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Books:
religion
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| 0316463604
| 9780316463607
| 0316463604
| 3.70
| 1,760
| Jan 26, 2020
| Sep 21, 2021
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liked it
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‘Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself,’ said P.T. Barnum, a phrase that embodies the nature of confidence
‘Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself,’ said P.T. Barnum, a phrase that embodies the nature of confidence men throughout history. If there is money to be had or power to be one, you can be sure to find these shady characters eager to please and cloaked in charisma to weasel their way to the top. Usually cheered on by the adoring fans they’ve seduced and swindled along the way. I’m sure you probably have one that comes to mind already. One of the most bizarre tales of such men comes from my home state of Michigan where, in the mid 1800s, self-proclaimed Mormon prophet and member of the Michigan House of Representatives Joseph Strang declared himself the King of Beaver Island and ruled it as his sovereign state. With an impressive depth of research and gripping narratorial style, Miles Harvey examines Strang’s strange history in The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch, weaving and winding through the antebellum US and around a slew of historical figures and everyday folks as Strang slithers his way to his own monarchy. A thrilling history of cons, counterfeiting, armed robbery, murder, and more, The King of Confidence is as engaging a read as any thriller novel and paints an excellent portrait of the social and political conditions that practically roll out a red carpet for confidence men like Strang to usurp power and control. ‘James J. Strang, innocent target of religious persecution—like all his personae, this one proved to be a mask. Yet it was exactly those masks—those endless layers of ambiguity—that gave the man his charisma.’ Beaver Island is located in the northern part of Lake Michigan, the largest in an archipelago of islands and is a paradise of beaches and forest. Currently only around 600 people live there and it is largely vacation homes for wealthier people. Yet from 1848 to 1856, Joseph Strang made it his base for his religious experiment as the leader of a theocratic monarchy. A quick and chaotic rise to the top is often followed by an abrupt and dramatic end, which was the case for Strang, but the history is fascinating. At times an attorney, a newspaper editor, a Baptist minister, a writer for the New York Tribune, a sitting member of State congress and, eventually, king, Strang lived a wild life full of wild claims and as many wild failures as successes, but his charisma and sheer determination kept him afloat. ‘Strang had already perfected his talent for telling other people just what they wanted to hear,’ Harvey write, ‘so a dose of skepticism is in order for any belief he professed—a double dose for the ones he professed passionately.’ But in hard times, people turn to those who profess to be strong and decisive and give us people like Strang. [image] Beaver Island, Michigan Never one to let a good murder go to waste, Strang followed up the murder of Joseph Smith—the founder of Mormonism—in 1844 by claiming an angel came to him saying he was to lead the Latter Day Saints (Harvey rather whimsically starts the book from the perspective of the angel watching Smith being shot as he jumps out a window, it makes for quite the powerful opener). Brigham Young was not down with this and after some bitter feuding Strang would go off to lead a splinter cell of Mormons. This story is full of misadventures with Strang always bouncing back somehow stronger and more confident than ever, gaining followers and multiple wives around the country to eventually bring them to Beaver Island. There they would fund themselves counterfeiting and robbing people at gunpoint. Which sounds like a party, don’t get me wrong. ‘A “businessman,” meanwhile, was not just a craftsman who made goods or a merchant who traded them, but a more fluid kind of capitalist, constantly finding new ways to turn a profit.’ What is really fascinating about this book is the way Strang just keeps on going and never lets a failure get him down. And how despite outlandish claims and lack of evidence (the angel returns with scrolls and such but nobody ever sees them, they just have to take it on “faith”) people keep following him. ‘The historical record indicates that utopian and apocalyptic cults and communes first appeared as a major form in the United States during this epoch,’ Harvey tells us. Nowadays we’d look at these groups and call them a cult or extremist groups but back in the days of antebellum America this was a bit of a phenomenon that people didn’t exactly have the knowledge for dealing with it. And what was history but the loudest, strongest folks steamrolling their way into power. As the quote commonly attributed to Confucius goes, ‘a great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others,’ and those looking for a person to follow tend to avoid the great men and women and instead cheer on the small man who tears others down to look strong because they like to feel like they are on the winning team. To be on the side of the strong. The book concludes on a rather powerful statement that really wraps up the whole purpose of exploring this story. Sure, Strang gets his ass shot (not by the government but his own people, though the authorities give them such a tiny slap on the wrist fine that might as well have been a handshake and a hearty ‘thank you, we wanted that dude dead’) but Strang is not the problem but rather a symptom of the social ills. As Harvey writes: ‘Eventually the facts of his life faded into obscurity. But people like James Strang never really vanish. When the time is right, they reappear, wearing a new guise, exploiting new fears, offering new dreams of salvation. Americans are fixated on such figures, especially in periods of profound social and economic upheaval.’ As Mark Twain once wrote ‘history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme,’ and leaders such as Strang con themselves into power all the time, it’s practically the only American Dream left. They present themselves as saviors but are only out for themselves and power and leave destruction and hurt in their wake. These are men that ‘have no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. They will keep no friend, unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they will smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot.’ And we must watch out for them. Well researched and a rather fast-paced and gripping book, The King of Confidence is a wild tale of history that also serves as a warning to the present. It lags a bit in the middle under the weight of all the comings and goings are intricate portraits of Strang’s crew, but it remains a rather engaging read nonetheless and I learned a lot about US history reading this book. This was a read with my bookclub and we all enjoyed it. Strang was a ‘confidence artist to the very end,’ and a bizarre lesson to us all. 3.5/5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 14, 2025
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Mar 14, 2025
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Mar 14, 2025
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Paperback
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| 0375701877
| 9780375701870
| 0375701877
| 4.05
| 81,597
| May 18, 1953
| Sep 12, 2013
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it was amazing
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‘Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live.’ I found myself stranded in Chicago over the weekend due to a blizzard and sub zero tempera ‘Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live.’ I found myself stranded in Chicago over the weekend due to a blizzard and sub zero temperatures and kept busy doing what I love best: visiting art museums and bookstores. While browsing the basement of After-Words, I discovered a copy of Baldwin’s first published novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain stickered with Chicago’s One City, One Book initiative and figured no better time than to finally read this beloved classic by an author I’ve recently come to love. It was a perfect choice and companion as I read it traveling over the hills and everywhere for my harrowing journey home on various trains and buses that kept breaking down. To read the works of James Baldwin is to encounter prose that lingers like a prayer on your lips, prose that you’d suspect could be picked up on a seismograph for the way it shakes you deeply within, prose that could feasibly crack open the world. And to read Go Tell It On the Mountain is to bask in the bitter beauty of an undeniable classic of religious trauma, queer desires, and grappling with family legacy. Published in 1953 and introducing the literary world to a writer who would go down in history as an essential author, Go Tell It On the Mountain is a semi-autobiographical work that truly comes out swinging. Baldwin confronts issues of racism, sexuality, sin and the hypocrisy of religion being harnessed to uphold oppressive patriarchy and other abuses while flooding his pages with gorgeous passages on desire and struggles for selfhood. Brilliantly condensing decades of lives struggling to survive society and themselves all within the span of a narrative set over 24 hours, Mountain also condenses a vast American experience into the corridors of Harlem and the blocks around the aptly named Temple of the Fire Baptized. Here we experience 14 year old John’s internal tribulations to either accept the endless struggle up the mountain of holiness—‘ It’s a hard way. It’s uphill all the way’—or a rejection of the church altogether. Yet the scope of the novel rests beyond the boundaries of John and, through flashbacks and visions, the novel becomes one about the legacy of John’s family and the struggles of Black Americans everywhere in the 20th century. ‘There are people in the world for whom "coming along" is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.’ Taking its title from the popular spiritual tune, Baldwin immerses us in a family and community for whom the church encompasses the whole of their daily existence. In many ways this felt like a good companion read to Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit in its depiction of an insular community that uses religious devotion and fervor to justify incredible amounts of abuse and castigate not only queer desires but any sexuality outside of marriage. At the heart of the story is John who is expected to walk in the footsteps of his father—or so he thinks Gabriel is his father—and become a preacher. Gabriel is the personification of Christianity in the novel with Baldwin representing his criticisms of the organized religion through his portrayal of Gabriel as hypocritical, misogynistic and abusive. He is also very imaged-based, with his coming to God informed by the opportunities of social positioning as is his first marriage to Deborah—once she is considered the holiest of the community—a calculated move to be seen as holy himself. Baldwin represents religiosity as a false front, one that uses piety to mask abuse. ‘salvation was finished, damnation was real’ Baldwin demonstrates how religion is used for purposes of control within the community, or for Gabriel over his family. The fear of sin is pervasive, such as the novel opening with John feeling he will ‘be bound in hell a thousand years’ for his act of masturbation, and used to control behavior. Especially of women or young people, as we see in the early pages when Elisha and Ellie May are publicly shamed for ‘walking disorderly’ as evidence they ‘were in danger of straying from the truth.’ Gabriel sees it as his duty to uphold moral standings in his congregation, though not in himself, and John worries it may already be too late to be saved so he feels the need for salvation all the more intensely. However, he recognizes Gabriel as a gatekeeper to salvation and that he cannot ‘bow before the throne of grace without first kneeling to his father,’ which is something he feels he cannot do having recognized Gabriel as a cruel abuser who beats his children and “fondles” his own daughter. ‘ The menfolk, they die, and it's over for them, but we women, we have to keep on living and try to forget what they done to us.’ Baldwin also represents how Christianity upholds patriarchy through the rather misogynistic double standards against women. Sexuality is a taboo and while sex outside marriage is considered unthinkable, Gabriel had a child out of wedlock, Royal, who he discards feeling he is unholy and not worth his life, and thinks of the mother, Esther, as a ‘harlot’ for having accepted sex outside marriage and entered into ‘a forbidden darkness.’ Similarly, Deborah was shamed after having been the victim of sexual assault by a group of men—like the story of Medusa, the victim is the one who bears the punishment—and was only acceptable to society if she devote her entire being to holiness ‘like a terrible example of humility, or like a holy fool.’ She comes to hate all men and sees ‘they live only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.’ The men hide behind claims of religious superiority, chastizing women for the things they do themselves, and thus religion only becomes another pillar reinforcing patriarchal abuse. For John there is the issue of ‘a sudden yearning tenderness for Elisha... desire, sharp and awful,’ a desire he has been taught is filthy and thus internalizes it to believe himself filthy and unworthy of salvation. ‘Dust was in his nostrils, sharp and terrible, and the feet of saints, shaking the floor beneath him, raised small clouds of dust that filmed his mouth. He heard their cries, so far, so high above him—he could never rise that far. He was like a rock, a dead man's body, a dying bird, fallen from an awful height; something that had no power of itself, any more, to turn.’ Baldwin probes at the long history of homophobia in religious communities, an issue that continues to this day and studies have shown a greater risk for internalized homophobia, rejection from family, mental health risks and suicide for LGBTQ+ youth in religious households. This theme of struggling to accept a gay sexuality as natural was explored in depth in Baldwin’s later novel, Giovanni's Room, where David’s internalized shame leads to self-destructive tendencies and outwards abuse to others. ‘The rebirth of the soul is perpetual; only rebirth every hour could stay the hand of Satan.’ Still further we see how religion is used to justify greater atrocities, such as John’s vision of the biblical story of Ham was used to justify slavery. The novel also explores how the legacy of slavery still casts a vile shadow over the country and racism runs rampant. There is the unjust treatment of Richard arrested for theft despite being innocent and simply a Black man at the wrong place and the wrong time (not unlike the Dylan song) which leads to his tragic end. There is even internalized racism, with Deborah seeing Gabriel’s dark skin as a sin which nudges the long, racist legacy of associating Blackness with evil. This is all tied in with Gabriel being born from a former slave, showing how the cruelties and abuses of slavery continue to manifest themselves for generations to come. ‘You in the Word or you ain’t - ain’t no halfway with God.’ These experiences are the ones John considers in opposition to his need for salvation. His rejection of the church becomes, ultimately, a rejection of society at large and all the racism, homophobia, misogyny and abuse. Yet it is hard to imagine beyond the bubble of the church, which thinks of itself as a safe haven from all the sinners and “undesirables” they pass on their way. He feels trapped and helpless, and his frustrations with the futility of cleaning the rug—a never ending task—is symbolic of the path up the “mountain” to holiness. This is also symbolized in his climb to the cliff in Central Park: ‘He did not know why, but there arose in him an exultation and a sense of power, and he ran up the hill like an engine, or a madman, willing to throw himself headlong into the city that glowed before him. But when he reached the summit he paused; he stood on the crest of the hill, hands clasped beneath his chin, looking down. Then he, John, felt like a giant who might crumble this city with his anger.’ He comes to see life as an endless struggle beleaguered by sin, yet runs down the “mountain” anyways. ‘If it’s wrong, I can always climb back up,’ he thinks. Yet still he must go to the threshing-floor to be judged, and hopes he can be found righteous. ‘It was his hatred and his intelligence that he cherished, the one feeding the other.’ This is a powerful novel, one that devastates in theme, exhausts you in its moral burdens, yet utterly enchants you in pitch perfect prose. Go Tell It On the Mountain is a marvelous microcosm of society at large in the day-long drama of a mass and generational struggles of a family that put Baldwin on the map. He would fulfill this early promise time and time again. Personally I felt rather outside the novel, not having much experience with being immersed in a religious community, but I know many who’s stories of their own upbringing rang in harmony with the book. This is a harrowing tale that takes dead aim at society, hypocrisy and abuse and delivers heavy blows. 4.5/5 ‘Men spoke of how the heart broke up, but never spoke of how the soul hung speechless in the pause, the void, the terror between the living and the dead; how, all garments rent and cast aside, the naked soul passed over the very mouth of Hell. Once there, there was no turning back; once there, the soul remembered, though the heart sometimes forgot. For the world called to the heart, which stammered to reply; life, and love, and revelry, and, most falsely, hope, called the forgetful, the human heart. Only the soul, obsessed with the journey it had made, and had still to make, pursued its mysterious and dreadful end; and carried heavy with weeping and bitterness, the heart along. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 16, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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Jan 16, 2024
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| 0062565419
| 9780062565419
| 0062565419
| 4.20
| 80,186
| 1956
| Feb 14, 2017
