Also... Short differentiates the respective roles of the message and the interpretation. All of my adult life, I have relied on Isaac Asimov's interpretation (Asimov's Guide to the Bible), but the last time I attempted a deep read of The Bible I didn't even make it through the Old Testament. Now, Robert Short's interpretation of Charles Schulz's Peanuts has led me to accept Charles Schulz's interpretation of the gospel. It's difficult to compare Asimov and Schulz, however, because Schulz's work deals mainly with the New Testament and I haven't gotten that far in Asimov's book.
I do like the way Short juxtaposes Schulz's strips with Jesus' parables, such as "The House on the rock and the house on the sand" (p.22), for example, or the comparison of text below...
"If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this, you will heap burning coals on their heads." - Paul
"Love your enemies--it'll kill them." - Lucy
Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old and... book by Isaac Asimov
I finished reading The Gospel According to Peanuts this morning. (You were right; it is a quick read.) I would have finished it last night but Tracy wanted to go to bed early. The book is not quite what I expected. I expected it to be an examination of all the times Schulz quoted The Bible in Peanuts. There are probably enough such strips to fill a book such as this, but there was really very little of that at all. What Short does mostly is to use other, apparently non-Biblical strips, to illustrate Christian philosopy. I have been reading Peanuts my entire life, but never realized the extent to which I was being preached to. That's subtle! Schulz is able to get his message across without ever proselytizing. I am much more used to Christians (or perhaps I should say "Christians") using Bible verses such as Romans 9:13 to justify homophobia or Genesis 9:25 to justify slavery.
Last night I ordered both The Gospel of Christian Atheism as well as The New Gospel of Christian Atheism. (Apparently the revised version is quite different from the original.)
I've been listening to audiobooks as I've gone out on my walks... and now that my foot's mostly better, I'm able to take those walks again. I'm currently listening to All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, and it's ridiculously good. I'd been holding off on this one for a while, since I'd never read anything by her, and fantasy isn't always the page-turner for me that it used to be (somewhere along the line I shifted from a SF/fantasy guy to a mystery/suspense guy). I'm always happy to read it, but I wanted to get into a solid exercise habit before tying my exercise to a book I might not click with.
I needn't have worried.
All the Birds focuses on two protagonists -- Patricia, a fledgling witch (who's managed to talk to animals and astral project so far), and Laurence, a science whiz (who's created a 2-second time machine, among other scarecely-useful things). In the part of the book I'm in, they're growing up together, and are tentative friends, but I sense a time jump in the near future. Apparently (according to the cover copy) they'll eventually be on opposite sides of a magic/science war that could have dire consequences for the planet. And they might be in love?
And... it's GREAT. I'm eating every paragraph with a spoon. Anders was the co-founding editor of the site io9, and she's written a New Mutants series for Marvel, but aside from an io9 article back in the day, this is my first encounter with her work. It's imaginative and clever and funny, and has offerered one surprise after anther (and I'm not even a quarter of the way through). I love it.
I wasn't going to do this, but I'm going to post a few excerpts from Space Pirate, one of a series of books by Henry Bamman, William Odell and Robert Whitehead I read between the second and fifth grades. I remember the covers of these books very well, but I don't really remember much about them, other than that I enjoyed them at the time. Scotty Good, Jerry Black and Matt Miles are officers of the Space Police crewing the spacesweeper SS-14. Their assignment is to tow the derelict Point Speed, which had been attacked by the space pirate, Roll See, back to Earth as it is a hazzard to navigation.
"We used up a lot of our meteor gas coming through the meteor belt," Jerry said. "We have to go back through that belt now. Pulling Point Speed will take a lot of gas. If we are close to running out of gas, Scotty and I will cut the line between the ships. Then we will go on to Earth, gas up, and come back for you and the rocket ship. We can fire the magnet line to you. That way we will not have to stop again."
"How can you tell where to find me?" asked Matt.
"We will place you in the pull of Planet Tookk," said Scotty. "Once there, you will just go around and around that planet."
Matt thought, then said, "All right, I will do it. But just do one thing for me before you go. Run air into this ship. If you don't, I will be dead in no time."
"We like you, Matt," said Scotty.
"We will do it -- for a friend," Jerry said.
A bit later, they have taken off, SS-14 towing Point Speed.
"How did you like that take-off, Scotty?" Jerry called into the spacetalker.
"Great! Just great!" said Scotty.
"How are you feeling, Matt?" Jerry asked.
"I'm feeling all right now," said Matt. "I thought I had been shot out of a gun."
"If you think that was somethning," said Jerry, "Watch out! My spacefeeler board just came on! Here we go into that meteor belt again."
