Aimee emphasized the significance of Augustine’s view of women and purity (it’s a matter of the will and not the body). Mindi discussed her appreciation of how Augustine defended Christians (corporately and individually) against the pagans and did not blame them for not being holy enough or involved enough in their culture (more from her here). Jared had only read the first few pages and so mostly listened and questioned. Brent served as our fact – checker; he is better than Wikipedia. I made a few embarrassing blunders about Roman history but thoroughly enjoyed the chance to explore Augustine’s theology and the historical context of his work.

Next Friday we will gather again to discuss book two and hopefully have a few more join us.

Something Wicked This Way Comes 

Anyway, the vision of joy overcoming fear and of life rooted in sturdy faithfulness unites the two books and makes Bradbury’s worth sticking through the slow and the weird.

I have finished a few books lately and want to blog about Something Wicked This Way Comes and Speaker for the Dead. I’ll try to get to those tomorrow. For now, I’m continuing with Pascal’s Pensees (which I embarrassingly mispronounced recently), Ceasar’s Gallic Wars, and Augustine’s City of God.

Still, Alex has wanted a dog for the last few years and Luc has been eager for any kind of pet. Jared and I had discussed getting a dog at some unspecified point in the future and determined to get a poodle or a poodle cross. We wanted an intelligent dog that didn’t shed. Purebred poodles can be quite expensive, as are the popular poodle crosses like the labradoodle and the golden-doodle. We figured it would be several years before we could afford one.

Last week I got a phone call from my MIL and she told us that some friends knew a breeder who was giving away the last pup from a pair of labradoodle litters. We expressed our interest but didn’t hear back from the breeder until Friday. That afternoon we went and picked up “Rudy” – Alex named him after a character from Ice Age 2, I think. He is about 11 weeks old, calm and agreeable, and very cute. Since he’s very black it has been difficult to get a good picture of him. We haven’t had nice sunny weather to pose him in, but here are a few shots anyway:

I enjoy the concept of the powers of a seventh son (though I think N.D. Wilson’s take is superior) and Card’s book was such an engaging set-up that I’m eager to read the rest of the series. I am now reading Ender’s Game and also enjoying it. Card’s stories are thoughtful but still rather light and they are quick reads. I think I’m ready to turn to heavier books for awhile.

Gregory Maguire’s reworking of Oz in Wicked is more interesting and complex than Baum’s original but it still doesn’t rise very high. According to the jacket flap this book will make the reader “question the nature of good and evil.”

It wishes.

Both the plot and characters are muddled. Not complex but confused. Motives are not simply difficult to discern, they are non-existent. Maguire, like Baum, has an incoherent vision of an alternate world without any unifying theory or philosophy. The characters seem to have been grabbed from a variety of separate works and then huddled together between the covers of Wicked. Glinda is visiting from a boarding school novel, the Wicked Witch of the East from a satire on religious asceticism, the Wicked Witch of the West from an early feminist tract, and the Wizard is imported from the original but given a dose of Central Planning and Zoning steroids. The first section of the book seems to have been ripped out of a modern novel of domestic misunderstanding and unhappiness (perhaps gender-reversed Rabbit Run?) and then grafted onto the beginning.

Frankly, the whole thing is a mess and the ending is the worst part: an anti-climactic and meaningless jumble.

I recently finished William Gibson’s Neuromancer. And I really don’t know what to think of it.

I did enjoy the book. The plot was intriguing: well-paced and complex. The protagonist precisely, if lightly, drawn. It is an atmospheric story: one without much exposition but where every detail tells. I am not familiar with cyberpunk but I know that Neuromancer is much praised as a pioneering title in the genre. All of this to say that I think the book stands well on it’s own but it will likely be even more engaging and important to those with specific interest in cyberpunk.

I have missed being able to write the most. True, pen and paper are always available, but I am so accustomed to the ease of the keyboard and instant publishing that I haven’t been using them. I find it much easier to be creative when I can type!

I have also missed reading “stuff” online. I follow a few message boards and online communities and have missed those conversations. I have been reading books at an even faster than usual pace (reviews to come). Anyway, our laptop is working intermittently and we are planning to buy a new one in the next day or two. I look forward to getting back to normal…