Robert Jacoby's Blog, page 4
May 13, 2017
Review of Hive Mind: How Your Nation’s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own by Garett Jones
Title: IQ matters. A lot. Both to you and your nation.
Let's just say it up front and get it out of the way: IQ matters. A lot. Both to you and your nation.
There's much to like about this book. Jones does a great job of stating the case for the validity and importance of measuring IQ (the intelligence quotient) and making correlations with a wide range of educational, occupational, economic, and behavioral variables. He does this in a clinical and dispassionate way, which is very helpful and refreshing, merely presenting findings from numerous studies over decades of time (from recent to 50 to nearly 100 years ago) from a range of sources (private and public military/government). The text is very plain and understandable, almost like an article in Scientific American or The Economist. He does address how to possibly increase IQ of nations over time (the Flynn effect) and why that's important. In other words, what state-level policies might be considered to improve quality of life for a country's citizens? It's a great question but he leaves others to answer because, as the book title says, he's merely making the claim that your nation's IQ matters more than your own IQ. In other words: Better to be a below-average IQ individual in a high-IQ nation than a high-IQ individual in a low-IQ nation.
This is a short book, at 168 pages, and Jones does a very nice job of going through the scientific literature to show how IQ correlates (predicts) a range of things, including brain size, education, job performance, memory, patience, creativity, cooperation, political attitudes, pro-market attitudes, handling complexity, and on and on.
For example, research shows that higher IQ people tend to be more:
o patient
o pro-market
o cooperative
o generous/pleasant
o center or center-right in their political attitudes
Just from these five factors alone you can see a pattern forming already about a society built on mutual cooperation for everyone's benefit. All in all, because of these traits (and many more), higher IQ nations tend to be richer nations. The reverse obviously holds true.
Fascinating stuff.
The Notes, Bibliography (ten pages!), and Index are all thorough and helpful, especially if you, like me, enjoy doing your own sleuthing research online. Really helpful are the detailed indexing for entries like "IQ tests" and "IQ test scores." Here you can quickly find text for cross-country comparisons and IQ and its relationship to the wide variety of topics he covers. (To find these for yourself online, just search "IQ of nations".)
The book did have its shortcomings, though. As I was reading I thought what Jones *didn't* include or talk about much or at all *just* as important and interesting. I found it odd that he would write a book about "IQ by countries" but not include much on very related (really, "intertwined") topics. Do your own sleuthing on such search terms like "IQ and race" (yes, there are differences; if race were merely a social construct, then why would race matter for stem cell or bone marrow transplants?) and "IQ and gender" (male geniuses outnumber female geniuses 7 to 1) and "IQ and genetics" (yes, IQ is very heritable) and "IQ and crime" and "IQ and inbreeding," for example, and you'll be surprised by what you learn. (If you use Google Chrome, the peer-reviewed research articles appear atop your search results under Scholarly Articles.) Jones ignores or barely touches on these topics, perhaps because of where the data leads. If you want a real eye opener, cross check UN estimates for Africa's population growth to 2100 with African nation's average IQs and the world Fragile State and Corruption Indices. An unsettling picture quickly begins to form. Jones likely left all of this information out of his book for how some people would think of these topics. It's a real shame that we can't discuss scientific data in public, which would inform our public policy, but I'll leave it at that.
