Issue 298 - Our Summer Reading
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July 2023
In this issue, we reflect on some of what we've been reading this summer, books that inspire us and challenge us, that call us to be our best selves. Books that, one way or another, offer us hope.
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Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver’s novel that won this year’s Pulitzer Prize, is by turns laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreakingly sad, and, ultimately, cautiously hopeful. [Spoiler alert: I will reveal how the story ends.]
This is a coming-of-age story, set in Appalachia at the turn of this century. The main character, and narrator, is Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon Copperhead, a play on both his first name and his red hair. We meet Demon as a grade-schooler, living in a messy trailer-house, raised by a single mother with substance abuse issues. Demon’s best friend lives next door; the friend lives with his grandparents because his mother is doing time in prison.
Things go downhill from there. We follow Demon on a stark and painful journey through an overburdened foster-care system into the epidemic of opioid addiction. Because Kingsolver views her characters with compassion, it helps us view them with compassion, too.
She tells the story in Demon’s voice, allowing us to see the world through his eyes: “Was this me now, for life? Taking up space where people wished I wasn’t?” We can see that Demon is no demon, despite all the trouble he’s in and causes. He is just a kid who was dealt a bad hand in life, and, not surprisingly, makes some bad choices along the way.
By the end of the novel, Demon is clean, thanks to several people who never give up on him: two teachers who keep encouraging him, even after he drops out of school; some friends his own age who partially balance the others who draw Demon into bad choices. Above all, there is “Aunt June,” his childhood friend’s aunt, a nurse-practitioner who raises the first local alarms about over-prescription of opioids, and fights fiercely to rescue Demon and others who are trapped in addiction. “June was not my mother …; she just wanted the better version, not the broken boy I was.”
This is a novel that challenges me and calls me to compassion (where I am prone to condescension). There are beautiful descriptions of nature, the sounds and sights of which, Demon tells us at one point, were “holding me to my place on the planet.” Despite the heavy themes, there is much humor. Above all, this novel offers hope, hope that fierce love for one another can save at least some of us.
-by Bill
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I grew up with the chimps, you might say. Being somewhat contemporary (with Jane Goodall, that is) and studying for my first degree in psychology, I was fascinated by Jane Goodall’s ethological studies in Tanzania. At that time, I even had a mimetic desire to also live in a forest to study nature and animal behavior. That was more of a fantasy, I guess.
Sixty years ago, Goodall made a deep impression on me and now, towards the twilight of her brilliant career, I hear of all the significant advances she has made to preserve our plant and animal life. “Hear” literally, as I listened to her talk about her life in an Audible book, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. How to cobble together all the urgent and dire strategies? Best to simply quote from Audible:
In this urgent audiobook, Jane Goodall, the world's most famous living naturalist, and Douglas Abrams, the internationally best-selling coauthor of The Book of Joy, explore through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue one of the most sought-after and least understood elements of human nature: hope. In The Book of Hope, Jane focuses on her "Four Reasons for Hope": The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit.
The book is one of those page turners, in a virtual sort of way. Their passionate yet tender voices seem to lure the listener into the Gombe Stream Game Reserve, now National Park, where Goodall spent most of her career. Her loving expressions are never compromised by Abram’s sometimes challenging questions about the uncertain future. Their discussions are like a fireside chat that includes the listeners as participants. Jane’s storytelling brings awe and compassion on varied conversations from the playful chimpanzees to the death of her husband.
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times is a book I will listen to again, not to review Goodall’s distinguished life and career, but to remind me of The Hope in our troubled world. The hope of which she speaks is not a feeling; it is an act, Jane says. Her inspiration touches a deep place within, about arguably the greatest treasure with which we have been entrusted, the Earth. My next read / listen will be Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. Again, a quote from Amazon:
From world-renowned scientist Jane Goodall, as seen in the new National Geographic documentary Jane, comes a poignant memoir about her spiritual epiphany and an appeal for why everyone can find a reason for hope.
~Jan
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A brief conversation with Barbara Kingsolver
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A short (7:47) biographical interview with Jane Goodall
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Copyright (c) 2023 Soul Windows Ministries
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Sincerely,
Bill Howden and Jan Davis
Soul Windows Ministries
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