Abinadi
There’s a story in the Book of Mormon about a prophet, Abinadi, who stood up to a worldly king to testify of the gospel. It cost the prophet his life. This is a simple sketch/illustration I did for an upcoming publication from Daedalian Press.
Review: The Golden Key
The Golden Key by George MacDonald
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The book tells the account of a little boy and girl who find a golden key in fairy land and follow a trail to the door the key unlocks.
I did like one particular quote immensely. The dialogue is spoken to the little girl who at this time in the story is lost and has come far down in a cave and there she meets ‘The Old Man of the Earth.’
“Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.
That is the way,” he said.
But there are no stairs.” [said the girl]
You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.”
I liked this quote because I think that’s how faith works. If you want to find out if God is there, you’re going to have to accept the fact that there is no staircase: There aren’t any scientific methods, any dialogues of reason, or any living persons that can give you a sure testimony of Him. In His wisdom, God seems to have designed it that way. He expects us to throw ourselves in, giving up all that we have to Him, even our free will, and trust that He will catch us at the other end.
All that being said, while “The Golden Key” really is full of beautiful imagery, it’s really not much as a story.
The environment and secondary characters (such as the Old Man of the Earth above) by themselves are wonderful, but as a whole there really is no plot, nor do the central characters have any interesting motives. The story ends before anything interesting happens.
If you’re looking to see some poetic imagery, then it’s worth a read. Otherwise, I would recommend one of MacDonald’s other books, such as “The Light Princess.”
Review: The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Beautiful characters and some magical scenes. The only thing that I didn’t like about it was that the story ‘ends’ half-way through, but then continues on and on and on.
A brief account: The story is about an acerbic young girl named Mary who, upon the unexpected death of her parents, is sent to live with her miserable hunchback of an uncle in his prodigious estate. There she learns of a mysterious garden which was locked up long ago because of the death of her effervescent aunt, the hunchback’s wife. By a series of magical events the young girl finds the secret garden and, once inside, begins building a garden of her own. As she builds the garden she gradually changes from being a sour little child to a delightful one and helps heal a few other people’s hearts as well.
My favorite character was Dicken, the boy animal-charmer who plays on a Peter-Pan-esque flute, and it was only in hopes of seeing more scenes with him that I managed to make it through the story.
Among all the scenes, my favorite was the screaming argument that Mary starts in response to Collin’s temper tantrum. It was hilarious to watch the two spoiled children battle each other to see who has the better ‘mean-streak,’ and then watch how they become aware of themselves thereafter and grow to be friends.
I can only give it three stars because of the unending plethora of story-resolutions, but I can recommend it. My advice would be to stop at or around the scene where Collin gets out of his wheel chair for his first walk, then skip to the last two pages.
Karen Savage––best audiobook narrator in the world for this genre––did a fantastic recording of it which can be downloaded for free at: http://bit.ly/qubGJt
Review: The Life of Thomas More
The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Powerful, hopeful, and enlightening: the story of Sir Thomas More is one that everyone should hear.
Thomas More was a remarkable sixteenth-century lawyer who, out of his faith to the Catholic church, refused to swear an oath of spiritual obedience to King Henry the Eighth after the later took it upon himself to seize power from the Catholic Church and form The Church of England.
What was most interesting is that More brilliantly refused to give the reason ‘why’ he would not take the oath of spiritual obedience to the king. Everyone suspected that More was refusing out of his faith to the Catholic Church, but for More to say so specifically would make him vulnerable to accusation of treason under the king’s self-imposed law.
The action of silent refusal by this influential lawyer was so powerful that it was said to be a ‘Silence that bellowed up and down Europe.’
In the end, this silence cost him his life.
More was such a rare individual: he was perhaps the most talented intellectual of his day, yet he never let his abilities inflate his ego. The more he lived, the more he dedicated himself to understanding and teaching by example the passion of Christ.
Peter Ackroyd is the author in this great biography. He captures the most characteristic and interesting elements of More’s life while still maintaining an objective point of view.
