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Book Review
Last-minute gift ideas? Check out top five books reviewed in 2008
Reviewed by Andrew Junker, ajunker@catholicsun.org
December 18, 2008
Here is a list of media critic Andrew Junker’s favorite books he reviewed this year.
The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sister Dorothy Stang
Very few modern Americans lived life with and for the poor as fully as Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Dorothy Stang.
In “The Greatest Gift,” author Binka Le Breton explores the story and motivations behind this missionary nun who worked for decades transforming the lives of countless Brazilians in the Amazon.
Le Breton does a good job of describing Brazil during the decades Sr. Dorothy lived there. The interplay between the government, the land speculators and the poor farmers can seem complicated to a reader who doesn’t have a strong grasp of recent Brazilian history. Le Breton sorts out the complexities.
It was her love of the poor that led Sr. Dorothy to Brazil. For nearly 40 years, she built communities, educated the farmers and spoke out against the corruption that seemed to permeate the forest.
It was her love for what she called “her people” that never allowed her to tire in her concern for them. And it was her love for them that eventually led to her death in an execution-style shooting Feb. 12, 2005.
Even at that moment of death, her love didn’t fail her. Witnesses said that this 73-year-old nun from Dayton, Ohio, responded to her killers by calmly reading the Beatitudes.
Say You’re One of Them
“Say You’re One of Them,” a collection of short fiction by Jesuit Father Uwem Akpan, is one of those books that startles and leaves you unsettled and unsure after reading it.
Well, unsure of some things.
The fact that Fr. Akpan is a masterful writer who never sacrifices beautiful prose for his admirable economy of words hits the reader after only a few pages.
The unease comes when you ask yourself what to make of these five self-contained worlds Fr. Akpan creates in the book. The characters, the beauty and the fetid squalor the settings, the life and death choices being made by mere children leaves you dizzy by the end of each story.
You read these stories wanting God to come down in a lightning bolt and strike dead the evil ones, or hide the children caught between two genocidal factions in a bulletproof cloud.
But, of course, that’s not how it works, generally.
In every story, there’s a moment — and it’s usually at the hands of a child — when a character moves with an impulse of love, kindness or self-sacrifice.
That moment, though often understated, shines through the filth and desperation that hang in the air these characters breathe. Much of the time the sacrificial action is a failure, but maybe that’s the moment where God makes Himself known in the book: the seemingly foolish, at-first-glance failure of the Cross.
The fact that it’s often the children who intuitively grasp this truth contributes to the haunting and disturbing nature of “Say You’re One of Them.” It also leaves feeling like you just witnessed some strange sort of beauty.
The Face of Christ in Sonora: El Rostro del Señor en Sonora
Sacred art can be so much more than a mere painting or statue. And its history — in the right hands — can tell stories about the men and women who lived with the art, who loved it and who were willing at times to die for it.
James Griffith and Francisco Manzo Taylor’s book “The Face of Christ in Sonora” is such a success precisely because it manages to combine scholarly research with a human touch.
Pairing images of Catholic art found in the Sonoran region of Mexico with lucid writing that tells the story both of the art and the people influenced by it, the author and photographer offer a unique insight into this close neighbor to Arizona.
In all, the book offers a reflection on the importance of religious art in our faith. You get the sense that art played a much more pivotal role in the lives of these Sonorans throughout the ages than it often plays for modern American Catholics.
The Sonorans portrayed in this book have viewed their sacred art not merely as decorative pieces hanging in a worship space, but as truly necessary components to living their faith naturally and fully.
Because God is Real: Sixteen Questions, One Answer
In addition to writing more than 40 books, Peter Kreeft is also — or maybe foremost — a teacher. His experience in the classroom shines through in all his writing.
His books on Catholic apologetics and theology feel like dialogues, conversations between Kreeft and his reader, where ideas and truths are discovered together.
In “Because God is Real: Sixteen Questions, One Answer,” Kreeft continues this dialogic tradition, as he seeks to understand and explain the basic tenets of our faith.
While it would be easy for Kreeft to create straw man arguments and questions to answer, he admirably tackles real issues and difficult objections to the faith. That he manages to answer these objections convincingly and with good humor probably plays a part in why he is such a successful author.
Kreeft knows that human beings are curious by nature, and he knows what we want is truth and authenticity. The fact that it can sometimes be difficult to find the authentic truth in such a synthetic culture is why a book like “Because God is Real” is so important.
Priestblock: 25487: A Memoir of Dachau
Fr. Jean Bernard, in his book “Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau,” demonstrates the necessity of a brutally truthful recounting of his time at the Nazi concentration camp as a way of remembering the sin and grace that lived there.
First published in 1960, Fr. Bernard’s book was recently republished in paperback, bringing renewed interest to his account. “EWTN Live,” a program on the Eternal Word Television Network, broadcasted a special on the book this past April.
“We must never forget what happened there and in many similar places,” Fr. Bernard writes in the foreword.
He wrote the memoir in a few fevered days after leaving Dachau, and its attention to detail and fact leave the reader with a historical document detailing what it means to be persecuted for the faith.
It also recalls the power of the risen Christ, who makes all things new and brings forth good from evil. Or as St. Paul — who was also a prisoner — wrote: “Where sin increased, grace overflowed even more.”
Media critic Andrew Junker is a staff writer for The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.
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