Late as usual (but also longer than usual):
1. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce by Slavoj Žižek .
In this book, Žižek explores the collapse of capitalist liberal democracy first in the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 and then in the farcical events of the global financial meltdown in 2008 (Sept. 11 is only mentioned in passing and the economic events of 2008 remain the enduring focus).  In exploring these events, Žižek also points to the Left’s failure to exploit the situation in order to create an alternative and so — instead of supporting the views of those like Klein or Hardt and Negri — Žižek proposes a return to communism with its concomitant exercise of force (here wielded primarily in solidarity with those who are excluded and assigned to ‘the place of no place’ within global capitalism).
As with most things Žižek is writing these days, I found this book to be both enlightening and entertaining.  I particularly enjoyed his (ongoing) exposition of propaganda, fetishism, and ideology and remain convinced that this is the sort of argument that any ‘person of faith’ should employ in order to think about his or her own belief system.  I also enjoyed Žižek ‘s focus upon the centrality of those who are excluded, a thought that he as continued to develop since In Defense of Lost Causes, and a thought that has many parallels in liberation theology.  More off topic maybe, but I also enjoy that way in which he (and Badiou) write about ‘the Event’, as I think that this is an almost perfect description of Pauline apocalypticism.  My only main objection to this book is that Žižek ends up leaving his form of communism as rather vague and undefined (in this regard, he reminds me of Hauerwas’ writings about the Church — it’s all very beautiful and inspiring but when you look for where the rubber hits the road you end up a little confused and a little disappointed).  So, yep, recommended reading.
2. Hatred of Democracy by Jacques Rancière.
In this short book, Rancière explores the ways in which modern Western, or parliamentary, democracies are actually sustained by very anti-democratic beliefs and practices.  Thus, members of the ruling class are motivated by a very deep hatred of democracy, for it is genuine democracy that challenges their so-called right to rule.  Or, as Rancière puts it, from the perspective of the ruling class “there is only one good democracy, the one that represses the catastrophe of democratic civilization”.
Genuine democracy, then, is one that refuses to privilege any group of people with some sort of preordained right to rule (whether through wealth, or familial connections, or title, or whatever else).  It is hear that Rancière looks back (with admiration) to some of the Greek poleis that Plato criticized.  Here, representatives of the people were selected through the drawing of lots.  Rancière comments:

If the drawing of lots appears to our ‘democracies’ to be contrary to every serious principle for selecting governors, this is because we have forgotten what democracy meant and what type of ‘nature’ it aimed at countering… the drawing of lots was the remedy to any evil at once much more serious and much more probable than a government full of incompetents: government comprised of a certain competence, that of individuals skilled at taking power through cunning… good government is the government of those who do not desire to govern.

Thus, what democracy means when it speaks of “the power of the people” is “not that of the people gathered together, of the majority, or of the working class”; rather, it is the power of “any one at all” to govern and to be governed.
Personally, having spent a lot of time thinking about how to organize within a particular community of people (and having had many negative experiences of the practice of power, representation, and leadership in a multitude of communities), I find this thesis to be quite fascinating and compelling.  I wonder what would happen if we started organizing ourselves based upon this principle?
3. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger.
Originally published as two separate but connected stories, Franny and Zooey tells the story of two siblings coming of age and negotiating the space between a messed-up world that is not as it should be and the hubris that comes with being raised with intelligence, taste, and privilege.  Mostly it consists of three prolonged conversations (the first between Franny and her boyfriend, the second between Zooey and their mother, and the third between Franny and Zooey), and it builds to a great conclusion.  In fact, I got goosebumps on the final page and a half, and I can’t remember the last time the climax of a novel did that to me.  Recommended reading.