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really liked it
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‘You are yourself the answer.’ C.S. Lewis, author of the beloved Narnia series, is a firm believer in the power of myth. By adorning ideas into a story ‘You are yourself the answer.’ C.S. Lewis, author of the beloved Narnia series, is a firm believer in the power of myth. By adorning ideas into a story, Lewis argued ‘we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.’ This is doubly evident in his construction of Till We Have Faces, Lewis’ final novel and the one he considered his best, as Lewis examines many of his theological ideas through a myth narrative, but also allows us to rediscover the joy of older myths such as the story of Cupid and Psyche which provides the bones upon which Lewis builds his story. It makes for an engrossing read that is palatable even for those who don’t subscribe to the Christian mythology that is embedded in Lewis’ retelling. Told from the perspective of the oldest sister, Orual, Till We Have Faces is a moral examination on justice, faith and love, particularly interrogating the dichotomy between selfish versus selfless love as well as divine love. Highly approachable and soothingly written, Lewis’ retelling becomes something far more expansive than the original myth and is a novel that is infectiously enjoyable. ‘I have said that she had no face; but that meant she had a thousand faces.’ In his essay On Three Ways of Writing for Children, C.S. Lewis wrote ‘I now enjoy the fairy tales better than I did in childhood: being now able to put more in, of course, I get more out.’ I feel similarly, having enjoyed them in childhood but have found my interest and enjoyment reinvigorated with a greater intensity as an adult. There are extensive literary theories and techniques and many have written about the moral and psychological aspects in them such as Carl Jung who believed fairy tales were a way to study the ‘anatomy of the psyche’ and Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz wrote that ‘fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes.’ Alternatively there is Philip Pullman who believes ‘there is no psychology in a fairy tale,’ and instead it is simple repetition on good and bad. For Lewis, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien, they believed fairy tales point us towards faith, with Tolkien once encouraging Lewis to believe in Christianity because it was ‘the fairytale that is really true.’ While I’m not personally religious, for me I see fairy tale stylings as a great way to fold in social criticisms and other messaging in a way that feels epic and imaginative. I’m included to agree with what Jeanette Winterson once wrote on that matter: ’Reason and logic are tools for understanding the world. We need a means of understanding ourselves, too. That is what imagination allows…As explanations of the world, fairy stories tell us what science and philosophy cannot and need not. There are different ways of knowing.’ Lewis has always worked in myth and fairy tales—George MacDonald being one of his idols—and even in his mythical world of Narnia we see figures from the Greek myths inhabiting his lands. Till We Have Faces is his most direct immersion in the genre. Drawing from the story of Cupid and Psyche as it is found in The Golden Ass by Apuleius, Lewis sets his tale in the fictional kingdom of Glome in the country Greekland (if you guessed it’s modeled on Hellenistic Greece, you’d be correct). Where in the original myth the older sisters hope to send Pyche to ruin due to jealousy of her, here the tragedy is sparked due to jealousy for Pysche’s love. Told in a first-person narration, Urual’s tale reads as rather confessional, representative of the sacrament of Reconciliation in Christian practices. Written over a span of 35 years, the story also reflects Lewis’ conversion into Christianity, mirrored through the narrator Urual who’s complaints against the gods were Lewis’ own when he began the tale. The second part, written alongside his wife Joy Davidman, affirms his conversion and creates an interesting contrast to his beliefs from his pre-Christian days. Characters such as the Fox, a slave named for his red hair that becomes the three princesses’ teacher, operate within realms of logic and reasoning based in Stoicism, which is juxtaposed with later revelations by Urul which demonstrate Lewis’ belief that ‘Christianity is both a myth and a fact,’ and operates not without logic but beyond it. Lewis is widely beloved in Christian circles (it became evident to me once I was an adult why the Narnia books had been pushed on me so hard as a child), though his theology often draws criticism from these same circles for beliefs such as this (Aslan allowing folks into his kingdom like Emeth who believed in a different god is another Lewis belief I have heard him harshly criticized over). While I’m not really all that into religious messages, I think this novel is still just as enjoyable reading it as a message of self-discovery and positive morality. But on to the story. Lewis reworks the original myth in fun ways, with Aphrodite represented here as the goddess Ungit and Cupid being the Shadowbrute, a god of the Grey Mountain who is purportedly the son of Ungit. It begins similarly, with Psyche being worshiped by the kingdom for her beauty and a belief that she can heal the sick, which leads to her being sacrificed to the Shadowbrute. The tragedy begins when Urual, unable to see and therefore unable to believe in the Shadowbrute’s invisible palace where Psyche has become his bride, convinces Psyche to betray him and is thereby banished from his kingdom. The notion of faith and the importance of believing without evidence is blatant, with the palace serving as a symbol of divine mystery. This is central to the novel and one of Urual’s dominant complaints against the gods (which she refers to as ‘divine Surgeons’) is that they do not speak clearly to mortals. She does not yet see how the ambiguity is key to faith, instead frustrated that it leads to mistakes for which the gods punish them. Her brief vision of the palace—and choosing to disbelieve it—is highly symbolic of how she opts for a selfish, earthly love to have Psyche to herself like a possession. There is a clear juxtaposition in the novel of selfish and selfless love, with earthly concerns making love more of a devouring of one another than anything else. ‘Some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing, ’ Urual is told. When she is Queen, she sees this as devotion to her is something of a sacrifice, even leading to the death of her military counselor, Bardia, who more or less was overworked right into the grave. Urual is rebuked by his widow who tells her ‘I do not believe, I know, that your queenship drank up his blood year by year and ate out his life.’ Urual eventually realizes that it is she who is the devourer: ‘I was that . . . all-devouring womblike, yet barren, thing. Glome was a web—I the swollen spider, squat at its center, gorged with men’s stolen lives.’ Urual is not an unsympathetic character however, and we see how she was shaped by the cruelty of her father and her belief in her own ugliness. The veil she wears to hide her face—symbolic of her cutting herself off from humanity as well as hiding her ‘true face’—is donned to hide her ugliness which can be read as more an unconscious belief in her tormented soul than just physical beauty. You wouldn’t be wrong to raise an eyebrow here, as physical beauty (or lack thereof) being a reflection of the soul can be a bit problematic. There is also the awkward element of Urual being treated more ‘like a man’ by her court because she is not sexually desirable (this is coming from the same author who kind of denied Narnia to Susan for being into boys and make-up). But it does lead to the idea that Urual must embrace her own face because the gods cannot ‘meet us face to face till we have faces’ Faces are highly symbolic in general here, with Psyche’s betrayal is that she (through Urual’s direction) attempts to see the gods faces. Mirrors, as well, function symbolically in the story, being used to convince Urual she is not qualified for the god’s love due to her ugliness and she later removes the same mirror as it has become representative to her of her father’s cruelty. ‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. ’ Urual believes ‘the case against [the gods] should be written,’ but when the time comes to confront them she hears her own voice in a new way. ‘the complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. . . . I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?’ This becomes Lewis’ way of examining divine mystery as part of the whole point in faith. Divine love is intended as all-encompassing, a giving of oneself bare of the veil of self-deceit, and only then can the gods look upon us ‘face to face.’ Possessive love must be denied, and it is only by accepting and, well, confessing, one’s sins can one be cleansed. It gets pretty religious here, but the message is powerful to embrace ourselves even in our flaws and cultivate a self-understanding to do better and do no harm. This was a wonderful novel, one that it is easy to get lost in as Lewis constructs a world that feels just as magical and engrossing as his Narnia. The title, taken from the line ‘how can they meet us face to face till we have faces?’ was originally intended to be Bareface but Lewis’ editor thought it would sound like a Western. While the editor is probably right, someone should jump on this as a band name. Till We Have Faces has been another fascinating myth retelling in my current obsession with retellings, and one that I have heard all my life cited by others as one of their favorite books. Myths and fairy tales are powerful and can be a lovely way to deliver a message. As Jeanette Winterson wrote, ‘they explain the universe while allowing the universe to go on being unexplained,’ and that notion of retaining the mystery is highly representative of Till We Have Faces and Lewis’ belief in ‘the true myth.’ A book well worth reading. 4/5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 07, 2022
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Dec 07, 2022
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Dec 07, 2022
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Paperback
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| 0802135161
| 9780802135162
| 0802135161
| 3.73
| 92,831
| 1985
| Aug 20, 1997
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it was amazing
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‘To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other things, other longings.’ Jeanette Winterson writes prose that seeps in ‘To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other things, other longings.’ Jeanette Winterson writes prose that seeps into you the way warm sunshine does at the final edges of winter. She has a distinct voice with a confident cadence that can seamlessly sway between realism and the fantastical or fairy tale elements, harmonizing each aspect of her storytelling into a grand orchestral narrative that in each of her books pushes boundaries and doesn’t shy away from experimentation. What’s more is it always comes across as overtly cool and collected, like some celestial being wearing an edgy jacket with “punk as fuck” scrawled on the back. In Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Wintersons 1985 debut novel that reads like someone already deep into a celebrated writing career, this prose is put to the task of documenting a provincial pentocostal church community and Winterson’s depictions of evangelicalism is so deadpan and unironic at times it practically loops back into satire that the moments of direct criticism feel so nestled up in the narrative to make you understand how integral these dark moments are to the entirety of this lifestyle. Winterson’s use of diction and sharp imagery are as entertaining as they are direct, signifying how surreal the whole experience was to Winterson as she looks back on her own upbringing through the lens of fiction. The thing is, much of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is autobiographical and there are very authentic and lived emotions pulsating through every page. Like Jeanette, the young narrator of the novel, Jeanette Winterson was adopted into an evangelical community and faced ostracism for being a lesbian. This book will ring true to anyone who spent their youth at Bible camps and growing up in a church community, which, as shown here, can be tight-knit communities that use religion to validate distrust of outsiders and dominate nearly every aspect of your social and emotional life. For those who are forced out it is like losing the earth underneath your feet, an aspect Winterson examines as a way that members are kept compliant and made to act against their own true selves. ‘History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, the way cats play.’ The autobiographical inspirations acknowledged, this is not simply a memoir, and the act of fictionalizing her own experiences, as well as threading fairy tales throughout as abstract commentary on the socio-emotional underpinnings of the novel, is what gives it true power: a narrative constructed from history taps into meaning and purpose in a way a recounting of history cannot because ‘stories helped you to understand the world.’ This is something Jeanette comments on several times in the novel (the introspective segments blur Jeanette the narrator and Jeanette the author in a gleefully postmodern way): ‘[T]hat is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It’s a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it’s a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time…Very often history is a means of denying the past. Denying the past is to refuse to recognize its integrity.’ To write a narrative is to fulfill the integrity of history. Fairy tales and Biblical stories, in this way, are given the same weight in Winterson novels as narratives that construct meaning. This becomes much more prominent in her following two novels, with both The Passion and Sexing the Cherry combining historical narrative with magical-realism to tell a new story from history that gives voice to the usually voiceless, and here Winterson recasts what is undoubtedly told in this particular church community as a wayward youth consumed by the Devil into a narrative that gives the supposed “sinner” the voice to show how they were wronged and abandoned. ‘We are all historians in our own way,’ Winterson writes, and she proudly affirms the powers of storytelling, both as a redemptive and retributive vessel. It is literary empowerment at its finest and teaches us ‘there is an order and a balance to be found in storytelling.’ As she writes in her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, 'I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced...somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.' Winterson has been there and this book can likely be a life raft for those who need it. ‘If there’s such a thing as spiritual adultery, my mother was a whore.’ The novel is framed around Jeanette’s relationship with her mother and, because her mother figures herself an appendage of the Lord, the religious community she was brought up within. Adopted into the family ‘I had been brought in to join her in a tag match against the Rest of the World’ she says from the start, quickly characterizing her mother as someone who considered herself always right and any dissent to be ‘not holy’ as she frequently says. The mother is fully devoted to the church and her only interests are in expanding her devotion, which over time includes working in a religious MLM and reading books on missionary work that are revealed to be increasingly racist propaganda. It is a rigid childhood, one of prayer and routine where Jeantte’s only acquaintances are members of the church, most notably the aging Elsie who was once a young prodigy of the church and has taken a special interest in her upbringing. ‘Eventually, I thought, I’ll fall in love like everybody else. Then some years later, quite by mistake, I did.’ Jeanette is always engaged in passing out bible tracts (you ever get one as a server that looks like a $20 bill and it says something like 'you'd be rich with Jesus' with a church address and you realize they did not tip you...fun stuff) finding new converts. Jeanette converts a young girl she meets and their private bible study sessions blossom into something more. The shame and confusion felt by knowing this is something you want and something that feels right but having been brought up to deny it and demonize it is a really uncomfortable maelstrom of emotions to be in. It can often turn into self-hatred or denial, and as much as one is their own worst critic, one can be their own worst judge, jury and jailer. ‘It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them,’ she comments, and all the internal struggle of denying oneself who you are and being told you are a sinner for simply being yourself is a hellish place to be in between the major events such as Jeanette being caught and facing the public exorcism from the Pastor. Winterson uses the condemnation of her being a lesbian to look at how aversion to LGBTQ+ folks is often an aspect of patriarchy enforced by misogyny to separate anyone who is not white, heteronormative male. ‘The real problem, it seemed,’ Jeanette observes during her second round of punishment for being found out with another woman, ‘was going against the teachings of St. Paul, and allowing women power in the church.’ While initially it was assumed her ‘going astray’ came from outside influences such as public school (a ‘breeding ground’ for sin, her mother claims), the church elders get right into it and announce that women being allowed to preach opens up a weakness for the Devil to exploit. Jeanette understands then that the church powers exist to ensure ‘the message belonged to the men.’ Reading this novel written in 1985 England still resonates in 2022 America where this same anti-LGBT rhetroic is increasingly used as fundraising grifting for politicians. What Jeanette finds confusing, however, is the insistence that her ‘unnatural passions’ are ‘aping men.’ To sleep with a woman, it is implied, is only something a man can do. ‘There are women in the world. There are men in the world. And there are beasts. What do you do if you marry a beast?’ Much of this is tied into the ways Winterson examines how girls are socialized into submission, doubling down on the repressive nature of the church community for those who are women. ‘I was a little girl, ergo, I was sweet,’ is an early lesson she learns from a lecherous shopkeeper who gives her candies, ‘and here were sweets to prove it.’ It’s a sort of purity culture that is certainly present in many evangelical communities that often teaches girls they should be compliant and submit to men. When Jeanette complains her uncle hurts her by rubbing his beard stubble on her face, she is told that he didn’t hurt her, but that it was ‘just a bit of love.’ She demonstrates the early childhood lessons that a man can harm her and still call it love, all aimed at keeping women subservient in a patriarchal culture. Melanie, Jeanette’s first lover, is thought to be recovered from her sins when she marries a man and devotes her life to having children, to which Jeanette observes she appears docile and ‘serene to the point of being bovine’ with all the spark that drew her to Melanie now snuffed out. Winteron also examines the double standards in judgment on gender biases. She juxtaposes Jeanette’s harmless love with consenting a peer, for which only she suffers consequences that upend her life, to the sexual transgressions and embezzelment of the pastor in the MLM, which harms many people and causes financial strains for the community. While Jeanette faces public humiliation and punishment, this man has people rally to cover his debts and even provide him a paid vacation. The double standard is readily apparent. ‘I peeled it to comfort myself, and seeing me a little calmer, everyone glanced at one another and went away.’ Somehow I’ve gotten this far in thinking about the novel without addressing oranges, which make for a multifaceted metaphor throughout the book. The mother only gives Jeanette oranges to eat, and the gift of an orange is often in place of emotional support, a treat meant to pacify but not heal. Late in the novel when she stands accused by her mother and her pastor, she offers them an orange, much to their confusion. It is a brief but brilliant moment where she puts their own symbol back in their face to express the inadequacy of their support.Late in the novel the mother eventually decides that ‘oranges are not the only fruit’ when it is advantageous to her missionary aims, which reads as ironic when her refusal to understand that heterosexuality is not the only path chased away the member of her flock most dear to her. ‘It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.’ The orange also appears as a demon Jeanette see’s during times of emotional stress, a demon that asserts demons are not bad, just a change in their life and tells her she can keep her demons and live a difficult life—but one that may be worth the difficulty—while reminding her that her sexuality is normal and being ‘different’ doesn't mean being bad. ‘Everyone has a demon,’ they tell her, ‘but not everyone knows how to make use of it.’ That it is a demo who pushes for self-acceptance and finding autonomy in her life is amusingly scandalous, as it is something conjured from the evangelical teachings yet also in opposition to them. The demon will travel everywhere with her, a reminder that the past follows us no matter what, but that we can survive it because ‘it was not judgment day but another morning.’ What truly brings this book together are the interspersed fairy tales that season the novel and serve as commentary on the story while being fully immersive experiences on their own. The final tale of Winnet, intertwined with the story of Sir Percival, creates a way to grasp Jeanette’s predicament that opens up such an emotional resonance that feels like an earthquake rather than the tremor of discomfort in the aspects of realism. Winnet’s tale briefly retells the novel through fantastical metaphor and leaves us with the feeling of dread with the wizard’s string tied around her that explains the Jeanette’s feeling of being unable to fully escape her mother’s control. If anything, this book is a testament to storytelling on multiple levels. ‘She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.’ Reading Winterson, I feel understood. I’ve had this with other authors but Winterson reaches into my being and polishes elements I didn’t think anyone else could know about. Which is part of the reason we all read, right? To discover we are not alone, that someone empathizes, that someone can put into words things you feel but thought otherwise ineffable. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is a book that I could see having a huge impact on those who escaped similar situations, or could find themselves in this novel as a compass for where to go next. This book is actually quite funny and warm, despite the difficult topics, and it will pluck every emotional string you have in ways that will surprise you. Most importantly, this book gives hope. A harrowing debut that reads like a seasoned veteran of letters, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is a must-read. 5/5 ‘I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.’ ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 17, 2022
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Paperback
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| 067972544X
| 9780679725442
| 067972544X
| 3.87
| 6,256
| 1946
| Nov 20, 1989
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really liked it
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‘Was there any meaning in the life he lived? Not even that did he believe in. But this was something he knew nothing about. It was not for him to judg
