Book Reviews – Page 3 – Agenda Magazine Archives

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle David Wroblewski

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

David Wroblewski

If your requirement for a good book is that it ends happily, you will want to skip David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. However, if like me you savor good writing for the sake of good writing, great descriptions of the Wisconsin countryside in the 1970s, descriptions of its memorable characters, and beautiful, free-flowing writing, you won’t want to miss it. All of these things kept me reading and hoping to be in the end rewarded for my patience and dedication. Besides, Oprah said it was a great book, and it’s rare that I have disagreed with her.

This is the tragic story of Edgar Sawtelle, a young boy born without a voice but with a special gift and love for training dogs. He is the only child born to parents who before his birth had undergone the loss of a number of babies either through miscarriages or still birth. Perfect in every way, but without speech, he learns to communicate with sign, both with humans and the Sawtelle dogs, a fictional breed of dogs that has been in his family for three generations.

My requirement for a good book is not that it always ends happily (thus is life), but that it ends satisfactorily. That does not happen here. After we journey with Edgar in his coming-of-age story, we return with him to his home where everything literally goes up in smoke. Even the records of five generations of Sawtelle dogs go up in flames.

Edgar’s father dies suddenly and mysteriously; but supernaturally, he returns to his son and tells him he was murdered. He is charged to find the evidence because no one will believe him without it. In town he encounters a store owner with whom he has another supernatural experience. From her he learns what the evidence of his father’s murder is that he should look for. When he can no longer stand being at home around his mother who has now befriended his uncle, he begins sleeping in the barn. When another fatal accident occurs, he flees, taking three of the dogs from the litter he has birthed and trained with him. On his journey he encounters Henry, and when he leaves to return home, two of the three dogs choose to stay with Henry. He finds the evidence he has been looking for, but what good is evidence if no one knows about it? Not even his mother.

So when everything goes up in flames, the dog that returned home with Edgar leads the other dogs away in the direction of Henry’s place, we suspect, as that is not really clear.

We are left with so many questions. Perhaps Wroblewski planned it this way for a sequel. Don’t count on it. What was the point of a coming-of-age story only to end with the death of the hero without his acting on the knowledge he has gained, especially about himself? Nothing is resolved, and I am left unsatisfied . . . because the book has ended with no plot resolutions.

Reviewed by Lee L. Peoples

Book Review – A Mercy – Tony Morrison

Set in America in the mid to late 1600s in the early days of slavery,A Mercy is Toni Morrison’s latest novel. It begins in medias res, a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning. The characters, setting, and conflict are introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters. And so it is with A Mercy. It is 1690 when the story opens. The narrator, Florens, sixteen years old, is traveling to find the blacksmith, a free black man who has never known slavery, to bring him back to cure her mistress of smallpox, believing him to be a savior because he cured Sorrow, another servant, of her “boils.” Thus, it is quite sometime into the narrative before the reader feels confident that she or he understands what is going on. Of course, this adds to the suspense that is so like Toni Morrison. In addition, it is rife with superstition and multiple meanings (symbols), reminiscent of her Nobel Prize winner, Beloved.

Florens at six years old was given up by her mother to Sir, Jacob Vaark, in an act of mercy. Her mother had been taken from her country, Africa, by Portuguese slavers and brought to America, where she remained in slavery. At the “mercy” of the men on the plantation, she had two children, one a little boy, still a baby in her arms, and Florens, now six years old. Sir, orphaned himself at an early age, was a farmer from the north, having inherited property from a relative. He prospers, tires of farming, and becomes a trader and moneylender, finding enjoyment in the traveling his newfound interest requires. We meet him as he travels from his home in the north to Maryland to collect a debt. Expecting to be repaid in money, he ends up accepting Florens, not as a slave but as a second helper for his wife and Lina, an American Indian servant he had purchased to take care of his home and to help him on the farm. When he traveled, he preferred to leave his home and property in the care of women instead of men. Though he hired men, none except the blacksmith, whom he befriended and trusted, ever spent the night on the property.