Like other reviewers, I find it very odd that Jones closes this book with a call for more immigration of low-skilled people into rich (high IQ) countries. I find his argument here to be the same "cheap, immigrant/migrant labor" argument that got us to this point in the U.S. (Maybe it's not so odd, though. Jones is a signatory to the 2005 Open Letter on Immigration.) During his research for this book Jones must have come across studies showing that a host of social pathologies (crime, drug abuse, illegitimacy, permanent welfare dependency) occur around/below the 75 IQ mark. He must know that. Anyone can find this information on the Internet from legitimate news and peer-reviewed scientific studies in less than 1 minute of searching. And, like most people, I define "public policy" as "policy" designed to help the "public"; specifically, the public of a community, state, nation. So why would a high-IQ country want to *import* low-IQ people when there are *plenty* of native low-IQ people to go around? And why focus on low-skilled workers, anyway? Why not try to bring in "the best and brightest"? Jones tries to explain it with his own theory that shows low-skilled immigration actually *helps* the rich (high IQ) nation. It's a little convoluted, he hems and haws a bit, and in the end it doesn't work for me. And I don't think it does for Jones, either. He's doing a delicate dance here, you can tell. Some reviewers have called Jones' concluding recommendation "counter-intuitive." I'll go ahead and just call it "dangerous" and "deceptive." I'm on board with rich (high-IQ) nations helping poor (low-IQ) nations, for moral and ethical reasons, but there are limited resources to go around; and, in the end, one of a nation's top priorities are to the safety and security of its own people. Just ask Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, or China.
Still, all in all, this is an excellent book to get you started on the topic of IQ and why it matters so much in your own life, and in the lives of nations.
5 stars
May 30, 2017 update: Researchers find a 4 point drop in IQ in France over 10-yr period. A negative Flynn Effect in France, 1999 to 2008–9. Dutton and Lynn. Intelligence, Volume 51, July–August 2015, Pages 67–70. Review of findings at "The puzzle of falling French intelligence," James Thompson, December 5, 2015, The Unz Review.
April 16, 2018 update: Sweden is learning a hard lesson about opening their borders to low-IQ legal immigrants (and illegal migrants), facing a rising number of Islamic state attacks, bombings, and grenade attacks. See Sweden's violent reality is undoing a peaceful self-image, Politico, April 16, 2018.
Let's just say it up front and get it out of the way: IQ matters. A lot. Both to you and your nation.
There's much to like about this book. Jones does a great job of stating the case for the validity and importance of measuring IQ (the intelligence quotient) and making correlations with a wide range of educational, occupational, economic, and behavioral variables. He does this in a clinical and dispassionate way, which is very helpful and refreshing, merely presenting findings from numerous studies over decades of time (from recent to 50 to nearly 100 years ago) from a range of sources (private and public military/government). The text is very plain and understandable, almost like an article in Scientific American or The Economist. He does address how to possibly increase IQ of nations over time (the Flynn effect) and why that's important. In other words, what state-level policies might be considered to improve quality of life for a country's citizens? It's a great question but he leaves others to answer because, as the book title says, he's merely making the claim that your nation's IQ matters more than your own IQ. In other words: Better to be a below-average IQ individual in a high-IQ nation than a high-IQ individual in a low-IQ nation.
This is a short book, at 168 pages, and Jones does a very nice job of going through the scientific literature to show how IQ correlates (predicts) a range of things, including brain size, education, job performance, memory, patience, creativity, cooperation, political attitudes, pro-market attitudes, handling complexity, and on and on.
For example, research shows that higher IQ people tend to be more:
o patient
o pro-market
o cooperative
o generous/pleasant
o center or center-right in their political attitudes
Just from these five factors alone you can see a pattern forming already about a society built on mutual cooperation for everyone's benefit. All in all, because of these traits (and many more), higher IQ nations tend to be richer nations. The reverse obviously holds true.
Fascinating stuff.
The Notes, Bibliography (ten pages!), and Index are all thorough and helpful, especially if you, like me, enjoy doing your own sleuthing research online. Really helpful are the detailed indexing for entries like "IQ tests" and "IQ test scores." Here you can quickly find text for cross-country comparisons and IQ and its relationship to the wide variety of topics he covers. (To find these for yourself online, just search "IQ of nations".)