4. Gertrude by Hermann Hesse.
My wife owns a whole bunch of Hesse novels and I’ve kind of poked away at them over the years.  I remember not being too impressed with Siddhartha, but Narcissus and Goldmund was fabulous.  Anyway, on a whim, I pulled this book off the shelf and opened to the first paragraph:

When I consider my life objectively, it does not seem particularly happy.  Yet I cannot really call it unhappy, despite all my mistakes.  After all, it is quite foolish to talk about happiness and unhappiness, for it seems to me that I would not exchange the unhappiest days of my life for all the happy ones.

Wow.  After reading that I was hooked and quickly read through what turned out to be a story of unrequited love (it has been awhile since I read one of those).  Of course it is also more than that and deals with the ways in which we unintentionally harm the people around us and with other themes like maturity, sacrifice and humility (another quote: “Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others”).
Then again, this book also got me thinking about the theme of unrequited love and the cultural shift that seems to have occurred in this regard.  Once upon a time, this was a dominant theme amongst ‘people of culture’ (just to name a few, think of the way it shows up in literature from Hugo’s Hunchback, to Leroux’s Phantom, to Rostand’s Cyrano, to Goethe’s young Werther).  However, in our contemporary context, it seems like the theme of unrequited love belongs almost exclusively to teenage pop culture (the Twilight Series being the most recent blockbuster to exploit this theme).
So how is it, I wonder, that the theme of unrequited love has moved from being a favourite topic amongst the cultural elite, to being a favourite topic in one of the most looked-down-upon pop cultures of our day?  I’d be curious to hear any theories that people might have about this.  Personally, I wonder if it is because we have given up on love and have ceased to believe in it the way in which people once did.  Indeed, it is almost as though giving up on love becomes part of the rites of passage that we face as we move from childhood to maturity.  Instead of seeing love — including unrequited love — as inherently worthwhile, noble, and beautiful, we learn to temper our views with cynicism, pragmatism, and the desire to avoid any pain or loss.
Anyway, all this is rather tangential to the book at hand.  Recommended reading.
5. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
I have been thinking about this book for the last several months even though I haven’t read it since highschool.  Basically, I kept coming back to Biff’s final confrontation with his father:

Biff: Pop!  I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you! … I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you.  You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like the rest of them!  I’m one dollar an hour, illy!  I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it.  A buck an hour!  Do you gather my meaning?  I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home! … Pop, I’m nothing!  I’m nothing, Pop.  Can’t you understand that?  There’s no spite in it any more.  I’m just what I am, that’s all.

Basically, I went back and read this play because I’ve been trying to internalize that message — to be able to confront my own insignificance and failures but to do so without any spite.  It is a difficult line to walk.  On the one hand, I am filled with a longing to see something more in life — to see new life, new creation, new love bloom in places of death, destruction and despair — but, on the other hand, I have also seen how my efforts to pursue those things have ended up harming others and leaving me constantly disappointed.
There is a quote from Rilke that a friend of mine taught me some time ago: “I’m afraid if my demons leave me, my angels will take flight as well”.  When he said this, Rilke was talking about why he rejected (Freudian) psychotherapy, but I’ve always understood this quote as pointing to more than that — as fitting well with what Paul says about power being perfected in weakness and with what Jesus says about losing life to find it.  Perhaps both our brightest and our darkest aspects are two indivisible sides of the same coin.
But if that’s the case, then one wonders if we need to throw away the coin.  In fact, it seems to me that this is exactly what most people do — they give up both their hope and despair to live in the now; they give up both their love and their hate to live with indifference; they give up both their angels and demons to get through their bullshit 9-5 jobs.  This is how people learn to survive this gong-show that we call life.  Me, I’ve been clinging to my hope and despair, my love and my hate, and my angels and demons… but I don’t know how sustainable that is anymore.
Anyway, this is also tangential to the book at hand, but these are the things I getting thinking about when I read.  I recommend this play (also, in light of this tangent, it is interesting to note how it is the final in-breaking of love, into the life of Willy, that leads to his ultimate act of self-destruction — Willy can only survive as long as he does not know that his son loves him).
