The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn

Literary historians have lamented the fact that many of the most personal letters of Emily Dickinson were destroyed by her family after her death, so we don't really know much about her personal life.

Jerome Charyn, the author of the recently published novel The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, says he was inspired by her work early in his own writing career. This novel is his imaginative depiction of the inner life of the famous poet and recluse. Most of her personal letters were destroyed after her death by her family, so literary historians do not have much information about her personal life with which to compare Charyn's speculative version. I agreed to read and review this book as part of a book blog tour for Tribute Books.

This fictionalized account does follow the outlines of Dickinson's real life but focuses on her emotional attachment to several fictional men, none of whom are suitable matches for the Belle of Amhurst. 

Charyn writes in the voice of Emily Dickinson, with a few narrative exceptions, and has taken much care to echo her poetic conceits. For example, in the book Emily refers on multiple occasions to her "feathers" and "plumage", an obvious reference to her well known poem "Hope is a Thing With Feathers." While Charyn does an excellent job of making Emily's dialogue authentic to her time and place, I found the style hard to read and not engaging.

I read a couple of brief biographies on the internet to check the accuracy of Charyn's work and found that it is quite true to what we know about Dickinson's life, her family relationships, and her growing isolation from the world as she becomes the "Queen Recluse" of the last chapter of the book. The "secret life" is of course the work of the author's imagination and  is sometimes sympathetic, sometimes fanciful, and sometimes overwrought and improbable.

The ideal reader for this book would be someone like the delightful English professor my husband and I met on a group tour last summer who was not just a scholar of poetry, but also a lover of it--which I am not. I am sure she would be fascinated with Charyn's use of his subject's poetry in the fictional narrative. I appreciated it more when I finished reading it than when I was struggling through it, if that makes any sense.

One more observation: the book could have been better titled. "The Secret Life Of" sounds more like something from a tabloid like the National Enquirer or the Star than a work of literary fiction, which this is.

Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust

When I agreed to review an advance copy of Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust as part of a TLC Book Tour, I was struck by the suggestive title. The title reminded me  of Misquoting Jesus, a book by Bart Ehrman.

And lo and behold, who should be quoted on the front cover of Unprotected Texts but the self-same Bart Ehrman who calls the book "explosive", "fascinating" and a "terrific read by a top scholar." Not surprisingly, I found it none of these things (although I do not mean to imply the author is not a top scholar). It is sometimes interesting, sometimes tedious, but not "explosive". At least it is not explosive to anyone with a broad knowledge of scripture.

First of all, let me make it clear that I am NOT a Biblical scholar. I don't know the ancient Biblical languages and I never went to seminary. I'm a lay Christian educator and Presbyterian elder with a passion for inspiring people to in-depth Bible study in the tradition of Reformed theology. As an elder, I am vowed to "accept the Scriptures of the old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal and God's word" to me. (PCUSA Book of Order W-4.4003 b. That is my point of view on the authority of the Bible.

The author is Jennifer Wright Knust, an American Baptist pastor and assistant professor of religion at Boston University . She states her thesis in the introduction  " the Bible is not a sexual guidebook." She sets out to prove  it with an exhaustive (and exhausting) discussion of every word of scripture that mentions sexual activity, bodily parts, bodily fluids and reproductive functions .

To anyone familiar with the Bible, the fact that it contains  tales of prostitution, rape, homosexual behavior, concubinage, incest, and adultery is not a surprise. In my opinion, this does not constitute an endorsement of these behaviors. Knust offers some novel interpretations of these stories, apparently based on her own translations of the original text and ancient Middle Eastern mythology and culture.

For example, she says the first three chapters of Genesis are not necessarily about marriage, but are a story about farming because it is similar to the Babylonian creation myth Gilgamesh. 

She devotes a whole chapter to interpretations of several Biblical and Apocryphal passages that she says show that the only sexual sin clearly condemned in scripture is sexual intercourse between humans and angels. She points to the Nephilim (according to Genesis the offspring of angels and women), the apocryphal books of Enoch and The Watchers, the men of Sodom, and the admonitions of Paul to the women of Corinth to keep their heads veiled in worship (so as not to tempt the angels). A novel interpretation, for sure!