A while later, low on fuel meteor gas, the SS-14 is forced to cut Space Point loose.
Matt's voice came on the spacetalker. "Do you think there are any other Space Police ships close by that could take me in?" he asked.
"No," said Jerry. "I thought about that before we took off. I called Earth, but they could not help. They said something about the men having a day off."
"I should have taken the day off, too," said Matt. "Well, go ahead. Cut the line. But -- do come back for me, friends."
Jerry turned off the magnet line between the two ships. Then he rolled the SS-14 to the right and away from the Point Speed.
"You have air for two days, Matt," said Jerry. "but we will have you back on Earth before the day is over."
"See you around, Matt," Scotty called out. "Put on your space suit when you go out for a walk."
"Fun-ny!" Matt called back.
Then the spacesweeper roared away into space at top speed. Jerry looked back. He could see Point Speed as it rolled behind the Planet Way. Jerry did not know it at the time, but when he saw his friend Matt again, Matt would be in the hand of Roll see, the pirate!"
Continuing my journey through children's literature of a bygone era, I read Mission to Hoatius, a YA Star Trek tie-in from 1967 which has the distinction of being the very fist Star Trek prose book to see print. This HC replica edition was published in 1999. I bought it then with the intention of reading it "someday." It took more than a quarter century, but that day has finally arrived! The book is written around the unlikely premise of a star system, the titular Horatius, which has no fewer than three unrelated Earth colonies, hundreds of years old. Each one has adopted a completely different culture/lifestyle. A distress call of unknown origin is sent from opne of the planets in the system, and the Enterprise is sent to investigate. The starship is running low on supplies and Dr. McCoy is concerned about a growing epidemic of "space cafard" among the crew.
As they visit each planet in turn, this book is like a mish-mash of several specific television episodes. The thing about the television show, though, is that it had people such as D.C. Fontana serving as story editors to ensure that the plots/script sounded like Star Trek. Writer Mack Reynolds apparantly had no such editor, however, which leads to lines such as "throw your sidearm on stun effect" rather than "set phasers to stun." There is also subplot of Mr. Sulu bringing a pet rat aboard. He names the rat "Mickey," and the very last chapter of the book reveals that Mickey is carrying bubonic plague!
Mission to Horatius is a curiouity, to be sure, but I reall y can't recommend it to anyone for any reason.
ME AND CALEB: Since the last time I posted, I have read Franklyn E. Meyer's 1962 Charles W. Follett award-winning book Me and Caleb (which I discussed briefly a few pages back) for the first time... well, ever, really. It was read to my sixth grade class and I remember enjoying it quite a bit. I am happy to report I enjoyed it just as much the second time through. I thought it was contemporary when I first heard it 50 years ago, but I'm not even certain it was contemporary in 1962. There is nothing in the text (such as the mention of a war or a president) which would give a clue as to the timeframe. It's set in rural southwest Missouri. The antics Bud (the narrator) and his friends get up to on Hallowe'en remind me very much of the kind of pranks Frank King's Skeezix would play in 1930s Gasoline Alley.
There is a 1969 sequel, Me and Caleb Again, which I would like to read next (or ASAP). I can find it online, but for "stupid high" prices ($69 to $200+). I contacted the publisher of the Me and Caleb reissue and was told that the sequel is still under copyright so they are unable to publish it at this time, but their representative thanked me for putting it on their radar. My nephew (and niece) will probably end up with my copy of Me and Caleb someday.
The Man Who presumed: A Biography of Henry M Stanley by Byron Farwell. Less than 100 pages in, and I find this fascinating. I don't even remember how I got turned on to this book, but I got it for Christmas. Even if the rest of it sucks, it is worth it just for how far I've gotten into it.
Reading Chris Hadfield's The Apollo Murders. It's a slow burn... I'm a little under halfway through and it's really picking up. Good twist a little while after the launch. I have to assume he has the technical details and the feel of spaceflight right. I've been doing a lot of writing-related research-reading, so it's taking me longer than it might otherwise.
THE UNCENSORED BIBLE: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book: I followed The Gospel According to Peanuts up with The Uncensored Bible (as recommended to me by our own ClarkKent_DC). It is quite similar in tone to God is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell, but much more scholarly. Most of these interpretations are based on more accurate translations of original Hebrew words, some of which are used on once or twice or thrice in The Bible itself. All of the interpretations are submitted by actual Biblical scholars and are plausible and worthy of serious consideration (which is not to say that even the authors of the book agree with all of them). Highly entertaining, highly educational.
