Life, literature, and lessons: eight books

Literary criticism

What in Me Is Dark

Orlando Reade
Astra House, 272 pages

We don’t expect classic literature like John Milton’s Paradise Lost to be contentious, but, as Orlando Reade shows in his book on the poem’s legacy, it’s always been controversial. He shows us Paradise Lost often “comes alive” in unpredictable ways. For example, it both stirred and affirmed the grotesque racial politics of Malcom X and served as a sounding board for the psychologist Jordan Peterson as he inquired into the nature of evil. Reade’s various chapters on the influence of the poem are interesting in their own right, but they also serve as a lesson for our post-literate age regarding the effects—sometimes subtle, sometimes grand—that an engagement with epic poetry can bring about. At times, Reade’s study panders to a contemporary sensibility that will tolerate literature or other works of art only to the extent that they can be harnessed for this or that cause of “social justice,” but it also helps clarify the controversial nature of the poem. Is it a classic poem, a Christian epic, or a radical’s political tract? Reade shows us that Milton could be all three at once: Whether angel or devil, Milton’s poem has proved itself to be immortal. —James Matthew Wilson

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Literary fiction

Three Days in June

Anne Tyler
Knopf, 176 pages

Sixty-one-year-old Gail Baines just got fired from her job as a school administrator because she “lacks people skills,” but there’s no time to mope, since her daughter Debbie is getting married the next day. To further complicate things, Gail’s ex-husband Max shows up unannounced hoping to crash at her place. After all, it would be awkward to room with the happy couple, and the groom is allergic to the cat Max brought. Initially reluctant, Gail finds herself glad of Max’s company when Debbie shares shocking news about her future husband. It turns into a weekend full of discoveries, not the least of which concerns Gail’s growing self-awareness. Unlike similar stories about older women facing closeted skeletons, this one has minimal bad language and sexual content. The plot might hinge on adultery, but Anne Tyler’s portrayal of infidelity is brutally honest and rightly unflattering. Despite its subject matter, the story is hilarious thanks to Tyler’s masterful use of palaver-­free dialogue. Three Days in June is a novel about how selfishness can wreck a marriage, but the story leaves room for restoration. —Bekah McCallum

Natural law

Hopeful Realism

Jesse Covington, Bryan T. McGraw, Micah Watson
IVP Academic, 264 pages

This ambitious work seeks to convince evangelicals of natural law’s Biblical warrant and suggests liberal democracy as its best contemporary political expression. A unique contribution of the book is its development of an evangelical natural law political theory, addressing evangelical skepticism to natural law and providing practical principles for political engagement. These principles emphasize navigating complex, imperfect political options with prudence and aligning means with ends. The material, particularly outlined in Chapter 4 and applied in the latter half of the book, offers valuable guidance for evangelicals engaging in politics. However, while the authors acknowledge liberal democracy is not a necessary conclusion of natural law, they lean heavily on merits of liberal democracy while dismissing fundamental critiques. Despite the book’s strengths, this refusal to engage with criticism from postliberals and natural law proponents with other viewpoints limits its impact. I think a more charitable engagement with alternative perspectives on fundamental principles would enrich the Christian political discourse. —James R. Wood

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

History

Save Our Souls

Matthew Pearl
Harper, 269 pages

In the late 1800s, the Walker family and a 24-person crew set sail on the Wandering Minstrel, never guessing that a routine sharking expedition would leave them stranded on a remote island along the Midway Atoll. The notorious reefs surrounding Midway wrecked several other passing ships, so the castaways’ chances of being rescued by passing vessels were slim. Morale and supplies are low as they try to survive on a seemingly uninhabited island, but they soon discover they aren’t actually alone. Can they trust the ragged man living a solitary life on the island? Matthew Pearl recounts this true story that resembles beloved fictional adventures like Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson, but his book doesn’t live up to these stories in the telling. Despite his harrowing accounts of shipwrecks and backstabbing, the author’s language sometimes feels rather bland. —B.M.