‘Was there any meaning in the life he lived? Not even that did he believe in. But this was something he knew nothing about. It was not for him to judge.’ Despite the small size of this novel, it is a deep chasm of heavy thoughts and difficult questions. Barabbas, widely considered the masterpiece of the Swedish author and 1951 Nobel laureate Par Lagerkvist, is a parable of the dilemma of faith. Barabbas, acquitted for murder, goes on living while Jesus is crucified in his stead, and spends his life haunted by this single event. While he is ‘damned lucky’, emphasis on damned, to be alive, he cannot help but feel life is meaningless anyways and struggles to accept faith in this strange crucified man whom he hears so much about. Powerful and deeply moving, this novel offers a unique, detached perspective on religion and faith, as a parable that is as poignant today as it was back in the religious persecution days of ancient Rome while being able to reach a reader despite any personal religious beliefs. Lagerkvist built a fruitful career around challenging morality and faith within his readers. His prose is simple and direct, wasting no time with verbose passages, and cuts right to the heart making every word count. This novel, weighing in at a mere 144 pages, is bursting beyond capacity with moral musings and feels more like a novel of epic proportions that a slim novella. He also manages to take a topic that is known for inducing strong, passionate opinions from both sides of the spectrum and writing about it in an objective, removed manner. For example, the opening chapter is the most chilling depiction of the crucifixion on Mouth Golgotha I have ever encountered. Barabbas stands and witnesses the scene with a cold indifference, not knowing anything about the man being crucified. Jesus is never named in the novel, being only referred to as the ‘dead man’ or ‘crucified man’, and it is strange to see him regarded in such an impersonal way, especially in a scene illustrating his violent death. In a way, this objective approach is necessary to fit the lead character, but also makes the ideas easier to swallow as they aren’t tainted by emotion or seeming too slanted either way. There are times when both Christians and atheists will feel he is on their side and other passages where they will find him seemingly aligned against them. I feel this novel can work regardless of a religious opinion, yet as always, one must keep an open mind and allow the novel to unfold. It goes some very dark and disturbing places, and readers should be cautioned that the ironic, enigmatic conclusion is not a light at the end of a tunnel. This novel will challenge all beliefs and portray the world as a cruel, indifferent place as we follow Barabbas on his journey. The idea of faith is the pulse of this novel. While Barabbas wants so badly to believe, he cannot. He cannot grasp the meaning behind the doctrine to ‘love one another’, simple as it may be, for he has no notion of love. He witnesses many potent events, yet tries to find logical explanations for them. He also cannot grasp how if a man was God, why he would allow himself a slaves death, and furthermore, why he would allow his followers to suffer and be put to death as well. Lagerkvist lays out the foundation to the disbelief of a God found in many people, yet offers slight glimpses of counter arguments: ‘He had used his power in the most extraordinary way. Used it by not using it, as it were; allowed others to decide exactly as they liked; refrained from interfering and yet had got his own way all the same…’ (remind LOST fans of Jacob there?). This crisis of faith causes the world to seem an even more indifferent place than he originally thought, ‘He was not bound together with anyone. Not with anyone at all in the whole world,’ and Lagerkvist pours an ocean of lonesome imagery into later portions of the novel. Seemingly every word and event is a metaphor of religion, allowing the novel to work on several levels. Barabbas was ‘born hated’ by parents who cared nothing for him, such as the mother who died in childbirth cursing the world and all in it. He is damned from the start, much like the idea of original sin. The accusers of those who are preaching the crucified mans doctrine are often blind or near blind. Pay attention to every detail, as there are many layers to this novel. The book also works as a critique of modern times. The Christians in the book are persecuted for their faith, but it is primarily because it preaches that the lowest of citizens will be set free and equals with all those above them. Without understanding what this means, the Romans want to squash this belief as they want to keep the lepers and beggars and other lower class folk oppressed. Lagerkvist is often critical of those with power, yet shows many of the leaders as decent people and that it is the system and standards that create the cruelty those beneath them suffer. It is interesting how religion and Roman government are juxtaposed in many scenes, often more so to highlight their similarities instead of their differences. Lagerkvist is quite critical of Christians at time, showing many of the staunch followers to be rather hypocritical. They preach love and acceptance, yet seem very exclusive and unwelcoming to people who don’t fit their mold, such as Barabbas and the girl with the hare-lip. I had read this intending it to be a quick escape after finishing Joyce’s epic novel, yet found myself caught up in the burdenous queries posed by this novel. Lagerkvist has a gift of stirring such strong feelings with so few words. If you enjoy examining faith, this is the book for you. It is a trip through suffering, offering both hope, and crushing visions of the world and death as a meaningless void. I will certainly be returning to the novels of Lagerkvist soon, his simple prose styling and layered meanings are too marvelous to only read one of his books. 4/5 I hope I didn't raise anyones blood pressure with this review. Please know that I had no intentions of conveying any opinions regarding religion, either for or against, and was simply trying to review a book with a difficult message. Anything said in this review was with no desire to dispute, argue, or impose any beliefs, just to detail the literary merits of this wonderful novel by an author surely deserving of the Nobel recognition. I would be more than happy to dicuss such topics with any willing person, as I find the various forms of religion fascinating, but this review was intended to be written purely objectively. Sorry for the disclaimer, but this is a touchy subject with many. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 05, 2012
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Apr 11, 2012
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Paperback
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