When it is clear that he is not going to get his money from De Ortega, the plantation owner, he asks for Florens’s mother and her little girl, having no use for the baby boy she holds in her arms. Florens’s mother, having “read” something in Sir and surmised that her daughter would be better off away from the plantation, where the only future she has is the repeat of her own fate, has deliberately placed herself in such a way so as to attract his attention. The owner says no to Jacob’s request, as she knew he would, so she offers Florens instead.

Florens’s future does look bright for ten years as she joins Lina, Mistress, and now Sorrow, another female taken in by Sir as an act of kindness to help his wife take care of the farm in his absence as he travels. Then Sir dies; and the women are left unprotected, with an unpredictable future ahead of them.

Other characters include two indentured servants, Willard and Scully, and of course the blacksmith, who is better off than any of the other characters. Florens has fallen in love with him and believes he will protect her. She willingly travels to find him to bring him back to save Mistress from death, as he was too late to save Sir. Mistress herself had traveled from England to marry Sir, having been sold to him by her father.

When Florens returns to the farm alone?the blacksmith having preceded her alone to arrive at the farm more quickly?things have drastically changed. Mistress, previously kind, has turned to religion and has become quite harsh in her treatment of the servants, who before were treated not as servants but as equals and friends. (What is Morrison saying about religion and its influences in a person’s life?) But the blacksmith has turned against Florens; and she returns to the farm only because she has no place else to go. It is in the last chapter, narrated by her mother in a flashback, that we understand the “acts of mercy” most of the characters have undergone, only to be left awash in the end.

Each of the characters in one way or another has been the receiver (victim?) of some sort of mercy gone awry. Lina, “Messalina,” the American Indian, was rescued by the Presbyterians when her family died and her village burned. At fourteen, she was bought by Sir from the Presbyterians to tend his home and help him with the farm.

Rebekka, later called Mistress, without much of a future in her own country, came over from England on the Angelus at the age of sixteen. She had been sold to Jacob in the New World. She travels by ship across the water, is married, and becomes the mistress of Jacob’s home.

When she becomes ill and delirious, she imagines she is visited by the seven women who came over with her: Anne, sent away in disgrace by her family; Judith and Lydia, prostitutes ordered to choose between prison or exile?Lydia was accompanied by her daughter, Patty, a ten-year-old thief; Elizabeth, who said she was the daughter of an important Company agent; Abigail, who was quickly transferred to the captain’s cabin; and one other, Dorothea, a cutpurse whose sentence was the same as that of the prostitutes. Rebekka alone, her passage prepaid, was to be married. The rest were being met by relatives or craftsmen who would pay their passge.

Born to Rebekka and Jacob was first a daughter, Patrician, who lived to five years old while three brothers after her died from one or another illness. Patrician died as the result of being kicked in the head by a horse, and something inside Rebekka began to die. She never recuperated. Then Jacob died, and the three servants were left to fend for themselves.

Sorrow, born and raised on Captain’s ship, not as a daughter but as perhaps a future crewman-to-be, was saved from drowning when the ship foundered and everyone else on board was either killed or drowned. She was difficult to train and was thought to be cursed, always seeming somewhat unbalanced. Dressed always in boys’ clothes, she was fit for little else than sewing. Until the accident, she had never set foot on land. At eleven years old, she was accepted by Sir and taken to his home to assist with the farm and to help his wife when her saviors wanted to be rid of her.

“Such were the ravages of Vaark’s death. And the consequences of women in thrall to men or pointedly without them” (155).

Reviewed by Lee L. Peoples

Experience Ted Dekker

I am a voracious reader whose appetite for reading material spans the many genres. However, my favorite is fiction, escapist fiction. Lately I found myself wishing for more Harry Potter . . . but J. K. Rowling finished the series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it was pointless to wish for more. I even considered rereading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or perhaps C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, both of which still sit on my bookshelves. I was craving fantasy. A younger sister, also one of my trusted reading buddies, had earlier introduced me to Ted Dekker, a New York Times best-selling author originally known for his Christian fiction; and I had enjoyed a number of his books. For my birthday she sent me Ted Dekker’sTHR3E, a psychological thriller, and his The Circle Trilogy: Black Red White. The latter, three fantastic “adrenaline-laced epics where dreams and reality collide,” satisfied for a while my hunger for fantasy. We wait now for the fourth in the series, Green, which will be both a prequel and a sequel, to be released in September. In the meantime, in addition to my other reading, I have been enjoying more of his earlier works my sister sent me.

