A mixed bag. Relating his occasionally amusing adventures in breezy slang, Steinberg seems to be vying for the same audience...
A search for the roots of Mormonism.
Steinberg (Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, 2009), who is not a Mormon, admires The Book of Mormon and its translator and publisher, Joseph Smith. “Joseph’s ambition to publish his bible,” writes the author, “struck me as a refreshingly honest acknowledgment of what it means to be a writer, a regular Joe with an unreasonable faith in oneself and in literature.” Steinberg sees the book as an exemplary tale “about writing books.” Every few pages,” he notes, “the story’s various narrators describe to us how the writing of this book is going.” Moreover, he considers it a prototype of “the big American literary project…to create America in words and deliver it to the people in a book as big and shameless and unruly and haunted and deeply problematic as the country itself.” He admits, of course, that the book is a religious tract and Smith, a Mormon prophet, so to investigate “the difference between prophecy and fabrication, angels and inspiration, delusion and fact,” he “set out on a journey through the exotic locales of this lost Great American Novel.” Steinberg’s travelogue is more about those locales and his personal trials and self-doubts than about theology. His marriage was doomed, he confesses, and he was worried about his writing career, which explains his eagerness to learn about writing from Smith. His journey took him to Jerusalem, where the sect began; Central America, where seminal events occurred; the Midwest, site of the real Garden of Eden; and Hill Cumorah, in New York, where Smith allegedly dug up the golden plates on which the book was inscribed.
A mixed bag. Relating his occasionally amusing adventures in breezy slang, Steinberg seems to be vying for the same audience that has made Broadway’s Book of Mormon such a huge hit.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0385535694
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Internationally renowned because of his earlier books, among them tape Letters, Surprised by Joy, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis making religion provoking, memorable and delightful is still more latest Reflections on the Psalms. Though he protests that he writes learned about things in which he is unlearned himself, the reader is likely thank God for his wise ignorance. Here especially he throws a clear lightly or not, on many of the difficult psalms, such as those which abound with and cursing, and a self-centeredness which seems to assume' that God must be side of the psalmist. These things, which make some psalm singers pre not there, have a right and proper place, as Mr. Lewis shows us. They of Psalms more precious still. Many readers owe it to themselves to read flections if only to learn this hard but simple lesson. Urge everyone to book.
Pub Date: June 15, 1958
ISBN: 015676248X
Page Count: 166
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1958
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