The book did have its shortcomings, though. As I was reading I thought what Jones *didn't* include or talk about much or at all *just* as important and interesting. I found it odd that he would write a book about "IQ by countries" but not include much on very related (really, "intertwined") topics. Do your own sleuthing on such search terms like "IQ and race" (yes, there are differences; if race were merely a social construct, then why would race matter for stem cell or bone marrow transplants?) and "IQ and gender" (male geniuses outnumber female geniuses 7 to 1) and "IQ and genetics" (yes, IQ is very heritable) and "IQ and crime" and "IQ and inbreeding," for example, and you'll be surprised by what you learn. (If you use Google Chrome, the peer-reviewed research articles appear atop your search results under Scholarly Articles.) Jones ignores or barely touches on these topics, perhaps because of where the data leads. If you want a real eye opener, cross check UN estimates for Africa's population growth to 2100 with African nation's average IQs and the world Fragile State and Corruption Indices. An unsettling picture quickly begins to form. Jones likely left all of this information out of his book for how some people would think of these topics. It's a real shame that we can't discuss scientific data in public, which would inform our public policy, but I'll leave it at that.
Like other reviewers, I find it very odd that Jones closes this book with a call for more immigration of low-skilled people into rich (high IQ) countries. I find his argument here to be the same "cheap, immigrant/migrant labor" argument that got us to this point in the U.S. (Maybe it's not so odd, though. Jones is a signatory to the 2005 Open Letter on Immigration.) During his research for this book Jones must have come across studies showing that a host of social pathologies (crime, drug abuse, illegitimacy, permanent welfare dependency) occur around/below the 75 IQ mark. He must know that. Anyone can find this information on the Internet from legitimate news and peer-reviewed scientific studies in less than 1 minute of searching. And, like most people, I define "public policy" as "policy" designed to help the "public"; specifically, the public of a community, state, nation. So why would a high-IQ country want to *import* low-IQ people when there are *plenty* of native low-IQ people to go around? And why focus on low-skilled workers, anyway? Why not try to bring in "the best and brightest"? Jones tries to explain it with his own theory that shows low-skilled immigration actually *helps* the rich (high IQ) nation. It's a little convoluted, he hems and haws a bit, and in the end it doesn't work for me. And I don't think it does for Jones, either. He's doing a delicate dance here, you can tell. Some reviewers have called Jones' concluding recommendation "counter-intuitive." I'll go ahead and just call it "dangerous" and "deceptive." I'm on board with rich (high-IQ) nations helping poor (low-IQ) nations, for moral and ethical reasons, but there are limited resources to go around; and, in the end, one of a nation's top priorities are to the safety and security of its own people. Just ask Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, or China.
Still, all in all, this is an excellent book to get you started on the topic of IQ and why it matters so much in your own life, and in the lives of nations.
5 stars
May 30, 2017 update: Researchers find a 4 point drop in IQ in France over 10-yr period. A negative Flynn Effect in France, 1999 to 2008–9. Dutton and Lynn. Intelligence, Volume 51, July–August 2015, Pages 67–70. Review of findings at "The puzzle of falling French intelligence," James Thompson, December 5, 2015, The Unz Review.
April 16, 2018 update: Sweden is learning a hard lesson about opening their borders to low-IQ legal immigrants (and illegal migrants), facing a rising number of Islamic state attacks, bombings, and grenade attacks. See Sweden's violent reality is undoing a peaceful self-image, Politico, April 16, 2018.
April 8, 2017
Review of When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Story, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
This book is an international bestseller, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, and it's been translated into ten languages. The author, Harold S. Kushner, is (was?) a rabbi in a local Jewish congregation in Massachusetts. This is important to know and remember, because throughout the book Kushner relates his personal experiences of life as a rabbi, officiating at weddings and funerals, comforting his parishioners through their grief, as he's dealing with his own grief over the loss of his son Aaron to a "rapid aging" disease. Aaron died two days after his fourteenth birthday. That was the catalyst for Kushner to write When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
This book was wildly popular when it came out in 1981. I remember thinking when I first heard about it: "Wow, that's a bold title. Who among us would dare claim to be 'good'? Not me!" In fact, when I first heard of this book my immediate thought was two passages from scripture: 1. When Jesus tells his disciples, "Why do you call me good? No one is good--except God alone." (Mark 10:18) and 2. “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’” (Romans 3:10). So, right off the bat, I thought something was peculiar about the book’s title. My understanding (then and now) is that Man is in a fallen state, and he lives in a fallen world. That's the source of our pain and suffering. I first saw the book when my mother was reading it. We spoke about it briefly, and I learned from her that Kushner was Jewish, and I told her maybe to take whatever he wrote with that understanding. She seemed puzzled, and so I clarified: He's Jewish, I said, we're Christian. Just be careful how you read what he's written. And I left it at that. I asked her why she was reading it, and she said that she'd been feeling "disappointed in God" lately. Wow, I thought; I'd never thought of it that way, either. I mean: I would never string-those-words-together-to-form-that-thought kind of way. My interest in the book was piqued, but I was never interested enough to pick it up. It's written by a rabbi, so I had a hunch I wouldn't agree with the expressed worldview. All these many years later I finally picked it up, and I'm glad I found out for myself what it's about.