With regard to homosexual relationships, she interprets the relationship between Naomi and Ruth as a single sex household where Ruth and Boaz's child Obed (to become the grandfather of King David) is raised. Last time I read that story, I don't recall Boaz being out of the picture. Predictably, she interprets the relationship between David and Jonathan as a "love affair" based on her translation. I checked several other translations and did not find the language she used in hers. Knust analyzes the condemnation of homosexual behavior in Leviticus and the letters of the New Testament  in tandem with ancient contemporary writings on the subject and concludes that the condemnation was only directed at the passive partner in the act.

The well-known story of Jesus meeting the  Samaritan woman at the well, revealing he knew she had five husbands  is transformed into an allegory of the sin of pursuing the pleasure of the five senses (her five husbands) instead of pursuing the love of Christ. The more commonly accepted interprestion of this passage is twofold: the revelation of who Jesus is to someone who is not a Jew (showing that Christ did not come only to redeem the Jews) and an affirmation by Jesus that sexual promiscuity is sinful behavior. Knust does admit that this allegorical interpretation is not widely accepted today.

My copy of the book, which is an uncorrected publisher's proof, is riddled with yellow underlines and a lot of notes. The book is mostly written in an academic style, with 81 pages of footnotes and bibliography. Much of the research she includes will no doubt be useful to other scholars. There are some livelier anecdotes about modern life included which are aimed at discrediting conservative, fundamentalist understandings of scriptural teaching on sex.

Unprotected Texts is another partisan entry in the "sex wars" going on in the mainline Christian denominations. I would argue that when the Bible is read as a whole,  it does provide clear moral guidelines for human relationships , including sexual relationships, such as the story of the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus, previously discussed in this review.

My progressive friends and I may differ on the parameters of those guidelines, but I think we agree that they are there. One could point of agreement is these words of Christ in response to the question "which is the greatest commandment?":

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. (Mark 12: 30-31)

Unprotected Texts seems to be directed at an academic audience rather than the lay reader. Some progressive church groups and pastors will find it useful in supporting their side of the controversies regarding ordination of actively gay persons and the definition of marriage. It is not going to win over those who disagree with that position, in my opinion.

The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent

The Wolves of Andover is the prequel to The Heretic's Daughter, which is a novel about the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts, written by a descendant of Martha Carrier, one of the women executed for witchcraft. As a descendant myself of one of those women (Mary Ann Averill), I was interested in these novels and since both had good reviews, decided to start with the prequel and read them in sequence.

Well, that may have been a mistake. The Wolves of Andover did not capture my interest or imagination. I appreciated the historically accurate descriptions of the difficult living conditions of the day, but ultimately did not find the protagonist, Martha Carrier, a sympathetic or engaging character. If the author depicts her accurately, then perhaps others in the community felt the same way, thus setting the stage for the accusation of witchcraft and her execution that comes in The Heretic's Daughter. But since I haven't read that book, I don't know how she is depicted in that book.

Spoiler Alert: Martha falls in love with a mysterious farmhand who turns out to have had a pivotal role in the execution of King Charles I during the English Civil War and is being sought by assassins in the pay of his son, Charles II. The chapter that fully discloses this part of the story is set in italic print, which I found annoying, hard to read, and unnecessary. I didn't find the love story very convincing, either.

The Wolves of Andover is not a bad novel--parts of it are well-written and evocative of its time and place.  On the whole, I would give it an average rating. I don't plan to read The Heretic's Daughter any time soon, but if you are interested in these novels I recommend you read that one first because it has more positive reviews.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

It's taken me a month to finish reading Ron Chernow's highly acclaimed (and rightfully so) new biography of George Washington.

The hard copy of the book is over 900 pages long, but I read it via IBooks on my IPad, which made it much easier to handle a work of this size and scope. In the process I learned how to highlight, bookmark and make footnotes digitally, and became quite comfortable with those techniques. Hooray for IBooks!

