I love literature, and when I read Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot they shook me to the core. I read literature looking for truth, and these books challenged the truths I believed. By God’s grace he caused a faith that could not be shaken to remain in me, and as …
Category Archives: Literature
The Life We Long for Is the Life We Have: Some Thoughts On Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
I mentioned that I was hoping to post a reflection on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and the piece I was referring to has appeared on The Gospel Coalition site. I argue that McCarthy is trying to help us enjoy our lives as we have them in his novel The Road. This understanding of the book …
Some Great Statements in Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD
At some point I hope to post a longer reflection on Cormac McCarthy’s pulitzer prize winning novel The Road. The book’s beautiful prose takes us to an ugly world, ugly but not without hope. One of the joys of great literature is the opportunity to savor the well spoken word. The great writers model for …
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Prince Charles, the Book of Common Prayer, and Dynamic Equivalence Translation Philosophy
I think what Prince Charles says about the Book of Common Prayer is relevant to translation philosophy: Prince Charles, heir apparent to the British throne, is widely disliked by conservatives because of some of his politically incorrect statements. But his introduction to a new book celebrating the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common …
The Authorial Agony of Charles Dickens
My friend Scott Corbin sent me this poignant excert from Clair Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life, 113-114: “These were all distractions from the central business of the year, which was the story that had started as a few episodes and was being made into a novel, week by week, The Old Curiosity Shop. Against all …
Jeremiah 6: Refined in Vain and Rejected
Adolph Schlatter said of Friedrich Nietzsche: The chief impression that I internalized from his lectures arose from his offensive haughtiness. He treated his listeners like despicable peons. He convinced me of the principle that to throw out love is to despoil the business of teaching—only genuine love can really educate.[1] Nietzsche believed in the superman, …
Tolkein’s Own Drawings for the Hobbit
The Guardian has 6 drawings with a bit of commentary. Here’s one: HT: Malcolm Yarnell
N. D. Wilson on Magic
On the Desiring God blog today N. D. Wilson was kind enough to address some of the comments on a recent post here (obviously I’m kidding – his post is unrelated to the comments here – but his post does address the issues being discussed). Wilson has this to say about magic: Bible-believing Christians frequently …
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone: Why Do These Books Bother (Some) Christians?
Do you remember the concern some Christians voiced (loudly) over the Harry Potter books a few years back? I do. I remember some discussing the difference between the moral universe in the Harry Potter books and that depicted in The Lord of the Rings. If I recall correctly, one of the complaints was that while …
Lit! Let Tony Reinke Help You Read
I love books. I love literature. I’m really grateful for the way the Lord has used books in my own life, and I’m really confident that those who deal in words, people who preach and teach, have much to gain from the best put thoughts of the clearest thinkers the world has known. Add to …
Perseus Classics Free for Logos
The Perseus Collections will be released from Logos on September 30, 2011. If you pre-order them, you get them free. You read that right – free if you pre-order. Tony Reinke writes: The collection is a library in itself of over 1,100 ancient Greek and Latin titles and includes many corresponding English translations and helpful …
The Word of God Is Living and Active (unless your translation philosophy emasculates it)
In Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture, Peter Leithart writes (3–6), “It is easy for Christians to blame secularists for ‘letting the Bible go,’ but the church is at least as culpable. As [Clive] James points out, translation is a key symptom of our willingness to emasculate our own Scriptures. [here Leithart presents two …
Against Wind and Tide: Derek Kidner’s Preface to His Book on Jeremiah
In the preface to The Message of Jeremiah: Against Wind and Tide in the series of books edited by Stott and Motyer called The Bible Speaks Today, Derek Kidner writes, “. . . a preface also gives me room to put the subtitle, ‘Against wind and tide’, into its context. It comes, of course, from …
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A Separate Peace and the Symbolism of the Bible
Did you read A Separate Peace by John Knowles? Two friends, Gene and Phineas (nicknamed Finny), in a tree. Gene shakes a branch, Finny falls, breaks his leg, and the halcyon innocence of the summer ends. Previously a great athlete, Finny will never play sports again. When he finally returns to school, the other students …
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Award Winning Novel Rejected by 26 Publishers
Yesterday I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle aloud to my eldest (great book!). Then I looked it up on Wikipedia because it seemed to be the first in a series (sure enough it is), and I was struck by this: However, when she completed the book in early 1960, it was …
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Can You Identify with Judas?
Have you ever betrayed a friend? Can you identify with the bargain that Judas made? Have you ever decided that something else was better than Jesus? I’m not referring to inadvertent mistakes but to moments when one knows what God requires, knows what God has commanded, and chooses something else instead. What is it in …
The Failure of the Disciples and the Brothers Karamazov
On the night in which he was betrayed, Judas sold Jesus for money. When they arrived to arrest Jesus, Peter tried to help in a way contrary to Jesus’ teaching (taking up the sword, when Jesus has been teaching he would go to Jerusalem to die). When he was arrested, all the disciples fled. These …
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Is Satan the Hero of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”?
Some have alleged that Satan is the real hero of John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. For instance, William Blake held that Milton was “‘of the devil’s party,’ though ‘without knowing it’” and Percy Bysshe Shelley thought that Satan was “‘a moral being,’ one ‘far superior to [Milton’s] God as one who perseveres in some purpose …
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Second Place!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I chortle in my joy These boys are indeed uber-cute: We loved The Monster in the Hollows and think you will too!
Whittaker Chambers on C. S. Lewis
As I read Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, at several points the story drove me to look things up online, where I found a page that links to many of Chambers’ other writings. Somewhere I read Solzhenitsyn say that his writing resulted from his having been thrown headlong into hell and attempting to describe the experience. Chambers’ …