Replies
Also... Short differentiates the respective roles of the message and the interpretation. All of my adult life, I have relied on Isaac Asimov's interpretation (Asimov's Guide to the Bible), but the last time I attempted a deep read of The Bible I didn't even make it through the Old Testament. Now, Robert Short's interpretation of Charles Schulz's Peanuts has led me to accept Charles Schulz's interpretation of the gospel. It's difficult to compare Asimov and Schulz, however, because Schulz's work deals mainly with the New Testament and I haven't gotten that far in Asimov's book.
I do like the way Short juxtaposes Schulz's strips with Jesus' parables, such as "The House on the rock and the house on the sand" (p.22), for example, or the comparison of text below...
"If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this, you will heap burning coals on their heads." - Paul
"Love your enemies--it'll kill them." - Lucy
I finished reading The Gospel According to Peanuts this morning. (You were right; it is a quick read.) I would have finished it last night but Tracy wanted to go to bed early. The book is not quite what I expected. I expected it to be an examination of all the times Schulz quoted The Bible in Peanuts. There are probably enough such strips to fill a book such as this, but there was really very little of that at all. What Short does mostly is to use other, apparently non-Biblical strips, to illustrate Christian philosopy. I have been reading Peanuts my entire life, but never realized the extent to which I was being preached to. That's subtle! Schulz is able to get his message across without ever proselytizing. I am much more used to Christians (or perhaps I should say "Christians") using Bible verses such as Romans 9:13 to justify homophobia or Genesis 9:25 to justify slavery.
Last night I ordered both The Gospel of Christian Atheism as well as The New Gospel of Christian Atheism. (Apparently the revised version is quite different from the original.)
I've been listening to audiobooks as I've gone out on my walks... and now that my foot's mostly better, I'm able to take those walks again. I'm currently listening to All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, and it's ridiculously good. I'd been holding off on this one for a while, since I'd never read anything by her, and fantasy isn't always the page-turner for me that it used to be (somewhere along the line I shifted from a SF/fantasy guy to a mystery/suspense guy). I'm always happy to read it, but I wanted to get into a solid exercise habit before tying my exercise to a book I might not click with.
I needn't have worried.
All the Birds focuses on two protagonists -- Patricia, a fledgling witch (who's managed to talk to animals and astral project so far), and Laurence, a science whiz (who's created a 2-second time machine, among other scarecely-useful things). In the part of the book I'm in, they're growing up together, and are tentative friends, but I sense a time jump in the near future. Apparently (according to the cover copy) they'll eventually be on opposite sides of a magic/science war that could have dire consequences for the planet. And they might be in love?
And... it's GREAT. I'm eating every paragraph with a spoon. Anders was the co-founding editor of the site io9, and she's written a New Mutants series for Marvel, but aside from an io9 article back in the day, this is my first encounter with her work. It's imaginative and clever and funny, and has offerered one surprise after anther (and I'm not even a quarter of the way through). I love it.
SPACE PIRATE:
I wasn't going to do this, but I'm going to post a few excerpts from Space Pirate, one of a series of books by Henry Bamman, William Odell and Robert Whitehead I read between the second and fifth grades. I remember the covers of these books very well, but I don't really remember much about them, other than that I enjoyed them at the time. Scotty Good, Jerry Black and Matt Miles are officers of the Space Police crewing the spacesweeper SS-14. Their assignment is to tow the derelict Point Speed, which had been attacked by the space pirate, Roll See, back to Earth as it is a hazzard to navigation.
"We used up a lot of our meteor gas coming through the meteor belt," Jerry said. "We have to go back through that belt now. Pulling Point Speed will take a lot of gas. If we are close to running out of gas, Scotty and I will cut the line between the ships. Then we will go on to Earth, gas up, and come back for you and the rocket ship. We can fire the magnet line to you. That way we will not have to stop again."
"How can you tell where to find me?" asked Matt.
"We will place you in the pull of Planet Tookk," said Scotty. "Once there, you will just go around and around that planet."
Matt thought, then said, "All right, I will do it. But just do one thing for me before you go. Run air into this ship. If you don't, I will be dead in no time."
"We like you, Matt," said Scotty.
"We will do it -- for a friend," Jerry said.
A bit later, they have taken off, SS-14 towing Point Speed.
"How did you like that take-off, Scotty?" Jerry called into the spacetalker.
"Great! Just great!" said Scotty.
"How are you feeling, Matt?" Jerry asked.
"I'm feeling all right now," said Matt. "I thought I had been shot out of a gun."
"If you think that was somethning," said Jerry, "Watch out! My spacefeeler board just came on! Here we go into that meteor belt again."