Let's begin with the title, which, as I say, I find to be an extraordinarily bold statement. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It's a provocative title meant to entice, of course. Doesn't everyone believe (or want to believe) that they're "good"? Well, if you're a Christian: No. See paragraph above. And, also, because Kushner uses the Book of Job for much of his philosophy/theology, he may be leaving out (forgetting?) important strings of thought found there. That is, Job recognized that he was a sinner in need of salvation. We read:
“What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” (Job 7:17)
“But how should a man be just with God?” (Job 9:2)
“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” (Job 14:4)
I started reading the book.
Kushner opens with this sentence: "This is not an abstract book about God and theology." Well ... Yes and no. All concrete action derives from abstract thinking; that is, the abstract is materialized in the concrete. It's an old axiom: As I think, therefore I am. In all fields of endeavor (business, law, war, sports) there is no discussion of tactics without discussion of strategy. The two are inextricably linked. Heck! Even life itself! “We want to raise a healthy child (strategy); how are we going to do that? (tactics).” So when someone says they’re not interested in “abstract concepts,” beware.
But, let's take Kushner at face value and say, "Great! A practical book!" He goes on to write that he "believes in God and in the goodness of the world..." (p.1). Wow. That stopped me. I thought: that's an interesting worldview to espouse: to believe "in the goodness of the world." I don't believe that at all. The creation was good, yes, but the world is now in a fallen state. Evil abounds. Jesus said we would have troubles in this world: "Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).
I read on.
Late in chapter 1 Kushner writes that we should "take this world as seriously as we can, in case it turns out to be the only one we will ever have..." (p. 29) I had to put the book down at this point. I was floored. I went online to search "Do Jews believe in an afterlife?" and was flooded with confounding and conflicting information. Some yes, some no, some maybe, some depends. Whew! Ask a genuine Christian about the existence of an afterlife, and I'm sure you'd get a pretty standard response, plus/minus standard deviations of error.
Kushner closes Chapter 1 by introducing the story of Job from the Old Testament (a favorite of many) as the basis for his primary illustration of "the problem of evil." He writes: "The most profound and complete consideration of human suffering in the Bible, perhaps in all of literature, is the Book of Job." (p. 30). There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll be brief. First, Jews do not call their scripture "the Bible"; that's what Christians call the Old and New Testaments. Obviously, there's a Grand Canyon's gulf worth of differences between the two, but Kushner seems to want to conflate the two. That only confuses matters, it doesn't help matters. Second, what he's claiming may be true for a Jew, but for a Christian the most profound and complete example of human suffering is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ.
I read on.
Chapter 2 is Kushner's detailed examination of the story of Job. It's in this use of this story that Kushner goes down theological rabbit holes. Out of the gate he either misunderstands or misinterprets a vital passage. Kushner writes: "God accepts Satan's challenge. Without in any way telling Job what is going on, God destroys Job's house and cattle and kills his children." (p. 33) Wait--what? That is *not* what scripture says. In any translation. From Job 1:12 we read: "Then the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him." So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD." Big difference? Yeah, that's a big difference. Check all 22 translations of this verse on BibleHub, and it says the same thing. (Kushner makes a big deal about the difficulties of translating Hebrew into English, so I also checked three Hebrew-English translations online of Job; they read the same way as the 22 translations on BibleHub.) And in the Matthew Henry commentary we read: "Job's afflictions began from the malice of Satan, by the Lord's permission, for wise and holy purposes." So, I thought, okay, what's Kushner's worldview here?
