Books! Music! Knitting! Me! (But no Doctor Who...)

A few days before vacation is not a good time to realize your blog is abandoned and start posting again.  Oh well.

My recent life (in a numbered list!):

1. I've been staying away from Facebook and Tumblr as much as possible so as to avoid any spoilers for the new series of Doctor Who.  I'm one of the poor souls who does not have BBC America and must wait.  Oh, the agony.

2. What I'm currently reading:

• Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal.  Really enjoying this one, especially after listening to the author on Writing Excuses for a while.  It's a Jane Austen-esque regency romance, only with magic.  I do feel a little guilty reading it, since I've never actually read a Jane Austen book.  (I've seen plenty of the movies, though!  Sense and Sensibility, Emma, THREE versions of Pride and Prejudice...)  
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.  As much as I claim to love the fantasy genre, I haven't read much of the 'classic' fantasy stories.  I find myself drawn in by a vivid world and a masterful writing style.  In fact, I think I would like to do a blog post on this book at some point in the future, because I think it stands in defiance of the 'rule' that in writing one must show and not tell.  
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.  I haven't opened it in several weeks, to tell the truth.  But, since it is the fattest book ever, I decided things would work out nicely if I bought myself a used copy and took it on a roadtrip.  Take that, Kansas!  

3. Not doing school is nice.  Still trying to find a new mode of operation, but it's good.  

4. What I've been listening to: 

• The Midsummer Station, the latest album from Owl City!  It makes me very happy.  
• The soundtrack for the Broadway play The Scarlet Pimpernel.  (Rather addicting.  Not recommended for all listeners due to lyrics that hint at adult things, but nothing's perfect.)  
• The NEEDTOBREATHE song Keep Your Eyes Open.  Sort of my mantra for this season in my life.  

5. If I'm a good girl I'll switch over to a word document after I'm done with this post and work on some outlining.  

6. Coming up is the BIGGEST ROADTRIP EVER!  (Excited?  Me?  Maybe a little bit...)  New places!  New things to see!  New TREES!  I plan on taking lots of pictures, but not so much that it keeps me from seeing everything.  Also, I will probably knit a lot in the car.

7. ...knitting, yes.  I've decided that from now on I will randomly make scarves and throw them at people.  (Eh.  Second part is optional.  Still working out the kinks in the plan.)  

Seven is a very nice number, so I'll stop there for now.  If you know spoilers for Doctor Who, DO NOT TELL ME.  Because you know, I am making scarves.  I might just throw one at your head.  You have been warned.  

A Lonely Library Stack and Intelligibility

I know I'm a little crazy, trying to write a whole blog post in the brief time I have before school.  But I've been thinking about my poor, neglected blog all week, and I figure the only way to get something done is to take what small chance you have to do it. 

So, gentle reader, I give you a basic update on life:

Reading:  I haven't been doing very much of it all.  I think this is due, in part, to the fact that my stack of library books looks rather empty at the moment.  There are plenty of books that I would like to have read and that I think I should read at some point, but I haven't had the inspiration to get very far into any of them.  The one book I picked up in the past week that I thought was going to be interesting -- Split Infinity, by Piers Anthony -- I had to put down after the first dozen pages due to sexual content.  Blegh.  And he had such an interesting concept, too...

Anyway, what I really need right now is a quick, engaging read that I can blaze through in a couple of days.  Probably something YA -- but you know my standards.  I won't go for anything with adult content or swearing.  If you have a book in mind that fits this description, please send it my way. 

Writing:  I have been participating in an informal Poem-A-Day (since this is National Poetry Month), but I started a couple days late and missed the last three days.  Oh well.  I figure that any poetry I write because of PAD is more poetry than I would have written otherwise.  Writing is good. 

Also, I've been a little concerned because it feels that with every time I sit down to write, I make less and less sense.  Of course, it doesn't help that I don't have a specific project I'm working on.  But it's like I've spent so much time away from writing that as soon as my pen touches the paper, all this esoteric goop spills out.  And that's not what I want.  I don't write with long words because I want to sound sophisticated.  I use those words because they best express what I want to say.  There's nothing nearly as wonderful as knowing you used exactly the right word for what you meant.  But still, I'm not sure what to do with myself.  I would like to be at least a little intelligible.

