World War Z

AUTHOR: Max Brooks

DATE: January 2011

NOTES:

My good friend Wayne gifted me this book for Christmas. It has been my experience that Wayne has excellent taste so I began reading the book as soon as I received it.

The book is presented from the perspective of a reporter who interviews people that lived through WWZ which was a global Zombie War. The Zombie plague originated in China somewhere in the mid to late 1990`s. The book is extremely compelling because it uses actual history and the goings on of the day as a backdrop for the Zombie War. In other words, the world Brooks writes about is in many ways similar to the world we inhabit. I know that Brooks has been criticized for hitting to close to home in some cases, (particularly in the ways he depicts the United States and Israel) but I really think his use of realistic portrayals of the activities of the nations prior to WWZ make for an erie and believable read.

Constructing the book as a series of interviews allows Brooks to speak from a number of perspectives spanning class, profession, nationality, age and religion. Brooks uses these various prospectives to write a story with amazing depth. By the end of the novel the reader feels as though the crisis actually happened because of the amount of detail that is included. I should warn prospective readers that the detail can sometimes be a deterrent as well, especially if you are prone to nightmares or cursed with a weak stomach.

The use of voices from all different areas allows Brooks to discuss a number of controversial and important issues as well. He talks about religion from several prospectives including, the issue of souls, eastern religions, evil and good and religion as an opiate for the masses.

He spends a lot of time criticising governmental response to the plague. During these discourses he points to bureaucracy risking lives, slow response times, classism, and the government ignoring evidence of an impending crisis (global warming).

Brooks deals with individuals as well. Several of his characters criticise citizens for not knowing how to fend for themselves without technology and for lacking basic survival skills (like making a fire, packing proper clothing, picking proper provisions etc.). One really memorable scene has an interviewing pointing out people and personal items frozen in the ice. The people in the ice had brought video game systems and wildly insufficient Disney princess sleeping bags with them when fleeing to the arctic.

Overall I loved the book. It was very entertaining and it allowed me to think about some important issues. It also served to round out my knowledge of Zombie lore. I learned that the military refers to zombies as either ``Zack's`` or ``G`s`` which is a short form for ghouls. I also learned that older weapons proved more effective and cost conscious in killing zombies than large scale attacks. Zombies don`t breath so they can live under water. Quislings are people who go mad and act as though they are zombies (which causes the government to believe that zombies eat other zombies for a time). There is a zombie martial art that is effective in hand to hand zombie confrontation. I learned all of these truths and a lot more. I am very much looking forward to seeing the film.

Robinson Crusoe

AUTHOR: Daniel Dafoe

DATE: December 2010

NOTES:

This book was a gift from my in laws. My father in law is probably the most experienced woodsman I know. He is the only man that has ever taken me up on a mountain (which he says is the only way to really get to know a man). He can build with anything, he collects old wood, fossils, rocks, and he knows a lot about what it takes to survive in the woods. All that to say that this book reminded me a lot of him.

Most people are familiar with the basic story line of this young adult novel. Robinson Crusoe is a sailor. His ship hits rough seas and gets hung up on rocks near a small island. He is the lone survivor and the book follows his adventures as he makes a home on his deserted island. The ``Making`` portion of the book is the most exciting for the young boy that lives inside of me. Crusoe constructs an entire homestead using material he gathers from the ship (via a raft he builds himself while at sea AWESOME!). He makes friends with animals on the island, constructs tools and cooking devices, he hunts and fishes and makes his own clothing and smokes a pipe. He even defends his land against a tribe of ``cannibal savages`` at one point.

The book is simply written and I could probably go into a long discussion of how it promotes a type of rugged individualism that has been at the center of our culture of privacy and self sufficiency. I am not going to do that though.

All in all the book was short and fun. I read it over the course of two evenings and it reminded me of simpler times when I would sit of the linoleum floor of my parents basement with a pile of GIJOE`S and a box of Lego and imagine myself into worlds and situations that required sharp wits and a creative use of materials to get those ``all American heroes`` through.

Also, Sarah and I are pregnant so it got me excited to share the joys of imagination with my soon to be born child.

Recent Book Deals!

I have found four interesting books for very cheap lately and I wanted to brag a little bit.

1. Anne Rice - Christ the Lord:the road to Cana

Price 5.00 at Chapters. I love the Bargain section. Its even a hard cover!








2. Aldous Huxley - Island

Price .50 cents at the Salvation ARmy. The spine hasnt even been cracked and I found a pair of bigfoot slippers in the same trip.






3. Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Price .50 cents at the Salvation Army again







4. Al Murray - The Pub Landlord's Book Of British Common Sense.


Price .50 cents at the Salvation Army again. I really believe in bathroom readers and this little book is a gem in that catagory.

Hey Nostradamus!

AUTHOR: Douglas Coupland

DATE: November 2010

NOTES: This was my first Coupland novel. It was donated to our house book shelf by a good friend and his girl after the last Regina Folk Festival. Both of its original owners are x-Christians. I mention this because it seems to have a bearing on why it was donated to me.

I should begin by saying that I really enjoyed this book. Usually I am a very slow reader but I finished this read in less than a week. Coupland writes in a similar style to my other favorite authors Nick Hornby and Michael Chabon. What I mean is that he writes minimally with a real focus on his characters and their voices. He writes the way his characters would talk (this book was mostly first person accounts). By doing this you feel like you get to know the characters personally.