I read on.
On page 52: "By the end of the sixth day, God had finished the world He had set out to make, and on the seventh day He rested. But suppose God didn't quite finish by closing time on the afternoon of the sixth day?" Again, I was floored. What an interesting take on scripture; to claim that (A) scripture is in error and (B) God is in error. Really makes you think. About (A) Kushner's view on God and (B) that, contrary to his claim in the first sentence of the book, he *does* address abstract issues about God and theology.
On page 72 Kushner is writing about the opening of the book of Genesis and the creation story. He writes about God ordering: "Let us make Man in our image." Kushner writes: "Why the plural? Who is the "us," the "our" of which God speaks? He goes on to explain it from his Jewish worldview. In the Christian worldview, the "us" is generally understood to be in reference to the Trinity.
I read on. More personal anecdotes, psychological examinations, explorations of religion and its purpose in human life generally, the Talmud, prayer, the Holocaust, and other writers' views on suffering. One of the most horrible being on page 87, where Kushner writes: "I once read an Iranian folk proverb: "If you see a blind man, kick him; why should you be kinder than God?" What a rotten "proverb" to live by!
Kushner explores his personal theology of the purpose of religion; here I think he falters terribly, because he cannot, obviously, claim that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, because Kushner does not know who this person of the Trinity is. So, in my Christian worldview, this is a fully inadequate explanation. (In addition, many Christians know that Jesus Christ came in direct *opposition* to religion and the religious leaders of his day; in fact, Jesus was *constantly* at odds with the Jewish leaders because he was *constantly* calling them out on their hypocrisy. Some would also argue he was crucified precisely because he opposed the religious leaders of his day.)
Kushner winds up his short book with an odd "call to action" on the final page: "Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect..." (p. 148) Wow. There's another audacious statement. *We* need to forgive *God*. I put the book down, curious about how much of Kushner's Jewish theology was being expressed in his writing. I did a bit of sleuthing and reading online that provided me with some answers; turns out, quite a bit.
The name Israel means, literally, "God contended" or "wrestles with God." And contending with God--or arguing with God--seems to be a long-held and cherished Jewish tradition. This is even the title of a 1977 book by Jewish writer Anson Laytner! From that book's description comes this text: "As an old proverb puts it, 'Two Jews, three opinions.' In the long, rich, tumultuous history of the Jewish people, this characteristic contentiousness has often been extended even unto Heaven. Arguing with God is a highly original and utterly absorbing study that skates along the edge of this theological thin ice_at times verging dangerously close to blasphemy_yet also a source of some of the most poignant and deeply soulful expressions of human anguish and yearning."
That's a very helpful description: "close to blasphemy." It helped me to know that that author (Laytner) understands he's skating "close to blasphemy." Because that's what I felt Rabbi Kushner was doing in several passages in When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
A book related to Arguing with God by Laytner is Facing the Abusing God, where author "David Blumenthal maintains that having faith in a post-Holocaust world means admitting that while God is often loving and kind, fair and merciful, God is also capable of acts so unjust they can only be described as abusive." This is also helpful background to understanding Kushner's book, who mentions the Holocaust in several passages. From this worldview we understand that God is to blame, that God is unjust, and that God is abusive. What a powerful and warped view of God.
(Do more digging and you'll find that Kushner, as part of the Holocaust theology movement, denies the omnipotence of God. In other words, God is not all-powerful, is not perfect. [In other words, contrary to what Kushner claims in the first sentence of his book, we *do* have abstract theology here! The abstract is "How could God allow this?"--Holocaust theology; the concrete is "God is not perfect."] This is a play on that question school children ask, "Can God make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?" It's a fun exercise, and for the Christian philosophical response search "Can God Make a Stone So Heavy He Can't Lift It? William Lane Craig" for a one-minute video answer.)