Final Note: My life doesn't consist solely of reading and writing, I hope you know.  But I have run out of time to talk about anything else. 

Spring and Mockingjay

Today is the most beautiful, most spring-like day we've had so far this year, even now at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.  Saturdays are our family house-cleaning days, and today as we traversed the house with vacuums and scrub-brushes, we were able to leave the windows and doors open, letting in a fresh breeze and the sunshine that's lost its winter pallor.  As I sit on my bed to write this blog entry, that light illuminates my room, and my window is still open.  Things smell alive again, even if they don't quite look like it yet.  

I finished reading Mockingjay yesterday.  While I've enjoyed the whole Hunger Games trilogy quite a bit, I cannot come to terms with the ending.  For those of you who haven't read it yet, the end is solidly bittersweet--with a whole lot of bitter and precious little sweet.  Now, I am not someone who has to have a happy ending no matter what.  In fact, some of my favorite stories have tragic endings.  (I never could resist anything that made me cry.)  But there has to be a reason for the ending.  If a story ends bittersweet, it should be because a happy ending would have felt wrong.  Sydney Carton had to die at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, because if he had just swooped in, saved the day, and taken everyone back to England safe and sound, the book would have lost a lot of its meaning and power.  

Alright, so let's start with the concept of meaning and apply it to Mockingjay.  The ending would be understandable (and forgivable) if Collins had something specific to say.  And I think she does have something to say, but what it turns out to be is something as broad and bland and over-parroted as War is bad.  

Yes, war is bad.  But in my entire life span (which, admittedly, isn't very long), I haven't run into a single living person who thought war was good.  So really, did Collins have to sacrifice the ending of this trilogy for the sake of telling us something that we already believe?  

Now, while this is one major problem I have with the ending, I think the real reason I didn't like it was not the ending itself, but the promises I felt the author had made to us that weren't fulfilled.  Looking back on the series, I feel like there were a number of opportunities that were wasted, and a number of aspects of the ending that made it distinctively unhappy.  For example:

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

• Peeta's speaking abilities are mentioned and come into play a number of times in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Because it kept coming up, I felt, when I was speculating about Mockingjay before I read it, that something meaningful Peeta says in public should have a pivotal role in the book, particularly at the end.  Instead, Peeta is a prisoner of the Capitol for the first half of the book, has a severely altered personality in the second half of the book, and the only major part he plays in the end is to keep Katniss from committing suicide after she makes the final decisive action of the book.  Yes, that action belongs to Katniss, since she is the main character.  But the story is also Peeta's in so many ways, and to have his only role in the book be as a source of angst for Katniss is just disappointing.  I wanted to see him act.  I wanted to see him come into his own as a well-reasoned, decisive man.  I wanted him to have a moment where I could stand up and cheer for him.  But the book had none of that.  
• The romance went kaput.  Despite how well it was written, I'm not sure I liked the love triangle.  Being yanked back and forth between Gale and Peeta created a lot of tension, but after a while I just wanted it to stop.  Also, the way in which it got resolved wasn't really a resolution.  Katniss admitted that a part of her would always hate Gale for her sister's death, and Gale, for the most part, walked out of her life.  And after that, Peeta and Katniss fall back in love again in a very boring way off-screen.  After three books of constant romantic tension... that's it?  
• In the end, Katniss has Peeta again.  Great.  But everyone else is gone.  Even the people who aren't dead are gone, such as Katniss's mother.  Throughout the book the one source of comfort for Katniss has been other people, but at the end of the book she's all but completely alone.  The book ends with a profound sense of loneliness, which I found very depressing.  No reward at all for suffering through all the gruesome deaths that litter the pages of the book.  

Those are just the main problems I can think of off the top of my head.  In all, it felt to me like Collins performed a series of tricks, dazzling us with her ability to keep us constantly in suspense, jumping higher and higher each time.  And then, after all those surprises, she found that she'd left herself only a few options with which to craft a good ending.  So she made the ending bittersweet, because that was all that was left.  