An interesting feature of this book is that Coupland was able to write around a central event from four very different voices. The event was a Columbine like school shooting in which the first speaker, Cheryl, is a victim. Cheryl ends up recounting her short life story from the after-life. In this first section we find out that Cheryl belonged to a small Christian group at her high school and that she had secretly married her high school sweetheart to bypass the moral barrier of premarital relations. We also learn that she was pregnant and that she did not whole heartily buy into the predominant feelings of the group regarding faith. She gives the impression that she and Jason were somehow above the group. Cheryl becomes an icon in the aftermath of the massacre because she had scrolled, "God is nowhere - God is now here" on her binder, by doing this Cheryl effectively became a martyr, although she herself claims that it was nothing more than an exercise in mindless scribbling.

Jason is Cheryl's secret husband and he gains post massacre fame because he is falsely suspected of being the mastermind behind the shootings. The reason that Jason is suspected is circumstantial and I don't want to give it all away but I will say that Cheryl's murder is thought to be the motive. Although Jason is legally cleared he is still suspected by the public and this fact coupled with the death of his unborn child and wife has an understandably detrimental impact on his life. We meet up with Jason ten years after the shooting as he records his story on pink bank receipts.

The third speaker is connected to the massacre through her relationship to Jason. Heather becomes Jason's partner after a meeting at Toys R Us (Jason is buying toys for his sons which he conceived with his dead brothers wife on the night of his brothers tragic death so that she could claim them as his brothers [the plot thickens]). Heather and Jason create an imaginary world with characters based on toys and animals in which Jason is able to communicate vicariously. Eventually Jason disappears under suspicious circumstances and the Heather spends much of the remainder of her chapter consulting a medium who claims to hear the characters voices. You will have to read the book to see what that bit is all about.

The last character in the book is Jason's Dad, Reg. Reg spends the majority of the book as a strict fundamentalist Christian. He accuses Jason of Murder after the school shooting and he announces that because Jason's "brothers sons" are twins that one of them is more than likely without a soul. Nearing the end of the novel Reg undergoes a pretty significant change and the reader ends up feeling sympathy for him. Again I will let you read the book to discover what I mean.

Like I said, the book was well written and captivating. I think Coupland is sympathetic to his characters and the world he creates feels realistic. I think that one of his motives for writing this book was to communicate a sort of non-faith that is tempting to readers in my age group. Coupland does not say that there is no God but he does create an atmosphere of scepticism in his novel. The reader is lead to ask where God is during tragedy. Each of the characters struggles with faith and it seems that Coupland encourages the questioning as an end. The characters in the novel who have firm beliefs are painted as naive and in some cases dangerous. It is hard to explain but the novel just leaves you feeling sad and a little bit lost. I think that this was what Coupland wanted so I would say that he achieved his goal.

Over all this was a good read and it has sparked some really good conversation with people I know.

The Great Divorce

AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis

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TIME: October 2010
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NOTES:


I have always been a fan of C.S. Lewis. Unfortunately I was not raised on the Chronicles of Narnia but in my adult years I have had the pleasure of discovering them with my lovely wife Sarah. As a young Christian I was very strongly influenced by Mere Christianity. I have also read The Screwtape Letters, A Grief Observed and the first two installments of the Cosmic Trilogy.

I really enjoyed this little pocket reader and as with all Lewis books it was both entertaining and educational. It was entertaining in that Lewis takes the reader on a bus ride from the grey streets of Hell all the way to the forrests surrounding Heaven. In Heaven the residents appear solid while the vistors are wraith like shadows. The solidness of Heaven is painful to the wisps of Hell. Lewis imaginitive rendering makes for a fun read.

During the journey from Hell to Heaven the reader is privy to several conversations between the ghost like people of Hell and themselves as well as their discourse with the solid people of Heaven. These conversations act in much the same way that Dickens' Christmas ghost's act on Scrooge. The reader is invited to consider where they may fit in the scenes and therby where they may require change.

One of my favorite conversations comes early in the book. I will share a small sample below:


Dick: Do you really think there are no sins of intellect?
Spirit: There are indeed, Dick. There is hide bound predjudice, and intellectual dishonesty, and timidity, and stagnation. But honest opinions fearlessly followed -they are not sins."

As this conversation goes on it becomes clear that the Spirit has been mislead by a type of intellectualism that says that all things are equally true if they are truly believed. Some may call this type of thinking, when applied to spiritual matters, "universalism". The problem for the Spirit is that he is being confronted with an objective truth in the form of the foothills of Heaven and his perfected Heavenly friend but his intellectual pride prevents him from submitting himself to that one truth.

SIDE NOTE: Lewis himself has been accused of universalism because he wrote a "Talmerine" (sp?) into Heaven at the end of the Last Battle. I can now see how Lewis' theology can allow for this type of thing. In the case of the Spirit he is given one last chance to see the truth even though he was mislead all his life. So, it is noble to follow a belief heroically but it is foolish to hold that same belief when confronted blatantly with a truth that makes that belief false. For the Talmerine is submission to Aslan once confronted with him in person acted as his choice between truth and falshood.

The book carries on to show people confronted with their own false humility, lust, pride, malice etc. Each time the Spirits are given a choice. Some choose to walk to the great mountain while many others opt for the grey streets of Hell. This allegorical style is very affective in that it gives the reader several moments in time to reflect on. In a way each segment is, for the reader, an opportunity to choose between Heaven and Hell as they are confronted with their own sins.

The title of the book is significant because Lewis wants to 'draw the line'. Speaking of the "Marriage" of Heaven and Hell lewis writes:

"The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be disatrous error."

So, in "The Great Divorce" Lewis paints Hell as a small crack in the floor of Heaven. A person, based on their beliefs, choices, and loyalties must choose to accept their invitation to Heaven or to be finally cast into the crack of Hell. This decision is made on a road filled with grace and mercies up to and including a view of Heaven itself and a personal invitation delivered by a trusted friend but in the end it is a true choice with final concequences.