—TED DEKKER is known for novels that combine adrenaline-laced stories with unexpected plot twists, unforgettable characters, and incredible confrontations between good and evil.—

Below are just a few of his novels I recommend you read.

THR3E

By Ted Dekker

ISBN 0-8499-4512-7

Imagine answering your cell phone one day to a mysterious voice that gives you three minutes to confess your sin.If you don’t, he’ll blow the car you’re driving to bits and pieces. So begins a nightmare that grows with progressively higher stakes. There’s another phone call, another riddle, another three minutes to confess your sin. The cycle will not stop until the world discovers the secret of your sin.

THR3E is a psychological thriller that starts full tilt and keeps you off balance until the very last suspense-filled page.

THE CIRCLE TRILOGY: BLACK RED WHITE

(The Complete Trilogy in One Epic Edition)

By Ted Dekker

ISBN 978-1-59554-532-9

Fleeing assailants through an alleyway in Denver late one night, Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes to the roof of an industrial building. Then a silent bullet from the night clips his head and his world goes black. When he awakes, he finds himself in an entirely different reality—a green forest that seems more real than where he was. Every time he tries to sleep, he wakes up in the other world, and soon he truly no longer knows which reality is real.

Never before has a trilogy of this magnitude—all in hardcover format—been released in an eight-month window of time. On the heels of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings comes a new trilogy in which dreams and reality collide. In which the fate of two worlds depends on one man: Thomas Hunter.

BLESSED

By Bill Bright and Ted Dekker

ISBN 0-8499-4312-4

The young orphan boy was abandoned and raised in an Ethiopian monastery. He has never seen outside its walls—at least, not the way most people see. Now he must flee those walls or die.

But the world is hardly ready for a boy like Caleb.

When relief expert Jason Marker agrees to take Caleb from the monastery, he unwittingly opens humanity’s doors to an incredible journey filled with intrigue and peril. Together with Leiah, the French Canadian nurse who escapes to America with them, Jason discovers Caleb’s stunning power. But so do the boy’s enemies, who will stop at nothing to destroy him. Jason and Leiah fight for the boy’s survival while the world erupts into debate over the source of the boy’s power.

In the end nothing can prepare any of them for what they will find.

“A fast-paced thriller of apocalyptic dimensions. The book will move you to wonder . . .” —Charles W. Colson

A MAN CALLED BLESSED

By Bill Bright and Ted Dekker

ISBN 08499-4380-9

In this explosive sequel to Blessed Child, Rebecca Solomon leads a team deep into the Ethiopian desert to hunt the one man who may know the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. But Islamic fundamentalists fear that the Ark’s discovery will compel Israel to rebuild Solomon’s temple on the very site of their own holy mosque in Jerusalem.

They immediately dispatch Ismael, their most accomplished assassin, to pursue the same man. But the man in their sights is no ordinary man. His name is Caleb, and he is also on a quest—to find again the love he once embraced as a child.

The fate of a million souls rests in the hands of these three.

Dekker’s is fiction at its best. His books contain all the elements that make for good reading, among which are larger-than-life characters, suspense, intrigue, romance . . . . Deciding to try any one of these novels will leave you wanting more. So enjoy!

Visit www.teddekker.com

Written by Lee L. Peoples

The Shack

William Paul Young

William Paul Young’s best seller The Shack is a unique way of looking at the relationship between man and God. Mackenzie Phillips returns to the shack where three and a half years before his youngest daughter Missy was murdered by the man who had abducted her from their campsite. Unable to get past his depression, he receives a note in the mail signed Papa, his wife’s name for God. The note was an invitation to return to the shack “next weekend if you want to get together.”

The Shack is a new approach to the proper relationship with God, and it appeals to people of all faiths as long as they believe in God. This is what has kept it on the list of best sellers for so long. Although I believe the approach a bit unorthodox in some respects, I enjoyed the book, especially the first part, which I found so touching. As I read, I found myself identifying with the main character in that at times my independence of God has led me to judgment, grief, suffering . . . The lesson here is that in our independence we limit or block our relationship with God, who desires a personal relationship with each of us. And in limiting our relationship, we block his power to work within us because as always, it is our choice. “All evil flows from independence, and independence is your choice,” Papa (God the Father) tells Mack. Later, she continues: “If I take away the consequences of people’s choices, I destroy the possibility of love. Love that is forced is no love at all.”