Now, the one thing I haven't addressed is that the ending is realistic.  In real wars, people you love die horrendous, pointless deaths.  Happy endings are in short supply.  But most people don't read fiction for realism.  We have real life for that.  Good fiction tries to make us better than we are, not by reinforcing the hopelessness many of us already feel when looking at the world, but by telling us that evil doesn't always win, and that there's a reason to keep hoping and keep fighting for what's right and true.  If a book's central message is "Life stinks," I don't know if it can really be classified as a good book.  

But, despite all the negative things I've said, I do think Suzanne Collins is a talented author with great storytelling abilities, and I would still recommend The Hunger Games and Catching Fire -- and, yes, maybe even Mockingjay, though not without fair warning -- to someone looking for an engaging book to read.  I won't deny that reading these books has been fun.  And I'm still looking forward to the movie.  

Reading

(This is a post I posted a couple days ago on another blog, but I decided to move it here.)

I spent the greater part of today working with books: making a list of all the books I've read in 2011, cataloging my own personal library of books, and the like.  I started out this year with the goal of reading 25 books in 2011, and... well, I read 53.  I am quite pleased.  

Looking over the list of books I finished this year, there were a couple of themes that stood out.  I read 32 fiction books and 20 nonfiction books.  I read more YA fiction this year than in all previous years combined -- mostly thanks to Scott Westerfeld, since I discovered his Leviathan trilogy early this year, which lead me to read his Uglies series while waiting for Goliath to come out.  I also read a number of dystopias, from Brave New World to The Hunger Games.  G. K. Chesterton was probably my favorite author that I read this year.  I discovered him in 2010 when I read his biography of Charles Dickens.  This year I continued my journey through Chesterton with Orthodoxy, The Flying Inn, The Man Who Was Thursday, Heretics, and Saint Thomas Aquinas.  Chesterton is the kind of person that makes me wish I could steal his brain and make it my own.  His writing style is gorgeous, and the thoughts he has are so profound.

While it's tempting to see if I can read even more books in 2012, I think I'm going to take a different approach.  Instead of aiming for a number, I'd rather have the luxury of taking my time reading a book, choosing longer books to read, or rereading books.  In my eternal quest to improve as a writer, I want to examine the works of my favorite authors in detail to see what I can learn from them.

And as a rather odd resolution, I've decided I'd like to dive into the Christian fantasy genre.  It came to my attention as I scanned the fiction shelves at Family Christian Bookstore the other day that, even though I think of Christian fantasy as the genre I'd like to write it, I haven't actually read that much of it.  So I plan to begin my journey with Donita K. Paul's DragonSpell and see where it takes me from there.

JACKAROO by Cynthia Voigt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book started out a little slow, but halfway through things started to get interesting, and by the end I discovered that I had absolutely fallen in love with the book! It was thoughtful, vivid, full of unique and interesting characters, realistic and yet hopeful, portraying the hardships of life without at all diminishing the fantastic moments of adventure. And the ending! It was a legitimate, beautiful happy ending, one that leaves you grinning from ear to ear at the end. I highly recommend this book.



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Wings by Aprilynne Pike

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I think that this book did pretty well on what it was trying to do -- namely, be an engaging YA read that someone could get through in a weekend. I enjoyed it in the sense that there were parts where I couldn't put the book down. However, on reflection, the book just seemed rather...unimpressive. Pike has a great base concept, but that seemed to be the only complicated thing about the book. Everything else seemed a little cliche. I felt like there wasn't enough content for it to really be the first book in a trilogy.

Or maybe I've just been spoiled by reading Scott Westerfeld.

In any case, this book is definitely fluff reading -- and since I tend to go for deeper things, I'm not going to spend time on the second or third books in the trilogy.



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Books that are, were, and will be (read by me)

At least it hasn't been a whole month since I last posted.  It's only been 27 days. 

So far I have spent this summer just reading as much as I can.  Now that school's out of the way I can actually get down to learning!  (Or at least, that's what it feels like.)  The problem is that I add about 5 books to me To Be Read list for every book I finish.  There's just not enough time to read everything I want to -- and, to top it off, I've come to the conclusion that I ought to be reading slower than I normally do so that I can absorb things more fully. 

This past week I finished reading The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld.  Both of them were quite good, and both of them kept me in a dreadful amount of suspense.  More complete reviews for both those books are coming shortly. 