Chernow set out to explore every facet of Washington's complex character and brilliantly succeeds in bringing the reader to appreciate both the greatness and the shortcomings of the man recognized as the "Father of our country". I did not realize the vast collection of documents, letters and other papers that were available to historians because Washington was acutely aware of his future place in history and carefully saved virtually every scrap of paper that documented his life and career. His influence on the creation of our country, government, the capital and even our way of life is so pervasive that only a monumental biography like this one can begin to uncover it.

This biography is so extensive and well-documented that it is hard to know how to write a review in the relatively short format of a blog. There are so many things I learned in the course of reading it that I would love to share, but in the interest of keeping my readers with me, I am going to focus in this review on Washington the slaveholder and Washington the man of faith.

It seems fitting to reflect on the slavery issue as I am writing this review on January 16, now a national holiday celebrating the birth of a descendant of slaves, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Washington held two types of "slave property"--those he owned outright and those that were "dower slaves". Although Washington owned outright about 100 slaves at his death, most of the slaves he held were dower slaves. These Dower slaves were given to Martha as gifts when she married her first husband. Under the law of the day, dower slaves would pass to Martha's children by her first marriage and therefore George had no legal authority to free them.

Over the course of his life Washington became more and more convinced that slavery must end or else ultimately would be the destruction of the republic. He decided he would not purchase slaves nor would he sell them away from their families. The resulting growth in the slave population on his Mount Vernon plantation and other properties came to be one of the causes of economic strain in the latter part of his life. 

Chernow recounts that 47 slaves were documented as runaways from the Washingtons. George Washington did attempt to reclaim them, despite his stated aversion to slavery. 

A memorable incident recounted by Chernow involves the case of the slave Oney  "Ona" Judge. Ona, Martha's personal maid, was the mulatto daughter of a slave and an indentured servant at Mount Vernon. She fled from the President's residence in Philadelphia to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after learning that Martha Washington had promised her as a wedding gift to her  temperamental granddaughter, Eliza Custis, upon their return to Virginia.

President Washington advertised a reward for her capture and return and furtively attempted to arrange her kidnap from the free state of New Hampshire. Ona later wrote that the Washingtons never taught her to read or write or gave her any "moral education." When Washington's stated ideals about slavery conflicted with his financial interest his ideals were ignored and his actions hypocritical.

In the last year of his life Washington secretly wrote a new will giving the slaves he owned outright to his wife Martha, but providing that upon her death, they would have their freedom.   An unforseen consequence was that his widow became fearful for her safety because the other slaves knew that they would be free upon her death, so she freed the remainder of these slaves the following year.

Chernow points out that Washington was the only one of the Founding Fathers who actually freed his slaves, albeit posthumously.

There has been a lot of sentimentalization about Washington's faith by later generations. Washington was a regular in his attendance of an Anglican church in Virginia, but his statements about faith seem formal and stilted to the modern reader. This does not mean he did not have it, but rather that his ways of expressing it are very different from what is viewed as "authentic" today. 

Washington did believe in religious toleration and carefully attended worship at churches in other denominations to set an example for others.

I highly recommend Washington: A Life. It is well worth the effort I put into reading it. I'm buying a hard copy for El Jefe, who still isn't onboard with digital books.

Legacy by Susan Kay

There's just something about Elizabethan England that keeps me interested in books about the period. This one is a novel, Legacy by Susan Kay.

I've read a lot of books about Elizabeth I, both history and fiction, and I think this is the best historical novel I ever read about her.

Legacy won both Britain's Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize and the Betty Trask Prize for a first novel, and deservedly so. Kay's story is highly readable and presents Elizabeth I as multi-talented, politically shrewd, enigmatic, emotionally stunted, and conflicted. 

The deaths of her mother and stepmother, Catherine Howard, combined with the erratic and often abusive treatment she received as a child from her father who was sometimes loving, sometimes distant, sometimes threatening and never predictable are presented by Kay as the reason for Elizabeth's conflicted relationships with the three men she loved most in her life.