Although a beautifully crafted novel, it can be read as a “how to book,” how to establish a personal relationship with God.

This book is not at all about religion; and instead of preaching a sermon on the proper approach to a personal relationship with God, Young writes a novel; nor is this about any one religion or sect. God created us all, and he loves us all. He invites us all to come to Him.

In the novel, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—the Trinity—appear to Mackenzie Phillips, the main character, as ordinary people with extraordinary powers. God, for example, appears as a woman with whom Mack can easily relate as Papa.

Reviewed by Lee L. Peoples

My Sister’s Keeper

Jodi Picoult

How would you feel if you knew that the only reason you were conceived was as a donor for your sibling? For the entire thirteen years of her life, Anna Fitzgerald, the main character in Jodi Picoult’s best seller, My Sister’s Keeper, has been the main source of her older sister’s survival. Her sister Kate, three years older than she, has leukemia, and without the stem cells and the bone marrow from Anna, she cannot survive. Told uniquely from multiple first person points of view, this is a novel replete with suspense, irony, romance, compassion, humor, disappointment . . . and surprises. At the plot’s center are the main character Anna and her lawsuit against her parents Sara and Brian Fitzgerald. She is suing for medical emancipation, her right to make her own decisions about her body. This is the story of the family’s struggle for survival at all costs. Each chapter features the first person point of view of one of the characters: Anna, the main character; her lawyer, Campbell Alexander; her older sister Kate; her older brother Jesse; her mother Sara; her father Brian; and Julia, Anna’s court-appointed guardian ad litem.

To deal with the multiple problems that make up the complexity of conflicts in the novel as each of the principal characters interacts with and around the main character, Anna, the author chooses to tell the story of Anna’s fight for medical emancipation through multiple first person points of view. Every one of the principal characters has a problem of his or own to resolve, and the first person narration brings to the novel the subjectivity of each of the characters as each viewpoint is explored.

The lawyer, Campbell Alexander, provides much of the humor in the novel at just the right point—when emotions are running high and things seem to be at their lowest. He humorously dispels the myth that the only people with service dogs are blind people. At various points in the novel, in response to his dog’s being denied entry, he states, “This is a service dog.” Always their response is, “You’re not blind.” He always responds humorously: “I’m not . . . I’m a recovering alcoholic. He gets between me and a beer.” Another time is the explanation that he actually has an iron lung and Judge has been specially trained to guard against magnets. He tells another person he’s a lawyer, and his dog chases ambulances for him. Everyone, including the reader, is surprised when the truth of his service dog is revealed.

Perhaps this book and the subsequent movie will serve to make other parents think before they birth a child for the purpose of saving another child’s life. Perhaps they will think about the cost to their other children when one child seems always to be at the center of attention. In spite of the great love the parents have for each child, there is often that feeling of neglect on the part of the other children. We see this lack in Anna’s brother Jesse as we watch the trouble he gets into as he takes a back seat to terminally ill Kate, his sister.

Reviewed by Lee L. Peoples

The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown

Dan Brown

For generations, Peter Solomon, a 33 degree Mason, and his male ancestors—all of whom were Masons of the highest degree—have been entrusted with a secret that could literally change the world. Some years ago when this secret was threatened, he gave his friend and mentee Robert Langdon, the famous Harvard symbologist of past Dan Brown novels, a package for safekeeping. Now, Langdon has been tricked into bringing this package into the open.

In Dan Brown’s latest thriller, The Lost Symbol, a consummate villain, known only as Mal’akh, has gone to great lengths throughout these years, in preparation for this moment in which he will seek revenge for what he deems to be past ills. Upon becoming a 33 degree Mason, he was expecting to be told the secret alluded to in the inscription: “All will be revealed at the 33rd degree.” When no secret is forthcoming, he embarks upon his deadly plan of revenge. Buried somewhere in Washington, D. C., symbols exist that are supposed to lead to the decoding of this secret.