There are a couple books that are currently balancing on the top of my currently-reading pile:

Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity, by Michael Card.  This book, recommended to me by a writer friend, comes right on the heels of having read Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle.  While on the outset it looks like the books represent two different voices saying the same thing, I am already finding a number of differences.  After finishing Walking on Water, I couldn't get over the nagging feeling that L'Engle's approach to art was just not Christ-centered enough.  In many ways, she still bought into the age-old cop-out, "Do art for art's sake."  For me, that is a pitiful excuse of an idea.  There has to be a greater reason for doing art -- a reason that leads back to God in the end, as all true ideas do.  And I think Scribbling in the Sand is addressing that.  I'm only three chapters in, but Card's ideas are already shown to be substantially different.  He says that art is an act of worship -- a response to the beautiful nature of God.  That is an answer I can believe in. 

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers.  I can see why this devotional is such a classic -- I have only read five days so far, and yet those five days contained more wisdom and insight than most of the books I have read.  I think I understand why it is in a devotional format: I don't think it would be possible to read the book without taking an entire year to do it.  Needless to say, I'm going to be requesting a copy for my birthday. 

When God Writes Your Love Story, by Eric and Leslie Ludy.  For those of us who want to do romance differently than this culture, this is a call to trust God with everything in your life, especially your future marriage.  I've read other books about 'waiting' and 'courtship' before, but this one is a classic, and it emphasizes that romance ought to be about God first and foremost. 

And now, the books on my TBR list for the rest of this summer:

1. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.  (I've watched three movie versions of the story but never read the book.  I know, it's silly.)
2. Blink of an Eye, by Ted Dekker.
3. Specials, by Scott Westerfeld. 
4. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. 
5. Animal Farm, by George Orwell.
6. The Face of a Stranger, by Anne Perry.
7. Looking for the King, by David C. Downing.
8. Saint Thomas Aquinas, by G.K. Chesterton.
9. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.
10. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Orson Scott Card.
11. Phantastes, by George MacDonald.
12. Dismantling America, by Thomas Sowell

Of course, knowing my ADD self, I'll probably finish only half of these, along with half a dozen other books that I don't yet know about. 

OH, and on the topic of books, I have a site that you absolutely must check out: The Escapism Project, a collage of thoughts on reading and writing by a group of teenage bookworms and bookwriters, all in pursuit of a more complete idea of what make a 'live-in' book.  Yes, I am a contributor.  :) 

Summerliness

We went to the mall with my aunt today.  I haven't been in a mall in a while, and it seems that each visit is worse than the last.  Our culture is not a passive culture -- it's a jump-on-you-and-beat-you-up-with-a-club culture.  All the stores sell all the same clothes, all the clothes cover less than they show, and all the songs are about sex and are played way too loud.  And all the pictures?  They all say the same thing: you have to look like this.  You're a failure if you don't look like this.  If you can't fit into these clothes, there's something wrong with you.  If you do have a nice body, you should show it off.  It's abominable.  The culture appears set on making the 95% of us who don't look like models feel absolutely miserable (and disgusted).

On the plus side, though...cute new shoes!  (It's been a while since I had any of those.)

I'm going to start reading Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle.  I'm very interested to see what it's like, since I've been a fan of her books for years and happen to be a writer (and a Christian) myself.

Peeking into The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron again has given me a revelation.  The reason this break from writing has lasted forever is because I don't need just a break: a need a full-scale recovery operation.  I need to go back to basics, ditching all my lofty goals and plans in order to simply rehabilitate my creative side.  In other words, I need to play.   So that's what I've been doing this week, and I've discovered something interesting: my creative self is still there.  It just afraid of things like "Oh, that doesn't count.  You didn't even finish it," or, "Goodness, you will look like a complete numbskull if you write the story that way."

So right now, me and my creative self are mostly hanging out in coffee shops that don't exist and giving cute imaginary cats names like Lord Ivywood.

Oh, and apparently I made several people very happy by inventing the word snickergiggles. 

Anyone attempting to claim that my brain is in any way ordinary shall be tossed out on their ear for obstinately ignoring the obvious. 