Five stars for a terrifically executed biography of a fascinating life story.
Review: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, 7 CDs [The Modern Scholar Series]
The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, 7 CDs [The Modern Scholar Series] by Peter Kreeft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The audiobook lecture series was a terrific introduction to the world and philosophy of theological giant, Thomas Aquinas.
Thomas is renowned for having reconciled the intellectual reasoning of the ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato, with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. He was so prolific at expounding on theological principles that the church ended up assigning several scribes to him so that he could philosophize verbally and allow them to record it for him––thus speeding up the process. In all, he made some one-hundred thousand pages of philosophical thought.
Four stars for such a great introduction!
Review: The City of God
The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was totally worth the time it took to read it. Augustine’s understanding of the gospel and remarkable rhetorical skills make for a compelling breakdown of the fall of Paganism, the rise of Christianity, and the importance of gaining entrance into into the City of God by surrendering ourselves to God’s will.
I would heavily recommend reading it on audio first, because there are long sections of the book that, while germane anciently, are now completely irrelevant. The said sections concerned the political and philosophical questions of the fifth century and were difficult to endure. Reading it on audio enabled me to mentally ‘tune out’ until the narrator reached a more interesting subject. The sections would, however, be interesting subject matter to a serious student of history.
Many of Augustine’s insights were wholly new to me, such as his understanding of numerical symbolism. I’ll outline one example briefly:
‘God worked 6 days, then rested the 7th.
6 here represents completion of this mortal life. This is shown in that the fundamental base numbers of 1, 2, and 3, can be either multiplied together to reach the number 6 (1 X 2 X 3 = 6), or added together to also make 6 (1 + 2 + 3 = 6). Therefore, 6 is a number that is complete in this life.
7, then, is the transcendence of the number 6. Upon the finishing of this life, we then enter into the rest of the Lord (symbolized by the Sabbath Day), thus transcending at the completion of this life.’
He also explains the numbers 8 and 12, but in order to find out, you’ll have to read the book:)
Double five stars for Augustine’s theological understanding wisdom, and rhetorical mastery.
Review: Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Anne is one of the greatest literary characters of all time.
I laughed throughout the whole book. I particularly loved the scene where Anne, still a child, puts flowers in her hat on the way to church, thinking it would be beautiful. She then spent her Sunday day walking around with dilapidated buds drooping above her head. It’s something I could easily see one of my sisters doing at that age.
The voices were each unique in their own way. I thought Montgomery’s handling of Anne’s prideful refusal of Gilbert’s plea for friendship to be a wonderful way of holding out the tension until the last page of the story.
There is a fantastic, free audio recording of it on librivox.org here: http://bit.ly/l4US2f
It’s read by perhaps my favorite librivox reader, Karen Savage.
Five stars for its outstanding character and storyline!
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Review: The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The literary quality of this book is superb, and the mythopoeic nature is paramount. However, the book lost my interest somewhere in Chapter 4.
The book is about the onset of a war between Demons and Witches. It has received praise from literary masters J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and it was on their recommendation that I began my study of it.
I was a little wary of reading a book that describes demons as heroes, and for me this intuitive thought has accreted into a general dislike for the underlying philosophy.
In Chapter 4, as the witches are plotting a sinister attack on the demons using dark magic my stomach began feeling queasy. I don’t mind seeing evil in a story––it does exist. Yet I hate it when an author engages me in the evil itself.
It confused me at first to feel this way about the story as the works of the authors mentioned above never left me feeling like that at all. While I thought about it, I remembered that another of my favorite authors, George MacDonald, had similar scenes of conjurations of dark magic in “The Light Princess,” yet those didn’t leave me feeling the same way at all.
I felt it unnecessary to continue. After a little more research I discovered that C.S. Lewis praised the sinister nature of the story, while J.R.R. Tolkien felt it to be rather rebarbative.
Three stars for its masterful handling of the Victorian literary style.