All in all I found When Bad Things Happen to Good People to be infused with this like-minded and, to me, woefully inadequate theology. It can't help but be expressed throughout the book. I'll attribute this to Kushner's Judaism. But is the book a complete loss? No. There are some personal gems he shares. and some of his advice is spot on; for example, the advice to be gained from his Job story can be boiled down to: "Be with your friends in their time of need; simply *be* with them. Because this is what they need to know; that you are there for them. Because your presence during their time of sorrow *is* their comfort." But to get to the gems you'll need to read and sift carefully and cautiously.
I'm glad I finally read this book, but I would never recommend it for any Christian wanting Christ-based answers to God-tier questions. (Unless you're reading it out of curiosity.) I don't enjoy reading a book where I have to correct the author's misunderstandings and misrepresentations of scripture. Kushner is a rabbi, so he sees things through his Jewish lens and his Holocaust theology. That's fine for him as far as it goes. But I was left wondering how many thousands (millions?) of Christians have been hurt by Kushner's theology. The God described in Kushner's book seems to me to be a morally deficient being, and that's not the person I worship.
Did not like it
1/5 Goodreads
2/5 Amazon
This book is an international bestseller, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, and it's been translated into ten languages. The author, Harold S. Kushner, is (was?) a rabbi in a local Jewish congregation in Massachusetts. This is important to know and remember, because throughout the book Kushner relates his personal experiences of life as a rabbi, officiating at weddings and funerals, comforting his parishioners through their grief, as he's dealing with his own grief over the loss of his son Aaron to a "rapid aging" disease. Aaron died two days after his fourteenth birthday. That was the catalyst for Kushner to write When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
This book was wildly popular when it came out in 1981. I remember thinking when I first heard about it: "Wow, that's a bold title. Who among us would dare claim to be 'good'? Not me!" In fact, when I first heard of this book my immediate thought was two passages from scripture: 1. When Jesus tells his disciples, "Why do you call me good? No one is good--except God alone." (Mark 10:18) and 2. “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’” (Romans 3:10). So, right off the bat, I thought something was peculiar about the book’s title. My understanding (then and now) is that Man is in a fallen state, and he lives in a fallen world. That's the source of our pain and suffering. I first saw the book when my mother was reading it. We spoke about it briefly, and I learned from her that Kushner was Jewish, and I told her maybe to take whatever he wrote with that understanding. She seemed puzzled, and so I clarified: He's Jewish, I said, we're Christian. Just be careful how you read what he's written. And I left it at that. I asked her why she was reading it, and she said that she'd been feeling "disappointed in God" lately. Wow, I thought; I'd never thought of it that way, either. I mean: I would never string-those-words-together-to-form-that-thought kind of way. My interest in the book was piqued, but I was never interested enough to pick it up. It's written by a rabbi, so I had a hunch I wouldn't agree with the expressed worldview. All these many years later I finally picked it up, and I'm glad I found out for myself what it's about.
Let's begin with the title, which, as I say, I find to be an extraordinarily bold statement. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It's a provocative title meant to entice, of course. Doesn't everyone believe (or want to believe) that they're "good"? Well, if you're a Christian: No. See paragraph above. And, also, because Kushner uses the Book of Job for much of his philosophy/theology, he may be leaving out (forgetting?) important strings of thought found there. That is, Job recognized that he was a sinner in need of salvation. We read:
“What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” (Job 7:17)
“But how should a man be just with God?” (Job 9:2)
“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” (Job 14:4)
I started reading the book.
Kushner opens with this sentence: "This is not an abstract book about God and theology." Well ... Yes and no. All concrete action derives from abstract thinking; that is, the abstract is materialized in the concrete. It's an old axiom: As I think, therefore I am. In all fields of endeavor (business, law, war, sports) there is no discussion of tactics without discussion of strategy. The two are inextricably linked. Heck! Even life itself! “We want to raise a healthy child (strategy); how are we going to do that? (tactics).” So when someone says they’re not interested in “abstract concepts,” beware.