6. Prints and Drawings of Käthe Kollwitz selected and introduced by Carl Zigrosser.
As I’ve stated before, I’ve never connected much with the visual arts.  This is partly why I’ve been so stunned by the works of Kollwitz — they caught me completely off guard and struck me speechless.  I honestly don’t know how to describe her work, but I very much enjoyed (if that’s the right word) this book of prints and drawings, as well as the essay providing background information on Kollwitz herself.  So, instead of trying to describe the art, I’ll just link to a few examples:  Death and Woman, Poverty, Woman with her Dead Child, and Sleeping Mother with Child.

Well, I’ve had a couple weightier tomes on the go for awhile now, but I wasn’t able to finish them last month… so just fiction and lit. on the list.
1. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner.
This is the second novel I’ve read by Stegner and I think he is growing on me.  His writing reminds me of Steinbeck and Hardy… but not quite as good.  Of course, Steinbeck and Hardy set the bar impossibly high, so don’t be put off — this is still a very enjoyable book.
In it, Stegner tells us the story of Elsa and Bo Mason — from their youth on through to their old age, which also takes us through from the childhood to mid-life of their sons, Chester and Bruce.  The story is set in North America in the early twentieth-century and it speaks of the struggle to survive, the challenge of conflicting desires, accepting the consequences of one’s choices, and living in light of that which is beyond one’s control.  Recommended reading.
2. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.
Well, I continue to chip away at McCarthy but I think that this is my least favourite of the books I have read by him.  Perhaps it was because I had already seen the movie and so the plot did not pull me in as much, as I knew what to expect (speaking of the movie, after reading the novel, I think they did an excellent job casting the central characters).  Of course, all this is not to suggest that this was a crummy novel.  It’s a good book.  The characters are very well crafted, the various narrative voices are well employed, and the ongoing action or tension causes the reader to press on.
(I’m not actually mentioning the plot because I’m assuming most people are familiar with it from the movie.)
3. Blindness by José Saramago.
Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book about an epidemic of (white) blindness that suddenly descends upon an unnamed town (and presumably spreads to the rest of the world).  What then results — first the quarantine imposed upon the blind (as they are isolated within an old insane asylum) and what happens there, and then the general collapse of society as everyone is stricken blind — is probably a fairly honest portrayal of how humans tend to react to crises.  Some band together to try and care for each other, some band together to exploit others, everyone’s hands get dirty and, at the end of the day, most everybody is just trying to stay alive (no matter what that might end up costing others… including loved ones).
Saramago also has an interesting writing style.  He never uses proper names for characters (but calls them “The Doctor’s Wife”, “The Girl with Dark Glasses” and so on), he writes massive run-on sentences (using commas as periods) and often doesn’t distinguish in-text dialog from commentary (ensuring that the reader must pay attention to who might be talking and when).  Generally I’m not a fan of this style of writing but I found that it worked for me in Blindness and drew me into the story.
4. Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke.
As I’ve been more and more impressed with Rilke (see item #5), I was happy to find a great German/English copy of the Duino Elegies (which some people have called the greatest piece of poetry written in the twentieth-century) and The Sonnets to Orpheus.  The Sonnets didn’t do much for me, but certain passages from the Elegies rate amongst the best writing I’ve read.  Ever.  This is what poetry should be like — it should knock the wind out of you and leave you full of wonder and longing, sorrow and gratitude.  For example, read the opening lines of the first elegy:
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence.  For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us.  Every angel is terrifying.
Or look at this from the conclusion of the fourth elegy:
But this: that one can contain
death, the whole of death, even before
life has begun, can hold it to one’s heart
gently, and not refuse to go on living,
is inexpressible.
There is so much more I could quote, but I’ll just go with one more, from the ninth elegy:
But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us.  Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing.  Just once; no more.  And we too,
just once. and never again.  But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.
My God.  My God.
