “a man had two sons,” not just one. Afterwards, Keller shifts our focus to the two types of sons, and what they demonstrate.
The younger son, brazenly rebellious, is contrasted with the elder son, who is hard and unyielding. Many readers have already studied and grown familiar with the character of the younger son; fewer still look at his older brother, who is crucial to the entire story and increasingly relevant today. What is tragically true is that the character of the elder son, bound up closely with his ideas of what ought to be, has become emblematic of many church goers today. Too many, Keller argues, have passed off grace and compassion for blind moral self-justification.
Keller makes his case convincingly, of which I have only covered the bare bones. However, he made either a strange title choice or made a marked omission. Missing from the book is a developed explanation on the concept of a “prodigal God,” a Father who is excessively loving and overly gracious. The concept is, after all, the book’s namesake and the touchstone to which Keller holds the sometimes excessively wordy brother comparison. Of course, Keller doesn’t leave an explanation out completely, but because of its brevity, the book just doesn’t finish on as triumphant a note as it could have. Or rather, as it should have.
I don’t know what to rate it. 3/5? 4/5? Something like that. Keller is a gifted orator and pastor, and is an excellent writer (see The Reason for God, for an example of something I really enjoyed), but The Prodigal God just shows the beginnings of what could be something greater.
- The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten. This book is a collection of essays from the late 80s to early 90s by Jeffrey Steingarten, acclaimed food critic to Vogue magazine.
The title is no exaggeration: each essay details not simply a foray, but a deep involvement in countless different foods and cuisines. Steingarten’s exhaustive research and personal culinary experiments totally excuse the rumors of his unbelievable in-person pretension and the growing size of his paunch. Occasionally my eyes gloss over at the level of scientific detail he uses to describe processes such as retrogradation, but he always quickly brings it back to the heart of the matter: deliciousness.
After every essay I read, I feel a gnawing sense of terrible food deficiency. I must now go to Italy, and eat hand-cut tagliarini with paper-thin slices of white truffles! I must fly to Japan for some authentic wagyu! The soft American bread I am eating is inherently inferior, an embarrassment to the bread kingdom! And so forth. I think this is the mark of a good food writer, and if anyone deserves the title, it is this man.
I am, again, only 60% through the book. Unless it sharply improves or plummets in quality, I’m going to leave it with a 4/5.
