For a host of reasons, I’ve not been doing as much personal writing in recent years. I won’t promise that’s going to change yet, but I’m going to make a start, at least, with short “reviews” of three very different books I’ve read in the last year: a chance spiritual read called Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldridge; Cannery Row, a great short novel by John Steinbeck; and Shantyboat, a non-fiction account of a married couple’s journey from Ohio to New Orleans in a homemade driftboat in the 1940s, by artist and writer Harlan Hubbard.
Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldridge
Last spring, when Jodi, Lily, and I traveled to Italy to visit Brendan, Becky, and the boys, we met an Italian poet and writer on the train to Assisi. Pietro Federico recognized us as Americans in short order and struck up a conversation. Among other things, we learned he had translated a book on authentic, Christian masculinity called Wild at Heart by author and therapist John Eldridge into Italian. Our son Gabe had recently read that book, and when we told Pietro, he said a brief silent prayer, then reached into his bag to give me what he had intended as retreat reading when he reached his destination, Beautiful Outlaw, by the same author.
The book is an exploration of the personality of Jesus as revealed through scripture in the context of the time and culture in which the Lord was living. The Jesus who emerges is not simply a wise, kind, and sometimes cryptic teacher, but a fully human, real man who is playful and humorous, fearless and clever, intentional, generous, humble, and scandalously free. The book is, in many ways, a thoughtful exploration of the Lord and what He wants for each of us: His life, His joy, His unity, His truth.
I am glad to have read it, but I won’t recommend it wholeheartedly for one simple (but unfortunately pervasive) reason. Throughout the book, Eldredge leans hard into the idea that Jesus came to free people from religion. He uses the Lord’s encounters with the religious leaders of His day to say the religion is the problem, with its rules and practices that distort and distract us from the real Jesus. In doing so, Eldredge appears to ignore the Lord’s own religious observances and His statements to the contrary: I have not come to abolish the law … Upon this rock I will build my church … Do this in remembrance of me. He takes a number of direct shots at the Catholic church and other denominations with more significant emphases on liturgy, but, ironically, he also finds support for his views of the Lord’s personality from figures like G.K. Chesteron (a convert, specifically, to Catholicism) and St. Francis of Assisi (whose zeal for the Catholic faith seems almost unparalleled in history).
If you can get past these passages, however, the book provides much food for reflection on the person and personality of Jesus.
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
I confess: I am a big fan of John Steinbeck’s writing. I remember reading Of Mice and Men and at least parts of The Grapes of Wrath in high school, and they definitely made an impression, but it wasn’t until reading East of Eden in 2009 that I recognized scope of his genius. At that time I wrote: This is a novel to break yourself upon — a mountain of a book that makes you want to climb even at risk of life and limb. This is a book that inspires you to want to write breathtaking, aching prose, and makes you afraid to ever set down another inadequate word on paper.
Cannery Row does not have the sweeping scope or depth of East of Eden. It is much shorter (123 pages in the edition pictured) and focuses on several months in the lives of an eclectic group of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances in the cannery area of Monterey, California, in the 1940s. Ostensibly, it’s about the desire of local derelicts, ne’er-do-wells, and small-time entrepreneurs trying to do something nice for Doc, a scientific type and local legend whose drinking and womanizing disguise an aching loneliness and a warm, charitable heart.
I say ostensibly, because the story seems simple enough and doesn’t make its lessons obvious. Steinbeck has such love for the people and the place he describes, providing more detail and heart than the baseline tale requires. I read the book quickly and enjoyed it, but when it comes to explaining why, I find myself puzzling and reflecting on it.
Much like life itself, I suppose. And that seems like high praise.
One final, personal note: Many years ago we took our kids on a road trip to California to visit some friends and see the country. On that trip, we had dinner at The Sardine Factory in Monterey, which some of our children still recall as the fanciest restaurant in which they’ve ever eaten. (They attempted, without success, to empty their water glasses before the wait staff arrived with silver pitchers to refill them, and Brendan received a chilled salad fork in a dish of ice with his salad.) The restaurant opened less than 30 years after this story was set, underscoring how quickly a neighborhood can decline and rise again.
Shantyboat: A River Way of Life by Harlan Hubbard
This last one is bittersweet. I bought this book for my dad as a gift a few years back, before I realized he really wasn’t reading anymore. Dad loved being on the water: He converted our pontoon into a houseboat when I was a kid, and we spent a couple summer vacations on Lac Des Millies Lacs north of Thunder Bay, Ontario; many fall weeks on the Tahquamenon River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; and later, a number of summer days by Hardy Dam on the Muskegon River. He dreamed of taking a houseboat down the Mississippi, so when I discovered Shantyboat, it seemed a perfect true story for his enjoyment. It sat unopened until last year, when I began to read it.
Shantyboat is the true, first-person account of Harlan and Anna Hubbard building their own shantyboat, a driftboat with all the comforts of home, then following the Ohio and Mississipi rivers from Brent, Ohio, to New Orleans, a journey of nearly 1,400 miles, completed between 1946 and 1950.
This is true-life adventure: The Hubbards build their boat from scratch on the riverbank, living in a homemade shack in the meantime; they learn to navigate the rivers and avoid commercial traffic and hazards, read the weather and the diverse people they encounter; grow, forage, fish, and hunt for their own food (stopping each spring to garden and can for the next leg of their journey); and barter for other essentials. As a couple, they are clever, hardworking, and fearless, but also simple, wise, and even artistic, painting, sketching, reading, writing, and performing classical music on cello and violin as they move downstream.
The journey is dangerous. They have no motor power other than their muscles and oars (which aren’t much compared to the wind and current); little money; and no way to reach friends or family other than postal stops in river towns along the way. It’s also a journey that could no longer happen today: Who would allow a couple of strangers to squat half the year on their river frontage, gardening and hunting? How would lock-and-dam operators or port authorities today react to a driftboat, complete with honeybee hives and a family of dogs, spinning slowly around the ferries, tugs, and barges?
It’s a wonderful bit of history, from people Dad would love to have known. Afterward, the Hubbards traveled north, back to Kentucky, to build a cabin at one of their summer ports, Payne Hollow, and live off the land. Harlan wrote another book, Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society, about that. Rest assured, I’ll read it.
Archangel Stomp 