Robert Dudley, undoubtedly Elizabeth's strongest relationship, is introduced early in the novel as one of her nursery playmates. He continues to be her most trusted friend throughout the dangerous period between the death of her father and the death of her older sister, Queen Mary. Kay depicts Dudley as a multi-faceted character who truly loved the Queen and was frustrated by her refusal to marry him.

I won't spoil the novel for you by giving away the last chapter, but I found it quite moving, albeit fanciful.

Fans of historical fiction, particularly of the Tudor period, will enjoy Legacy.

Elizabeth's Women by Tracy Borman

Sitting in the waiting room of the hospital ICU and at home by the phone waiting for news of my nephew (who ultimately died of injuries suffered in an auto accident) , I did a lot of reading in October and November. However, I didn't have the concentration necessary to post any reviews during that time. 

Much of the reading was pure escapist stuff: re-reading of some old favorites and reading of medieval mystery stories. 

However one of the books I read was Elizabeth's Women by Tracy Borman. I have always had a keen interest in British history of the Tudor period and particularly the great Gloriana--Queen Elizabeth I. 

Elizabeth's Women is a well-researched history of the women who influenced and surrounded the queen. This is an unusual approach to writing about Elizabeth I because most historians and authors emphasize her relationships with the men around her whether they were her advisors, relatives, friends or "favorites" (presumed lovers).

The author writes about these women in chronological order, beginning with Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, executed by order of her father King Henry VIII, and ending with her life-long friend the Countess of Warwick who was with her on her deathbed.

Elizabeth lived her personal life surrounded by female attendants who literally were with her every waking and sleeping hour, as was the custom of the time. The most influential woman in her life was her governess, Katherine ("Kat") Champernowne Astley, who was her surrogate mother.

Borman covers Elizabeth's complicated relationships with her older sister Mary and her cousin (whom she never met!) Mary Stuart of Scotland. The experiences of  her stepmothers Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard reinforced Elizabeth's fear of loosing power and control through marriage while her close relationship with her father's last wife and widow, Katherine Parr, was fractured by the inappropriate attentions of Parr's husband the roue' Thomas Seymour.

One of the many interesting themes of the book is the evolution of Elizabeth's attitude toward the marriages of her ladies-in-waiting which became quite hostile by the end of her life. Another major theme is the conflict with her female relatives, the surviving Gray sisters and later, Arabella Stuart, who had competing claims to her throne which sometimes threatened her.

Tracy Borman's book is a great addition to any Tudorphile's library. Highly recommended!

Paul Among The People by Sarah Ruden

Sarah Ruden, a research fellow at the Yale Divinity School, is a scholar of ancient Greek and has translated four books of classical literature, including the Aeneid, into modern English. 

In Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, she uses her own translations of Greek literature from the time of Paul as well as her own translations of his epistles to explain the cultural context within which those writings would have been heard and interpreted by Paul's contemporaries.

Although Ruden is an academic, the book is not a dull treatise, but a fairly lively presentation of the man she calls "the greatest theological genius of all time" in his own time and place.

Pau's views on pleasure, homosexuality, women, relationship with the state and slavery have been--and still are--the subject of dispute within the Christian community around the world. Ruden uses her knowledge of ancient Greek and the literature of Paul's day to illuminate his views on these subjects.

Anyone reading this book looking for support for their progressive/liberal or evangelical/conservative interpretation of these controversial topics will be disappointed. Her conclusions challenge both sides of the church because she demonstrates that the premises underlying the lenses through which twenty-first century Christians are viewing these issues are quite different from those of the first century.

I do not have much background in ancient classical literature and found that sometimes it was hard to follow Ruden's extensive translations, even though she uses colloquial rather than academic language. Also--be warned--some of the selections included, particularly in the chapter on homosexuality, are quite graphic. Personally, I would have preferred to read a summary or description rather than the "real thing." 

Paul Among the People is a creative, innovative approach to understanding Paul in the ancient cultural context. Ministers, educators, academics and other church professionals will find it interesting but I would not recommend it for the average layperson.