Can’t exactly remember when I became a
semi-enthusiast of literature novels.
Could’ve been a few months after I read Midnight’s Children,
could’ve been inspired my fiancée’s love of Thomas Hardy’s writings, or maybe
it was the rows and rows of books I gazed at in the literature section of the
local Kinokuniya. Anyway, here
are the online symptoms of my fascination at the art.
“There is a real sense in
which [literature] enables us by vicarious experience in our life to bring to
bear on being Christian, myriads of lives not our own…by universalizing
ourselves in the significant experience of others there is more of us that is
Christian, that can be Christian, than there was before.
There is more of you, after reading Hardy, to be Christian with that there was before you read him, and there is also more conviction that you want to be it.”
Henry Zylstra, Testament of Vision
The pieces I’ve cooked up (won’t win any National Book awards but at least I enjoyed myself, smile):
· Suburban Selangor at Shakey’s (written Sept 2002)
· The Keeper (written Oct 2002)
Some books I had a lot of fun reading (not all of which qualify as ‘literature’ works, though):
· Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (Booker Prize winner, 1983; also won ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993 i.e. the best book to have won the prize in its first quarter century)
· God of Small Things, The by Arundhati Roy (Booker Prize winner, 1997)
· Bailey’s Café by Gloria Naylor (very moving collection of stories depicting the struggle of black people in America in the mid 20th-century)
· A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
· Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey (has some inspirational chapters on Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner and GK Chesterton)
· Literature Through the Eyes of Faith by Susan V. Gallagher & Roger Lundin
· Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King (his characters are as real and life-like as they come, his stories very expertly – yet almost casually - told; this book has almost none of that supernatural cum horror stuff, which is a plus, IMO)
· On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Finally, see also the literature-related links. As I rarely interact along these lines, it’d be wonderful if you could share your ideas (on literature as an art form? On what is ‘appropriate’ for Christians to read? On the direction today’s literature novels are taking?) and recommendations (for books, authors, both contemporary and ‘classical’), etc.
Would love to hear from you!
Yours,
Alwyn