5. The Disasters of War by Francisco Goya.
Well, I’m not sure if this really counts as “reading” but, um, I did read the two page intro (and all the picture captions!) so, what the hell, I’ll add it to my list.  Basically, this book presents the reader with a series of prints Goya made based upon the Spanish insurrection (against the French) that occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth-century.  The pictures are stark, brutal and devastating — portraying everything from the mutilation of corpses to (what is about to become) gang rape — and act as a condemnation of war and the violence that people practice against other people.
I originally picked up this book, because I was doing some research for a piece of art I’m getting done.  The Disasters of War is certainly a powerful series but, in terms of my own interests, I find myself even more strongly attracted to the work of Käthe Kollwitz.  Sometimes I wonder why I’m so strongly drawn to such stark portrayals of death in art…

Well, my wife and son were away visiting family for most of this month so I was able to catch up on a bit of pleasure reading (not to mention thesis writing!).  Here are the latest:
1. The Political Theology of Paul by Jacob Taubes.
There is always something interesting about reading so-called ‘outsiders’ perspectives on Paul (i.e. the perspectives of those who fall outside of the narrow guild of New Testament and Pauline studies).  Often, I think, such ‘outsiders’ are able to grasp essential points that many ‘insiders’ miss because of their own rootedness within particular traditions and their own dogmatic upbringings.  So, coming to Taubes, I think that his lectures on Paul are very close to the mark — certainly on the political level, where he reads Paul has dramatically and subversively political — and the way he reads Paul in dialogue with voices like Barth, Schmitt, Nietzche, and Freud is very enlightening (I believe that it was also Taubes who was responsible for leading people like Badiou and then Zizek to look at Paul).
I also appreciate the way in which Taubes presents his material — he speaks with humility, brushes off a lot of issues that are unimportant to him, and frequently employs humour… but does all of this in a way that still cuts deeply into the discussion of Paul.  I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in the nexus between Paul, politics, and philosophy.
2. The Folly of Prayer: Practicing the Presence and Absence of God by Matt Woodley (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).
Many thanks to Adrianna at IVP for this review copy!
This year I decided to begin reading some more popular-level Christian books, just to get a feel for what is going on out there.  As a part of doing that, I read Holy Fools by Matt Woodley and was happily surprised by how good it was (see my review here).  Consequently, I came to this book (another popular-level book) with expectations I would not have had otherwise.
Unfortunately, they were disappointed.  While I continue to appreciate Woodley’s tone and the way in which he raises difficult questions around matters like godforsakenness, I found that most of his suggestions or solutions lacked the depth I had found in his prior book.  Don’t get me wrong, I am very glad that Woodley honestly confronts the experience of being abandoned by God, encountering nothing but silence from God, and lamenting and crying out to (and, perhaps, even against) God, in light of these things.  I imagine that a good many Christians may find this to be liberating (as I did, the first time I started to explore the notions of godforsakenness and lament).  However, when compared to Woodley’s other book, a lot of the content contained in this one felt… fluffy.
Anyway, just to give y’all an idea of the content of this book, Woodley explores twelve different models of prayer.  Prayer as: (1) guttural groaning; (2) skin, trees, blood, bread and wine; (3) desperation; (4) mystery; (5) absence; (6) an argument with God; (7) a long, slow journey; (8) dangerous activity; (9) paying attention; (10) feeling God’s heartbeat; (11) love; and (12) praying.  Ultimately, of course, his goal is that the reader would journey into the act of prayer itself (instead of just reading about prayer) and this is surely a good thing.
3. Blood Meridian Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy.
Many critics have described Blood Meridian as Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece — indeed, as one of the masterpieces of American literature.  I have not read enough McCarthy to know if it his best work, but I certainly agree that it is a great novel, and amongst the best that I have read.  There is something about McCarthy’s voice that entrances me.  I find it difficult to describe… some sort of apocalyptic blend of both the violence and beauty of the world, yet presented in such a way that one never feels as though judgment is being passed on any of it.  As if to say: “This is the world in which we live… it’s a bloody clusterfuck, but it’s goddamn beautiful.”