A while later, low on fuel meteor gas, the SS-14 is forced to cut Space Point loose.
Matt's voice came on the spacetalker. "Do you think there are any other Space Police ships close by that could take me in?" he asked.
"No," said Jerry. "I thought about that before we took off. I called Earth, but they could not help. They said something about the men having a day off."
"I should have taken the day off, too," said Matt. "Well, go ahead. Cut the line. But -- do come back for me, friends."
Jerry turned off the magnet line between the two ships. Then he rolled the SS-14 to the right and away from the Point Speed.
"You have air for two days, Matt," said Jerry. "but we will have you back on Earth before the day is over."
"See you around, Matt," Scotty called out. "Put on your space suit when you go out for a walk."
"Fun-ny!" Matt called back.
Then the spacesweeper roared away into space at top speed. Jerry looked back. He could see Point Speed as it rolled behind the Planet Way. Jerry did not know it at the time, but when he saw his friend Matt again, Matt would be in the hand of Roll see, the pirate!"
Continued...
MISSION TO HORATIUS:
Continuing my journey through children's literature of a bygone era, I read Mission to Hoatius, a YA Star Trek tie-in from 1967 which has the distinction of being the very fist Star Trek prose book to see print. This HC replica edition was published in 1999. I bought it then with the intention of reading it "someday." It took more than a quarter century, but that day has finally arrived! The book is written around the unlikely premise of a star system, the titular Horatius, which has no fewer than three unrelated Earth colonies, hundreds of years old. Each one has adopted a completely different culture/lifestyle. A distress call of unknown origin is sent from opne of the planets in the system, and the Enterprise is sent to investigate. The starship is running low on supplies and Dr. McCoy is concerned about a growing epidemic of "space cafard" among the crew.
As they visit each planet in turn, this book is like a mish-mash of several specific television episodes. The thing about the television show, though, is that it had people such as D.C. Fontana serving as story editors to ensure that the plots/script sounded like Star Trek. Writer Mack Reynolds apparantly had no such editor, however, which leads to lines such as "throw your sidearm on stun effect" rather than "set phasers to stun." There is also subplot of Mr. Sulu bringing a pet rat aboard. He names the rat "Mickey," and the very last chapter of the book reveals that Mickey is carrying bubonic plague!
Mission to Horatius is a curiouity, to be sure, but I reall y can't recommend it to anyone for any reason.
ME AND CALEB: Since the last time I posted, I have read Franklyn E. Meyer's 1962 Charles W. Follett award-winning book Me and Caleb (which I discussed briefly a few pages back) for the first time... well, ever, really. It was read to my sixth grade class and I remember enjoying it quite a bit. I am happy to report I enjoyed it just as much the second time through. I thought it was contemporary when I first heard it 50 years ago, but I'm not even certain it was contemporary in 1962. There is nothing in the text (such as the mention of a war or a president) which would give a clue as to the timeframe. It's set in rural southwest Missouri. The antics Bud (the narrator) and his friends get up to on Hallowe'en remind me very much of the kind of pranks Frank King's Skeezix would play in 1930s Gasoline Alley.
There is a 1969 sequel, Me and Caleb Again, which I would like to read next (or ASAP). I can find it online, but for "stupid high" prices ($69 to $200+). I contacted the publisher of the Me and Caleb reissue and was told that the sequel is still under copyright so they are unable to publish it at this time, but their representative thanked me for putting it on their radar. My nephew (and niece) will probably end up with my copy of Me and Caleb someday.
The Man Who presumed: A Biography of Henry M Stanley by Byron Farwell. Less than 100 pages in, and I find this fascinating. I don't even remember how I got turned on to this book, but I got it for Christmas. Even if the rest of it sucks, it is worth it just for how far I've gotten into it.
Reading Chris Hadfield's The Apollo Murders. It's a slow burn... I'm a little under halfway through and it's really picking up. Good twist a little while after the launch. I have to assume he has the technical details and the feel of spaceflight right.
I've been doing a lot of writing-related research-reading, so it's taking me longer than it might otherwise.
THE UNCENSORED BIBLE: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book: I followed The Gospel According to Peanuts up with The Uncensored Bible (as recommended to me by our own ClarkKent_DC). It is quite similar in tone to God is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell, but much more scholarly. Most of these interpretations are based on more accurate translations of original Hebrew words, some of which are used on once or twice or thrice in The Bible itself. All of the interpretations are submitted by actual Biblical scholars and are plausible and worthy of serious consideration (which is not to say that even the authors of the book agree with all of them). Highly entertaining, highly educational.
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