Saturday, September 30, 2006

A Novel Idea

Earlier this year my son gave me his old Ipod after he purchased a newer model. It sat in my desk drawer until my son asked me if I had begun to use it. When I confessed that it was difficult for this old dog to learn a new electronic trick, he reminded me that I could listen to books in MP3 format. That intrigued me and I soon signed up for an Audible.com account. I have a daily work commute that averages an hour each way, so over the course of the last eight months or so, I've been able to listen to about eighteen books. At last a way to make my commute profitable!

Yet there is something odd about listening to a nineteenth-century British novel while commuting on the LA freeways. Or even a modern American novel. Here are some reviews I've posted recently on Audible.com:

First, Marilynne Robinson's glorious Gilead: "The Rev. John Ames is the Midwestern image of a good man. He reminds me of my own father, born on the edge of the Midwest 80+ years ago. I don’t regard myself as particularly sentimental, but I found tears near the surface very frequently while listening to this novel. This story is luminous in the sense that it illuminates, not the dark corners of the soul, but rather the little-observed or recognized areas of life. You’re a hard case if your wonder about the richness of the world and our humanity is not stretched by this tender book. I suspect I now know Pastor Ames much better than I do many of my flesh-and-blood friends."

How about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte? "Anne Bronte was the most pious of the three Bronte sisters. So it should come as no surprise that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the story of a Christian wife’s struggle for the conversion of her pagan husband. Helen Graham, the protagonist, is not without her own faults, particularly in her choice of a husband. The story is built around Helen’s penance, namely, her marriage, and her decision to rectify her mistake by means acceptable to God, if not pleasant for herself. It is the story of how Christian faithfulness brings hope out of evil and despair, and a testimony of how all things (eventually) work for the good for those who love God. If you love 19th-century British novels, this is clearly a book for you. Its strong religious and moral emphasis may not sit well in the 21st century, but if so—so much the worse for us. The vocabulary, the sensitivity, the sheer humanity of the characters serve to remind us of how far civilization has, in many respects, declined from greater heights."

Heard a good book lately?