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cahnHave I mentioned that everyone needs to read The Chosen and The Promise by Chaim Potok? Yeah, well, there it is. I've read a couple others by him and wasn't able to get into them, but... wow, these two belong in the category of "every time I reread they blow me away." It's about a genius and his best friend, except that it isn't: it's about family and religion and love and textual criticism and fathers and sons and Judaism and silence and grief and love. And just so well done. This is in my Top Twenty Of All Time. (I made a list of my Top 10 last week, just for kicks, and it just narrowly got edged out of the ten by To Kill A Mockingbird, but not by much!)
I probably shouldn't have reread these in close conjunction with the Mary Russell books. This weekend was The Game. I do really like these books-- they are rather addicting-- but as a person who takes religion more-or-less seriously (even if my faith fluctuates wildly) it really annoys me when it's not done right in books. (Someday I shall rant/rave about Curse of Chalion, which does it so very right that I actually hated it the first read through; it's now one of my Favorite Books Ever.) And Russell's religion frustrates me no end. She's always pointing out that she's a Jew, where by "always" I should say "whenever there is a pig or pig products around." And she gets all huffy about it, and how annoying it is that she's expected to eat pork, whatever. But she never displays any other sign of being Jewish (as opposed to a Christian, or a secular humanist). Does she go to synagogue? Ever? Does she celebrate any of the feast days? Does she observe the Sabbath, like, at all? Does she even know any other Jewish people? She saw a miracle happen to a Christian: did this have any impact on her Jewishness at all? Argh. Plus which she seems to be okay in this book with eating lobster (well, okay, that's not explicitly stated) and curry, which last time I checked was often made with meat and, uh, milk.
Also, this morning I was pointed to this article on the Atonement which also frustrated me, because it purports to explain why the Atonement was necessary and then... doesn't. He's all, "The innocent always suffer when someone sins, like Jesus on the cross, therefore the Atonement makes sense!" Uh, no. If I committed adultery, my innocent husband would suffer, yeah. But if he then commits suicide (which is the basic logic equivalent of this guy's argument), that doesn't make any sense. Look, stop trying to apply logic to these things. You'll just annoy me.
I probably shouldn't have reread these in close conjunction with the Mary Russell books. This weekend was The Game. I do really like these books-- they are rather addicting-- but as a person who takes religion more-or-less seriously (even if my faith fluctuates wildly) it really annoys me when it's not done right in books. (Someday I shall rant/rave about Curse of Chalion, which does it so very right that I actually hated it the first read through; it's now one of my Favorite Books Ever.) And Russell's religion frustrates me no end. She's always pointing out that she's a Jew, where by "always" I should say "whenever there is a pig or pig products around." And she gets all huffy about it, and how annoying it is that she's expected to eat pork, whatever. But she never displays any other sign of being Jewish (as opposed to a Christian, or a secular humanist). Does she go to synagogue? Ever? Does she celebrate any of the feast days? Does she observe the Sabbath, like, at all? Does she even know any other Jewish people? She saw a miracle happen to a Christian: did this have any impact on her Jewishness at all? Argh. Plus which she seems to be okay in this book with eating lobster (well, okay, that's not explicitly stated) and curry, which last time I checked was often made with meat and, uh, milk.
Also, this morning I was pointed to this article on the Atonement which also frustrated me, because it purports to explain why the Atonement was necessary and then... doesn't. He's all, "The innocent always suffer when someone sins, like Jesus on the cross, therefore the Atonement makes sense!" Uh, no. If I committed adultery, my innocent husband would suffer, yeah. But if he then commits suicide (which is the basic logic equivalent of this guy's argument), that doesn't make any sense. Look, stop trying to apply logic to these things. You'll just annoy me.
