Review of Good News from Outer Space by John Kessel

“Elvis Found Working as Ski Instructor in Alps”  “Family Chat with Santa Claus on Holiday in Caribbean” “Killer Ants on the March from Mexico” and of course: “Astrologists Confirm New Year Alien Apocalypse”  But if they were only harmless supermarket tabloid headlines intended for comedic effect all could be forgiven.  But the fact people exist with professed knowledge of such events is where the reality of humanity takes over.  And for as much as the premise of the Age of Information would seem to dispel such notions, it may only confuse matters further, particularly in the religious context.  Reality so diffuse across available media, religion in post-modern life has taken on its own tabloid ambiguity.

John Kessel’s Good News from Outer Space is a novel existing at the intersection of Christian doctrine, the mysteriously unexplained, and the technical and social sides of modern life (at least as it stood in 1989).  Bouncing off religious fervor, alien encounters, psychoses, and the media, the novel is a darkly humorous snapshot of that quirky, irrational side of humanity that quests for knowledge about the underlying reality of existence, and in the absence of said knowledge, can substitute the thing lying closest to hand with complete conviction.  Witty, coy, and sadly profound, Kessel writes with his finger on the pulse of humanity’s irrational tendencies, as scary as they sometimes are.

Review of "Life of Pi" by Yann Martell

Not trapped in a zoo, not trapped in a building, not trapped in a cage, but trapped on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger at sea.  How long would you survive?  Would you be able to overcome your fear and try to assuage the situation?  Would the absurdity begin to make you think it all a dream?  Yann Martel’s 2001 novel Life of Pi is such a story.  Playing with itself intra-textually, Martel’s story raises more questions than it answers, in the process telling a tale of survival at sea like has never been told. 

Piscine Molitor Patel, more happily called Pi, is a young boy growing up in Pondicherry, India.  His parents own a zoo, a facet of life that gives pleasure to an existence that is otherwise filled with taunts about his name.  Deciding to move to Canada to better their prospects, one day Pi’s parents pack the animals in a freighter and head out to sea.  They never arrive on Western shores, however. The ship capsizing, Pi is left afloat with only himself, a lifeboat, and a few animals—a hyena, orangutan, zebra, and Bengal tiger included. His adventure has only begun.

Review of "Endymion" by Dan Simmons

The original Hyperion duology was a great success for Dan Simmons.  It won him numerous awards and accolades, not to mention rave reviews and huge sales figures.  The setting so fertile, Simmons indulged further, producing additional books typically called the Endymion duology.  No less imaginative and visual, the pair, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, nevertheless take Simmons’ universe in a new direction: where Hyperion focused on mythological quests for power from a base of Keats' poetry, Endymion is honed to spirituality from a personal view.  The following review is for the first half of the duology.

Review of "The Power & the Glory" by Graham Greene

What if you knew before going into a book that it would try but fail to change your opinion?  Would you still be interested in reading, knowing it would add nothing to a topic you’ve mulled to the point of boredom?  Such is the mindset I went about reading Graham Greene’s The Power & the Glory and its dialectic on Catholicism.  Surprisingly, while my beliefs remain agnostic, I finished the book having an increased respect for not only Greene’s qualities as a writer, but for being able to realistically express the human side of a religion that is ordinarily so wrapped up in symbolism and ritual.  In our current age's mirage of post-deconstructive relativity theory-ism, having readers gain respect for a perspective they oppose is more difficult than exposing them to a new viewpoint on life. 

Set in the Mexican state of Tabasco in the 1930’s during a purge of clerics, The Power & the Glory tells the story of a “whiskey priest,” - a Father on the run from authorities.  As morally conflicted as any character in literature could be, the whiskey priest fights to stay one step ahead of the law, bestowing hope and faith on the population, all the while attempting to deal with a deep-rooted addiction to alcohol and the internal discord of failing the church for personal interest.   Throughout his attempts to escape Tabasco into more tolerant lands, the whiskey priest encounters a variety of souls who serve to cast his own plight into a brighter light.  There is the fallen priest who chose to give up his vocation rather than face the death penalty; the homeless man who the whiskey-priest thinks is Judas; and the stoic lieutenant who tracks our hero the length of the novel.  All these viewpoints provide a more than adequate sounding board for Greene’s Catholic agenda.  As such, the guilt and suffering of a pious man have perhaps never been portrayed so well. 

Despite strong characterization and the willingness to openly challenge not only the secular world but also the world of Catholicism, the point at which Green shows his true strengths as a writer is in the novel’s structure.  The opening chapters devoted to describing the everyday lives of a handful of seemingly random characters, one loses track of them as the narrative is taken over by the story of the whiskey priest and his flight from the authorities.  However, at the end of the novel these characters return, acting as a literary foil to the situation the priest ultimately finds himself in.  The contrast evoked takes the novel’s denouement to the heights of literary achievement.  Catholic or not, the reader cannot help but be reminded about the wider context of life so easily forgotten in a day-to-day routine.  For accomplishing the difficult task of including yet transcending religion, Greene deserves full praise. 

Though not many writers could pull this off, the novel is nonetheless not without its flaws.  Despite that Greene uses the real world political situation of Tabasco as a backdrop, there is a notable lack of Mexician culture; the story could have occurred in any Western country.  To be fair, Greene obviously intended dialogue and characterization to take center stage, but what little interaction does occur with the local people and environment lacks detail in convincing enough fashion to make the reader believe the story is being told in Mexico.  Likewise, the actions of the priest are not ideologically consistent.  There is a minor scene where the priest could have invoked doctrine and prevented a person from getting hurt.  This, however, contradicts the priest’s choice at the end of the novel when facing a similar situation.  But I suppose such paradoxes are the hallmark of any organized religion.

In the end, Greene’s account of Catholicism in the modern world is something that anyone who enjoys a well written book could read.  Me - the agnostic - was moved by novel, thus it must be the characterization and individual nature of the whiskey-priest’s plight which the believer and non-believer alike can relate to.  No matter whether you are religious or not, The Power & the Glory challenges the individual and society, making for good reading.

Review of "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller

A Canticle for Leibowitz has stood the test of time for a reason: the issues under discussion remain as poignant in the 1950’s when it was published as they do today.  What is the value of knowledge, and how should it be used?  Is technology productive or destructive in the hands of government?  What role does religion play in a technologically advanced society?  Under discussion in the work—and the reason it has garnered so much critical attention—are these profound themes, as well as Catholicism, scientific discovery and its subsequent application, the importance of preserved knowledge, and euthanasia.  

 Told in three windows of time, the narrative focuses on three basic steps of social evolution (from a technological standpoint) and what role the church plays throughout.  Though classed science fiction, two of the post-apocalyptic eras Miller describes are not wholly unlike civilizations and cultures that exist in the world today.   The only complaint about the book is its bias toward Catholicism; there are no Inquisitions or Crusades and the subjectivity of its beliefs is never questioned.  The issues discussed, however, are important enough to ignore this flaw, as what remains becomes more pertinent with every technological advance society makes. All in all, one of the most interesting examinations of technology and religion literature has ever produced.