Christian fiction

Midnight on the Scottish Shore

Sarah Sundin
Revell, 384 pages

Sarah Sundin fans know what to expect with each new novel: a World War II drama packed with intrigue and chaste romance. Her 17th novel proves exceptional for its lesser-known wartime setting, taking place along the craggy northern coastline of Scotland. Dutch resistance fighter Cilla van der Zee has had enough. She wants to quit the Nazi group she’s infiltrated in the Netherlands and devises an escape route. She offers to go to Britain to spy for the Germans, with the plan to disappear once she arrives in Scotland. Things go awry when she’s captured by an officer of the Royal Navy. Upstanding and deadly serious, Lt. Lachlan Mackenzie immediately turns her over to MI5, Britain’s counterespionage division. Believing her to be a German spy, they offer to spare her life if she’ll turn and become a double agent. She feeds false information to her Abwehr handler, who doesn’t realize she’s been captured. The dialogue between Cilla and Lachlan sometimes falls flat, but his Christian influence on her flighty, flirtatious personality will satisfy readers of clean, historical fiction. —Sandy Barwick

Poetry

Water, Water

Billy Collins
Random House, 144 pages

When I read Billy Collins, I often pause to ask myself, “Is this poetry? Or comedy?” A former U.S. poet laureate, Collins is 83 now and apparently busy in his Florida retirement composing poems about swimming pools, the Garden of Eden, and the alphabet. Collins’ earlier work, including as editor of Poetry 180, focused on “turning back to poetry,” or awakening a new generation to poetry as pleasure rather than mere academic exercise. (Collins famously wrote in “Introduction to Poetry”: “I want them to waterski / across the surface of a poem … But all they want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it.”) As he ages, Collins’ poetic vision feels the same. But he’s getting funnier—landing each daydreamy new poem with a satisfying surprise in the last line. The newest book—a collection of quiet takes on subjects as serious as aging and the afterlife and as trifling as the cartoon cow on Collins’ gallon of breakfast milk—takes just an hour to read. But then you want to pick it up, begin again, and experience each punch line one more time. —Chelsea Boes

Historical fiction

Broken Bonds

Amy Mantravadi
1517 Publishing, 334 pages

Though this novel may serve a niche audience (Reformation history buffs), author Amy Mantravadi gives a disclaimer in the preface that it’s “not chiefly a work of historical analysis” but “a parable.” You can nonetheless feel her careful research throughout the novel, the first in a planned two-part series tracing the paths of Desiderius Erasmus, Philipp Melanchthon, and Martin Luther as they move toward theological collision in the years 1524 and 1525. For nondevotees of theological history, the beginning may feel slow. But the book soars particularly toward the end as it explores the family dramas of Melanchthon, Luther, and Erasmus—all men wounded by fraught relationships with their own fathers and seeking the face of God. Mantravadi brings to life a period of history we often reduce to ideas. Yes, this “life” includes Luther’s famous indigestion and Erasmus’ kidney stones. But Mantravadi also enlivens a bevy of more palatable details, including the bountiful hospitality of artist Lucas Cranach and the delightful forthrightness of Luther’s future wife, Katharina von Bora. To the lay reader, Broken Bonds does not feel oversimplified, and it may inspire one to turn to historic Reformation-era texts. —C.B.

Religion and politics

Called to Freedom

Brad Littlejohn
B&H Academic, 192 pages

This book asks Westerners to see how we have confused Christian liberty with license, leading to a culture of antinomianism and anarchism. After making distinctions between three fundamental dimensions of freedom (i.e., spiritual, moral, and political), Littlejohn maps these on three “axes” of liberty: negative vs. positive liberty, individual vs. corporate liberty, and inward vs. outward liberty. His thoughts on corporate liberty and its intersection with the political dimension of freedom are especially helpful. He also discusses the important theme of toleration, which he argues needs to be revived. Littlejohn builds upon classic two-kingdoms thinking about inward and outward liberty and combines it with corporate liberty. These overlapping considerations will necessarily lead to a nuanced approach to religious freedom that involves toleration rather than unrestricted liberty. Many readers will raise questions about the themes of corporate liberty and toleration, but I think there are two other areas where Littlejohn’s otherwise insightful work could be improved. The first is the lack of attention to forms of tyranny other than economic, and the second is his interpretation of pandemic policies and the responses of those who engaged in various forms of resistance. —J.R.W.

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.