Great writing! I loved it. I didn’t think Dan Brown could top The Da Vinci Code, but he has done just that with his newest novel, The Lost Symbol. Unfortunately, it seems that as with The Da Vinci Code, some people are missing the point. This is fiction layered onto fact! And what a wonderful job Dan Brown has done. The architecture of Washington, D. C., the art work, the basic premises of the Masons . . . have all been so well researched that everything he has created here is plausible, even though it’s fiction. Readers need to remember this. As he did with The Da Vinci Code, he tells us at the beginning what is fact, expecting us to know that out of fact he has created fiction. I suspect that many people did as I did while reading. So caught up with our capital and all of the twists and turns, I found myself many times going to Google to check the facts, which I always found to be there as described.

From the first page to the last I loved it. Even after the great chase, I was still in thrall, right down to the last word. I am already anticipating Brown’s next novel.

Reviewed by Lee L. Peoples

Nora Roberts Rediscovered

There are so many good authors out there that some of my past favorites have been neglected, being the avid, voracious reader that I am. So what a delight and a surprise upon rediscovering Nora Roberts, whose books I used to read, seemingly, ages ago. On a whim, my sister, a reading buddy, sent me Nora’s trilogy, Born in Fire (1994), Born in Ice (1995), and Born in Shame (1996). Starting with the first, I simply could not put the three-volume hardback down until I had finished all three.

Set in Ireland, the trilogy is the rich and engrossing story of three sisters, each respectively featured in one of the books, and the men with whom they fall in love. Each of the sisters is an artist of some type. Maggie Concannon, the oldest sister and the heroine of the first book, Born in Fire, is a glassmaker. Next, Brianna Concannon, the heroine of the second, Born in Ice, artistically runs a bed-and-breakfast and is an artist in her kitchen as well as in her and others’ gardens. Finally, Shannon Bodine, born and raised in New York, is the heroine of the third book, Born in Shame. She is a painter. Each book is light, romantic reading with all the elements of good fiction: plot, characters, setting, the themes of family and friendship, even intrigue. If you like happy endings, as I do from time to time, you will enjoy this trilogy as much as I did.

ISBN 0-399-14388-2

Bad Girls: Let’s Be Honest Ladies, Aren’t You Only into Him Because He’s Not into You?

The authors, Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, left out one very important piece of the puzzle in their bestselling book He’s Just Not That Into You. Deep down every female knows what that little piece of the puzzle is. Our perception and our reality are worlds apart when it comes to relationships today. Although our reality has drastically changed, our perception continues to remain the same.

The tired but lingering perception still holds men responsible for the majority of problems experienced in relationships, which is not to say that women are unwilling to take a little responsibility. Women often blame themselves for giving and loving too much. Interestingly enough, females tend to give and love too much only when they are involved with males that treat them badly or, at the least, males that show them little interest. Could it be that females continue to love males like this because it is simply in their nature to be giving and nurturing, or could it simply be that females love a challenge? If you are a male reader, you probably suspect it’s the latter. Although, if you are a female reader, you know it’s the latter.

Females chase after commitment in the same way that males have always chased. Males often lose interest in females after they get them into bed, and females often lose interest in males after they get them to commit ? that’s the reality ? but it’s certainly not the perception that most people have about women. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the males are “bad” and females are “good” stereotype to which we have become so accustomed.

The females who claim to love too much are the equivalent of males who will say or do anything to get a female into bed. These females will put up with anything and will do almost anything to accomplish their goal, getting a man into a commitment. However, once they have garnered their commitment, they usually become bored and resentful. Eventually, after finding a reason to blame the men for their unhappiness (i.e., boredom), they move on to their next conquest. This is the commitment game ? it’s the female version of pursue and discard.

I found it interesting, having interviewed more than two hundred people as well as having recently written a book about females, to hear that large numbers of women were ending their relationships as a result of reading He’s Just Not That Into You. Interesting, because I knew from my research that these women were most likely ending their relationships for the same reason they had stayed in them: they viewed the men they were seeing as a challenge.

