Archive for the ‘Reading List’ Category

In a World With No Classics

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

In The Western Canon; The Books and School of the Age (1994), Yale literary critic Harold Bloom examines the Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. The “Canon” to Bloom includes the most important classical works in western civilization. This Canon, as it were, establishes a literary tradition. A central component of that tradition is the Homeric Epics, including the Odyssey.  The importance of the Odyssey to the western canon is without dispute.  The problem is, as Bloom laments in his first chapter “An Elegy for the Canon,” no one reads the classics! Or rather, people read any old thing they want and they call it “great literature.” “The Western Canon, despite the limitless idealism of those who would open it up, exists precisely in order to impose limits . . . by its very nature, the Western Canon will never close, but it cannot be forced open by our current cheerleaders.” (Bloom, “An Elegy for the Canon,”) http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bloom/excerpts/canon.html

What does it mean to live in a society and culture that does not read the classics?  It means we have no way to talk to one another.  We no longer have common metaphors and motifs from which to share consensus.  We wonder from one existential moment to another.  Bloom, and I, dread that eventuality.  It is up to you, young people, to be such competent, but Godly writers, that society cannot ignore and then, you will resurrect the old and add to the expanding canon.

My own “classical” list can be found at my website, http://forsuchatimeasthis.com/

Click on “Free Downloads” and then “Classical Reading Lists: Creation to Present.”

What are my top 10 choices:

  1. The Bible
  2. The Odyssey
  3. Confessions, Augustine
  4. Sound and Fury, Faulkner
  5. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
  6. War and Peace, Tolstoy
  7. Faust, Goethe
  8. Heart of Darkness, Conrad
  9. Macbeth, Shakespeare
  10. The Wasteland, T. S. Eliot

Books you should read – 3

Monday, August 31st, 2009

S.D. Gaede, When Tolerance is No Virtue. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

In our culture, there is considerable confusion about how we ought to live with our differences and a cacophony of contradictory justifications for one approach as opposed to another. All appeal to the need of tolerance, but there is nothing like common argument on what that means. The question our culture raises by nature and development is what is truth and what can we believe? Our culture doesn’t know the answers. In fact, we have lost confidence in truth and have come to the conclusion that truth is unattainable. Thus, tolerance moves to the forefront. C. K. Chesterton wrote: Toleration is the virtue of the man without convictions. The Christian Response: A. We need to understand the culture in which we live–one in which relativism is growing which leads to injustice. B. We must know what is right and do it. C. We must seek justice–we cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices related to multi-culturalism. D. We must affirm truth and not tolerate relativism. E. The church must be who it is–it must express its convictions about truth and justice and practice and express tolerance (i.e., love) to the multi-cultural body of Christ.

Books you should read – 2

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

S.D. Gaede, When Tolerance is No Virtue. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

In our culture, there is considerable confusion about how we ought to live with our differences and a cacophony of contradictory justifications for one approach as opposed to another. All appeal to the need of tolerance, but there is nothing like common argument on what that means. The question our culture raises by nature and development is what is truth and what can we believe? Our culture doesn’t know the answers. In fact, we have lost confidence in truth and have come to the conclusion that truth is unattainable. Thus, tolerance moves to the forefront. C. K. Chesterton wrote: Toleration is the virtue of the man without convictions. The Christian Response: A. We need to understand the culture in which we live–one in which relativism is growing which leads to injustice. B. We must know what is right and do it. C. We must seek justice–we cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices related to multi-culturalism. D. We must affirm truth and not tolerate relativism. E. The church must be who it is–it must express its convictions about truth and justice and practice and express tolerance (i.e., love) to the multi-cultural body of Christ.

BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

The Modernization of Protestant Religion in America, Leonard I. Sweet

These are exciting times in which we live! More and more Americans began their walk with God outside their denomination church and stayed there. Why? Sweet, nor I, are being critical of the denominational church but we both are wondering what happened.

Factors that contributed to the decline of the mainline churches are: the growth of individualism, high criticism professionalization of the clergy, unwise and unpopular decisions made by denominational bureaucrats, ecumenism, actionism, pluralism. The end result of all this has been the decline of the mainline churches–both numerically and spiritually. Evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Pentecostal moved to center stage as modernism has been forced into retreat. In characterizing the mainline denominations during these five decades, Sweet notes: “With everything gone, there was little reason for people to stay.”

Sweet gives much attention to the relationship between the denominational leaders and the church members, were growing increasingly distant. This led to the leadership taking stands without considering the beliefs and feelings of the people in the pews, which then resulted in a growing distrust by the members of their leaders. Sweet describes these developments as a loss of mastery and mandate–that is, the loss of mastery of the common touch and mandate of the common faith.

Some have thought these to be exciting developments. Others see these as a dangerous trend toward existentialism and away from confessional faith. You will have to decide.

SAT I Reading List

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

The following is a copy of my suggested SAT I reading list:

SAT BOOK LIST

FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES

Jane Austen, EMMA

Charlotte Bronte, JANE EYRE

Thomas Bulfinch, THE AGE OF FABLE

Pearl S. Buck, THE GOOD EARTH

John Bunyan, PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

Rachel Carson, SILENT SPRING

Agatha Christie, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Samuel Coleridge, THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

Joseph Conrad, HEART OF DARKNESS

LORD JIM

James F. Cooper, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

DEERSLAYER

Stephen Crane, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE

Clarence Day, LIFE WITH FATHER

Daniel Defoe, ROBINSON CRUSOE

Charles Dickens, GREAT EXPECTATIONS

OLIVER TWIST

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY

Arthur C. Doyle, THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Alexander Dumas, THE THREE MUSKETEERS

LES MISERABLES

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

George Eliot, SILAS MARNER

T.S. Eliot, MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL

Anne Frank, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

Oliver Goldsmith, THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD

Nathaniel Hawthorne, THE SCARLET LETTER

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES

Thor Heyerdahl, KON-TIKI

James Hilton, LOST HORIZON

GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS

Homer, THE ODYSSEY

THE ILIAD

W. H. Hudson, GREEN MANSIONS

Washington Irving, THE SKETCH BOOK

Rudyard Kipling, CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS

KIM

C. S. Lewis, THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

MERE CHRISTIANITY

Jack London, THE CALL OF THE WILD

WHITE FANG