The Review Revolution: Improving Culture through Kvetching

Harry Potter, Christian Hallows and C.S. Lewis: A Q&A with Greg Garrett

I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows again in preparation for the movie next month--which releases in 45 days, but who's counting? In listening I have come once more to realize why it is one of my favorite books. As I mentioned here on the blog this summer, it speaks eloquently to Christian themes of death, sacrifice, and resurrection. J.K Rowling talked about this a bit in last week's interview with Oprah Winfrey.
 

In a new book, Greg Garrett (The Gospel According to Hollywood; Holy Superheroes; and a number of other books on religion and popular culture) explores the Harry Potter series as religious literature. Say amen, somebody! Here's a Q&A about One Fine Potion, Greg's new exploration of the "literary magic" of Harry Potter.

Flunking Sainthood: First off, congratulations on a beautiful analysis of Harry Potter. I'm sure some people will wonder, "Why now, when the series is complete, will people want to buy a book on this topic?" But I think your book proves that the Harry Potter stories have become classics in both children's and Christian literature, and that people will be analyzing them closely for decades to come.

Garrett: I'm so glad the book worked for you; obviously I'm hoping that some people will want to read more about Harry Potter. I point out early on in the book that Harry Potter has become the most successful "fictional" story in history, and the popularity of the films and now the brand new theme park in Orlando are convincing evidence that the narrative still interests millions. I waited to write my book until I had a chance to read and re-read J. K. Rowling's books, so that I could do a faithful analysis of her story to understand what it is that people are carrying away from it, whether consciously or subconsciously. What I did in One Fine Potion was name those things so that people can claim the lessons and encouragement Rowling provides in these pages and carry them back into their lives.

FS: You argue that reading books like Harry Potter is "essential for our moral development." I agree! But can you explain why?

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood/2010/10/harry-potter-christian-hallows-and-cs-lewis-a-qa-with-greg-garrett.html#ixzz124NYixBq

Who Was Julian of Norwich? A Q&A with Author Amy Frykholm

The only thing I knew about Julian of Norwich before reading Amy Frykholm's excellent new "contemplative biography" of her was that she was the saint who said "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." My friend Kelly likes to quote that when I'm particularly stressed out, and I find it comforting. 

It turns out that I'm not the only one in the dark about this medieval saint. In this interview, Christian Century correspondent Amy Frykholm explodes some of the pervasive myths about Julian and helps us to understand Julian's theology and visions.

Flunking Sainthood: I don't know much about Julian, but I had always heard she was an aristocratic nun. You say that might not have been the case at all.

Frykholm: Right. In fact, I think the evidence points away from it. No one knows for sure, but there was an enormous explosion of lay writing in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Lay people were taking on greater roles in the church and claiming their own spirituality. So there's no reason to presume she was a nun. But there's also the fact that Julian never mentions a convent, a religious order, or anything monastic in her book. Another reason was that she wrote this book for laypeople. Most books written by women in this period were for sisters or make a great deal of mention of convent life. She's very clear that she's writing for laypeople.

FS: So she probably wasn't a nun, but you're saying she was not gentility either?

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood/2010/09/who-was-julian-of-norwich-a-qa-with-author-amy-frykholm.html#ixzz0yVArisbS

What Will Happen in the Hunger Games? Spoliers & Speculation about Suzanne Collins's "Mockingjay"

 
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I'm counting the days until Tuesday's release of Mockingjay, the final installment in Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games series. Apparently I'm not the only one, because the book is listed as the #1 bestselling book on Amazon, days before its release.

I've been thinking a lot about what to expect, and have crafted some speculations based on the novels themselves and also from Roman history. These aren't really spoilers so much as theories, so take them all with a grain of salt. Just before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, I had fun blogging my wild theories about the book and then seeing which ones were correct, and which ones--rather spectacularly--were not. (Regulus Black did not turn out to be Crookshanks. But it was a great idea!)

Just as names are important in Harry Potter, they're an important clue in The Hunger Games. Some District names derive from plants (Katniss, Prim, Rue); others from nature's elements (Gale), others from the agricultural process (Thresh, Seeder, Chaff, Haymitch); and still others from food (Peeta, "the boy with the bread"). In the Districts, names are related to nature in some way. These contrast sharply to names in the Capitol and inner districts, which have come straight from the Roman Empire: Octavia, Flavius, Portia, Caesar, Claudius, Brutus, Plutarch, Cato, Venia, Cinna. (This last one is especially telling, because in the play Julius Caesar, there are two characters named Cinna: one conspires against Caesar, and the other is a humble poet who dies because he is mistaken for the first Cinna. Collins's Cinna has embodied a little of both.)