The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I wish I understood more of what I thought about this book so that I could communicate it properly. It was a fun book, and there were many scenes and characters that I enjoyed quite a bit. Chesterton did make some great points throughout the book. However, I did not agree with the way the book glorified drinking. Also, Chesterton takes little more than a single page to wrap up the entire book, and that one page was so vague and confusing that I'm still trying to figure out what happened. So there you have it. This is definitely more of an "enjoy the journey" book than anything else.



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Review of Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book was, in my opinion, a worthwhile read. I found the society Huxley constructed to be quite fascinating (and ominous, as it should be), and I didn't feel like the book had any 'slow patches.' However, those who read this book for pleasure should be forewarned about a few things:

1. It's strictly rated PG-13.

2. The end is sad and depressing - which is necessary the fully demonstrate the evils of the society. Just be prepared for it, and you'll enjoy the book more.

3. There are several faults in the structure of the book, the main one being that it begins with two main characters and ends tying up the story of a third main character, leaving the first two with mostly-unresolved character arcs (in my opinion). For this reason, I would advise that you don't get too attached to any of the characters you meet. Or you can get attached to them, but know that it does not end well.

4. The beauty in this book is the thought it inspires (and demands). If you don't plan to take even a little time to consider the issues, this book is a waste of your time.



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Review of The Godless Constitution, by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore

The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness by Isaac Kramnick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As a Christian homeschooler (using Sonlight curriculum, if you want to know), I was originally put-off by the title of this book. Indeed, the first chapter seemed at times to veer into an anti-Christian rant. However, as the book progressed and I began to see the authors' point of view, I realized that they did have some very valid points. Two that I thought were most valuable were these:

1. If we ask the government to adopt religious slogans, we are asking it to overstep its bounds. If allow the government to make decisions on religious matters, we open the floodgates to all other kinds of infringements on our rights.

2. Christians (and other religious people) should not appeal to the government to fix society's problems. If we see a moral failing in our nation, it does not mean that the government has fallen down on its job: it means that the church has failed in its responsibility.

For these reasons, I do recommend this book to anyone who wonders what the right relationship should be between religion and politics. It does not hold all the answers, but to the thoughtful reader who is willing to consider and discuss the ideas it contains, it is another piece of the puzzle.



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Review of Creative Journal Writing, by Stephanie Dowrick

Creative Journal Writing: The Art and Heart of Reflection by Stephanie Dowrick

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Overall, I liked this book. Flip to any page, and you'll find yourself inspired to pick up a pen and open to a new page. Stephanie Dowrick encourages you to write with freedom (I think 'instinctively' is her most frequently-used word), ignoring any of the voices in your head that say you 'have' to do something.

The one main problem in this book is that, for those of use who picked it off the shelf expecting a treasure-trove of unique techniques and intriguing exercises, it is a bit of a disappointment. I will quote what the author says about her exercises (which appears toward the end, unfortunately, but would have been lovely to know up-front):

"Many of the exercises in this book are are therapeutic, in the best and most natural meaning of that word. They bring insight, release, relief, wisdom, clarity, and with these, greater choice. They let you step into the middle of your life rather than have you wait around at the edges. They make it clearer to you how you treat other people and want to be treated. They light up your desires and let you meet situations freshly."

Now, if that sounds like what you want from this book, then by all means, go ahead. I think it is a wonderful book for introducing people to journal writing. However, if, like me, you have been journaling for some time already, feel creativity bubbling up inside you, and are looking for new ways to express it in your journal, then this book is not the right fit.



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Review of Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book was most certainly within the top 5 best books I have ever read. Possibly within the top 3. It was absolutely amazing. My new sub-goal in life is to get people to read Chesterton. If Christendom would remember him and listen to his advice, it would find itself better-equipped to understand and handle our times.



As Dale Ahlquist said in Lecture XII at the American Chesterton Society (chesterton.org), "The first problem is that every sentence in the book makes you stop and think, which makes you lose the thread of the main argument." Chesterton says profound and brain-stopping things habitually. After about Chapter 2 you think he can't possibly it up, and yet he keeps going and going and going and going...



This book is challenging in some ways, yes. For one, you have to stop and think every other sentence. For two, perhaps his language is a little more difficult to process than what we hear every day. But please, please make the effort to read and understand this book. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension." If that is the case, then Chesterton will take you to new heights of thought, if you let him. His insight is worth the work.