I was curious, so I set out to find out what was really behind the apparent phenomenon. I wanted to know why women were really ending their relationships after their encounter with that little book we’ve all heard so much about.

I discovered that the book’s directness made it difficult, if not impossible, for women to continue to rationalize their boyfriends’ behavior once they had read it; there was nothing left for the women to analyze or to talk about with their friends. They no longer needed to try to figure out what their boyfriends were thinking, or spend time wondering about where their relationship was going. The need for discussing, analyzing, hoping and longing had all been eliminated. As a result, many women ended their relationships. They had mistakenly believed that the men in their lives were complicated and mysterious, or in other words, a challenge. Instead, they found out their boyfriend’s behavior was categorically identifiable and even predictable. However, what must not be overlooked is the fact that it was the apparent “cookie cutter” behavior of men, meaning the men’s loss of mystery, which caused the women to end their relationships. It was obviously not due to the way men were treating them; otherwise women would have ended their relationships prior to reading the book. So, it seems women are ending their relationships after reading the book for the same reason they often ended them prior to reading it. They think the men in their lives are boring.

Greg Behrendt, one of the co-authors of He’s Just Not That Into You , has co-written a new book with his wife, titled It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken . Even without reading the subtitle, one could easily assume that the book is intended to help women deal with the difficulty and aftermath of a breakup. One could assume this due to the book’s cover, which prominently displays a container of ice cream.

It will be interesting to see if this new book will sweep the nation, too. Although, I must say, I don’t think it will. The reason is due to a little known fact: it is women, not men who end the majority of relationships. I know what your preconditioned mind must be thinking. You must be thinking “well, women wouldn’t be ending the majority of relationships if it weren’t for men’s bad behavior.” But this isn’t necessarily the case. Growing apart is actually one of the most common reasons cited by women for ending their relationships, and during my research, the reason most frequently given by women for ending or wanting to end their relationship was “my husband/boyfriend is boring.”

Bearing this in mind, one has to wonder why the new breakup book doesn’t have a big frosty beer on its cover. The answer to that one is probably pretty simple:

A) As a society we keep women’s bad behavior a secret; trust me, if it had been Hillary instead of Bill, you would have never been the wiser.
B) Women buy a lot more books than men.

These types of books are obviously intended to empower women. However, I believe the opposite is true. Women will never be empowered by the media’s false bravado, which is constantly being used to feed their egos and somehow make up for their past oppression. Women will only become truly empowered when they own the dark side of their nature, when they are held accountable and take responsibility for their own bad behavior as well as the harm they often inflict onto others.

In our culture men have been reduced to nothing more than their animal nature, while women on the other hand, are still somehow separated from theirs. The devil and the angel, so to speak, live inside every human being. Females are in no way excluded from this fact of human nature. At some point in history, many societies assigned and deemed certain characteristics and behaviors natural, meaning acceptable, for each of the relationship. To this day, people are inundated with these same exaggerated and fictitious images of male and female behavior. Women, as well as men, have been sliced down the middle ? able to own only part of who they are.

In order for females to achieve real equality and to stop being their own oppressors, they are going to have to acknowledge, as well as take responsibility for, the disrespectful way in which they often treat males. In truth, women are just as often the villains as they are the victims. Acknowledging and accepting this fact is the only way for women to truly become whole.

This process may require women to ask themselves some pretty tough questions, to which they undoubtedly will not like the answers, questions such as:

How many guys have I blown off? How many times have I not returned a guy’s phone call? How many times have I lied to a guy? How many times have I cheated on a guy? How many times have I strung a guy along? How many times have I used a guy for his money? How many times have I used a guy for attention? How many times have I used a guy for relationship?

Females regularly do all of these things and more. What’s more, they typically do them to males who really like them and are trying to treat them well. Unfortunately, the nice guys are often viewed, as willing, willing to commit, which translated into male terms means . . . an easy lay.

Women didn’t need to read a book from a man’s perspective in order for them to understand and gain insight into male behavior. All they needed to do was ask themselves why they treat some males in the same way that they often complain about being treated.. And of course, without any hesitation, an answer quite similar to the title of that little book would roll right off every woman’s tongue: “I’m just not that into him.”

Written by Sudesh Wadhwa