The land in which this story is taking place is called Panem, a Latin word meaning bread. In the Roman Empire, a vast network of conquered peoples, the emperor asserted both his authority and his magnanimity through panem et circenses ("bread and circuses"). In this approach, the Empire appeased the people's basest desires by distributing free food to the provinces and providing gladiatorial spectacles for their entertainment. Over time, the people of Rome demanded larger and ever more violent performances, using conquered peoples from around the world who were forced to fight each other to the death as gladiators.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood/2010/08/hunger-games-speculation-spoilers-speculations-about-suzanne-collinss-mockingjay.html#ixzz0xWmNejYt

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead: "The Short Second Life of Bree Tannner" by Stephenie Meyer

You've got your work cut out for you when you're Stephenie Meyer. When you dare to write an in-between novella, the same people who criticized your doorstopping tomes of old now complain that you're holding out on them by penning a 168-page glorified short story. The people who got angry that there was too much of the Edward-Bella-Jacob love triangle in Eclipse now rant that The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella doesn't have enough of their lovelorn woes. And everybody assumes it's all just a marketing ploy to promote the Eclipse movie, which hit theaters yesterday with the largest-ever midnight launch in history. In short, you just can't win.

I'm sorry to add to the criticisms because I hope that Meyer will continue writing about this fascinating world she has created, and I don't want to be that vampire whose special superpower is whining. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is okay. But I have to say, I was hoping for more.

Bree Tanner is a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it character in Eclipse, whose story intersects with Bella's in the final battle scene.

Read more at Flunking Sainthood on Beliefnet. And thanks to Michael Austin for the brilliant headline "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead." I love it.

Good-Bye, Lisbeth Salander: A Review of Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"

Apparently in Sweden, everyone who works in counter-intelligence drives a neutral-colored Volvo. Even when you're engaged in international espionage, it's vital to stay safe.

That's one of a number of important lessons I learned from reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third in Stieg Larsson's trilogy of potboilers. Potboilers are important to publish in Sweden because apparently it gets quite cold there.

Those of you who have read my personal book review blog know that I was not crazy about the second book in this series, which was a testament to the importance of good editors. The first hundred pages had absolutely no relevance to the rest of the book. They should have been cut. Or better yet, put into a separate novella about "Salander's lost months" so that the publisher could rake in a kajillion more kronor. But where was the editor? AWOL.

Thankfully, the third book is much better, even though the injured Lisbeth Salander doesn't really get her mojo back until nearly halfway through the novel. . . .

Read more of this review at my Flunking Sainthood blog on Beliefnet.

Kate Gosselin Gets Religion: A New Book from "Kate Plus Eight" Star on Family and Faith

I blame my mother for introducing me to the Gosselin family. During one of her visits last year, TLC was running a marathon of Jon & Kate Plus 8, and Mom was glued to the screen. I watched several episodes with her and was surprised to find that she knew each child's history and personality. Watching the show for the first time gave me more than a few schadenfreude moments. I saw one episode where Jon and Kate take the kids to Disney World. I couldn't imagine the stress of keeping track of them all, or scheduling their naps, or dealing with Mouse-induced meltdowns times eight. Those parents deserve a medal, I thought.

And yet the family has come under intense media scrutiny for, well, allowing the media to intensely scrutinize their lives. Americans just can't get enough of the Gosselins. As our own families get smaller, we're endlessly fascinated by ones that are supersized. We watch the Gosselins' show in part because we know that although our lives might seem crazy, we'll never be potty-training six toddlers simultaneously, on tiny toilets all lined up in a row. We'll never have to hold back some of our trash from one week to the next just because our allotted bins are already full of diapers. We'll never have half a dozen kids with fevers all at once. Thanks, benevolent universe!

If we haven't gotten enough of the Gosselins yet (even with Jon's well-publicized adultery and Kate's disastrous recent turn on Dancing with the Stars), the Zondervan book I Just Want You to Know promises the dish on Kate's kids, religious beliefs, and supersized life. I was prepared to cynically hate this book. And you know what? It's actually not bad, and there's a surprising amount of material on religion

Read more of this review on my Flunking Sainthood blog at Beliefnet.