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Review of Worlds of Wonder, by David Gerrold

Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by David Gerrold

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I found this book to be quite helpful. The advice it included went beyond the details and got to the heart of things. Gerrold doesn't just talk about the general advice that everyone eventually finds out and repeats. He includes interesting techniques that other writers have used that have been successful, and he sometimes poses questions that he leaves open to thought. Probably the most wonderful thing about this book is that it's obvious that Gerrold loves his craft. His passion is infectious, and you can tell that the central reason of why he does what he does is never far from his mind. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to write science fiction or fantasy.



(If you don't have an interest in regulating what goes into your mind, you can stop reading this review here. I am a Christian teenager and I care about these things, so no review of mine is complete without warnings.)



Clean-o-meter:

I can't believe how hard it is to find a book of good writing advice that is appropriate for a 14-year-old to read. Following the trend, the book started out good but about a third of the way through sexual references appeared and steadily increased. There was a whole chapter on writing sex scenes that I skipped. (Mostly it was, "Here, let me show you what I did.") Gerrold did get some good points on my scale, though, because while there was some cussing, it wasn't bad cussing.



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Bookish Things (Including Book Reviews)

My writing is in a strange spot recently, so how about I talk about reading books instead of writing them?

I picked up Brandon Sanderson’s book, Mistborn: The Final Empire, from the library yesterday.  I’ve decided this will be the final test of whether or not I like epic fantasy – the book is over 500 pages long, and it’s the first of a trilogy.  So far, I’ve only finished the prologue.  It is interesting so far.  The style doesn’t pull me in immediately – methinks I’ve been spoiled by the Douglas Adams and Oscar Wilde I’ve been reading recently, as both of them have distinct styles (and in the case of Adams, his quirky, unpredictable style was the main reason I kept reading – more on him below).  Ah, well.  We’ll see how it goes.  I suspect it will end up in the large stack of books I started out of curiosity and never finished, but I’ll give it an honest go.  At any rate, I will write a review of however much of it I do read.

I have decided: I want to read The Hunger Games.  After so many years of resisting bestsellers and YA (and particularly best-selling YA), I’ve decided to yield to both of them.  Since there are over 250 requests on the copies at the library, I have decided to ask for it for my upcoming birthday.  (Which is soon.  Far too soon.)  It is rare for me to buy a book without having read it first, so I am both excited and a little apprehensive.  Apprehensive?  Yes.  I seem to have terrible luck with books that I just pick off the shelves.  Oh well.  Anything that is an adventure is bound to have some element of danger, and if reading books is the former (which is certainly is), then I can’t expect to always be successful in avoiding the latter.  And some things are worth the risk.

And now for brief reviews of a couple of books I finished reading recently:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

If you have anything remotely resembling a quirky streak, this book is for you.  Douglas Adams uses randomness, implications, digressions, and the surprisingly logical absurd to take the reader on a wild ride and leave him giggling and spouting quotes from the book.  This book was so much fun.  I enjoyed every minute of it, and I highly recommend it. 

-But Be Forewarned:  There is much cussing of the British variety, along with one or two occurrences of the s-word.  References to drinking.  The cost of losing a drinking game is described as being “obscenely biological.”  References made to Christian themes and beliefs that aren’t at all reverent (of course).  A consistent theme is the insignificance of humanity. 

Modern Art and the Death of a Culture

Even though this book was written nearly forty years ago, H. R. Rookmaaker’s words still have relevance and power.  Coming at art with a Biblical worldview, he dissects Modern art and exposes it as the product of an anti-Christian ideology nearly 500 years in the making.  After laying out the history of Western art and thought, he offers an insightful solution for what to do to confront this godless tide of destruction.

-Personal Note-  A lot of my material for my research paper on Modern art came from this book.  After a while I had to stop and remind myself that for a research paper I did have to take from other sources.  If it were possible, I would have quoted the entire thing.

-But Be Forewarned:  Since Modern art is frequently grotesque and obscene by nature, Rookmaaker must occasionally touch on topics that are inappropriate for children.  But he does so tactfully, and I did not find the references offensive at all.