Anyway, Blood Meridian tells the story of a teenager called ‘the kid’ who joined the Glanton Gang in mid-nineteenth century America — a gang of low-lifes and brutes who made money by scalping indians for the bounties offered by the local civic authorities.  Prominent amongst this group of fellows is ‘the judge’ — a fellow of mythic proportions.  Thus, as the gang travels through small towns, deserts, mountains and wastelands — with one violent episode chasing the heels of another — the focus remains mostly upon the (unspoken and unread) thoughts of the kid and the actions and pontifications of the judge.  Really, though, no review or summary is going to do this story any justice — go read the book.
4. Gunnar’s Daughter by Sigrid Undset.
After thoroughly enjoying Undset’s Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy, I thought I would continue reading her writings.  Gunnar’s Daughter is a much shorter and, in some ways, terser, story that mirrors the themes and writing style of the great Icelandic Sagas.  It is the story of Vigdis Gunnarsdatter, how she is courted and then raped by Ljot Gissurson, how she then bears a child, and what follows after.
As with Undset’s larger trilogy, Gunnar’s Daughter is full of fascinating historical details and vividly portrays a world that is now lost and gone.  Furthermore, the characters — their passions, their longings, and the ways in which they self-destruct — strike me as a very real portrayal of people as I imagine them to be.  This is recommended reading.
5. Uncollected Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.
It has been a very long time since I’ve read any poetry, and it has been even longer since I’ve enjoyed reading poetry (when I was younger I really wanted to like reading poetry because I thought it would make me ‘cultured’ but I finally had to give up because it almost always bored me out of my mind).  However, a friend of mine had recently sent me a couple of excerpts from Rilke, and they almost knocked the wind out of me.  So, I decided to go out and pick up a Rilke book.  I’m glad I did.  I find his imagery and voice to be… I don’t know… apocalyptic… devastating and beautiful.  Here are a couple of samples:
Do you still remember: falling stars, how
they leapt slantwise through the sky
like horses over suddenly held-out hurdles
of our wishes–had we so many?–
for stars, innumerable, leapt everywhere;
almost every look upward was wedded
to the swift hazard of their play,
and the heart felt itself a single thing
beneath that vast disintegration of their brilliance–
and was whole, as though it would survive them!
and
You don’t know nights of love? Don’t
petals of soft words float upon your blood?
Are there no places on your dear body
that keep remembering like eyes?
6 & 7. Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia, Vols. 1 & 3, edited by Danzig Baldaev et al.
Over the last little while I have become increasingly fascinated by the multitude of subcultures and lifestyles that people inhabit — from people who are into ‘Live Action Role Playing’ (cf. this movie), to guys who develop personal relationships with sex dolls (cf. this movie), there appear to be endless alternate worlds in which people live and, ultimately, find their deepest sense of identity and value.  Anyway, as I’ve been digging around in this things, I happened to stumble onto Alix Lambert’s documentary on Russian prison tattoos (cf. ‘The Mark of Cain‘).  What I found interesting about this art, is that the images tattooed onto the bodies of the inmates, actually often told their whole life stories, and their entire criminal history — but did so through a series of symbols and (often) through the coded use of religious iconography (where the number of towers on a cathedral represent the number of terms or years served, where a virgin with child means ‘I have been a thief since birth’, where Jesus on the cross represents ‘the king of thieves’, and so on).  This led me to do some more research into this (now pretty much dead) subculture, and led me to Bardaev’s encyclopedia.  The set contains many beautiful pictures, hundreds of sketches, a couple essays on the topic, as well as several stories related to the life lived by the inmate who sported the tattoo at hand.  If you are interested in seeing a sample of the pictures contained in this book you can click this link (but be warned, although some of the tattoos are fascinating or beautiful, a good many are extremely vulgar, sexual, and violent).