But, let's take Kushner at face value and say, "Great! A practical book!" He goes on to write that he "believes in God and in the goodness of the world..." (p.1). Wow. That stopped me. I thought: that's an interesting worldview to espouse: to believe "in the goodness of the world." I don't believe that at all. The creation was good, yes, but the world is now in a fallen state. Evil abounds. Jesus said we would have troubles in this world: "Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).
I read on.
Late in chapter 1 Kushner writes that we should "take this world as seriously as we can, in case it turns out to be the only one we will ever have..." (p. 29) I had to put the book down at this point. I was floored. I went online to search "Do Jews believe in an afterlife?" and was flooded with confounding and conflicting information. Some yes, some no, some maybe, some depends. Whew! Ask a genuine Christian about the existence of an afterlife, and I'm sure you'd get a pretty standard response, plus/minus standard deviations of error.
Kushner closes Chapter 1 by introducing the story of Job from the Old Testament (a favorite of many) as the basis for his primary illustration of "the problem of evil." He writes: "The most profound and complete consideration of human suffering in the Bible, perhaps in all of literature, is the Book of Job." (p. 30). There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll be brief. First, Jews do not call their scripture "the Bible"; that's what Christians call the Old and New Testaments. Obviously, there's a Grand Canyon's gulf worth of differences between the two, but Kushner seems to want to conflate the two. That only confuses matters, it doesn't help matters. Second, what he's claiming may be true for a Jew, but for a Christian the most profound and complete example of human suffering is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ.
I read on.
Chapter 2 is Kushner's detailed examination of the story of Job. It's in this use of this story that Kushner goes down theological rabbit holes. Out of the gate he either misunderstands or misinterprets a vital passage. Kushner writes: "God accepts Satan's challenge. Without in any way telling Job what is going on, God destroys Job's house and cattle and kills his children." (p. 33) Wait--what? That is *not* what scripture says. In any translation. From Job 1:12 we read: "Then the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him." So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD." Big difference? Yeah, that's a big difference. Check all 22 translations of this verse on BibleHub, and it says the same thing. (Kushner makes a big deal about the difficulties of translating Hebrew into English, so I also checked three Hebrew-English translations online of Job; they read the same way as the 22 translations on BibleHub.) And in the Matthew Henry commentary we read: "Job's afflictions began from the malice of Satan, by the Lord's permission, for wise and holy purposes." So, I thought, okay, what's Kushner's worldview here?
I read on.
On page 52: "By the end of the sixth day, God had finished the world He had set out to make, and on the seventh day He rested. But suppose God didn't quite finish by closing time on the afternoon of the sixth day?" Again, I was floored. What an interesting take on scripture; to claim that (A) scripture is in error and (B) God is in error. Really makes you think. About (A) Kushner's view on God and (B) that, contrary to his claim in the first sentence of the book, he *does* address abstract issues about God and theology.
On page 72 Kushner is writing about the opening of the book of Genesis and the creation story. He writes about God ordering: "Let us make Man in our image." Kushner writes: "Why the plural? Who is the "us," the "our" of which God speaks? He goes on to explain it from his Jewish worldview. In the Christian worldview, the "us" is generally understood to be in reference to the Trinity.
I read on. More personal anecdotes, psychological examinations, explorations of religion and its purpose in human life generally, the Talmud, prayer, the Holocaust, and other writers' views on suffering. One of the most horrible being on page 87, where Kushner writes: "I once read an Iranian folk proverb: "If you see a blind man, kick him; why should you be kinder than God?" What a rotten "proverb" to live by!
Kushner explores his personal theology of the purpose of religion; here I think he falters terribly, because he cannot, obviously, claim that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, because Kushner does not know who this person of the Trinity is. So, in my Christian worldview, this is a fully inadequate explanation. (In addition, many Christians know that Jesus Christ came in direct *opposition* to religion and the religious leaders of his day; in fact, Jesus was *constantly* at odds with the Jewish leaders because he was *constantly* calling them out on their hypocrisy. Some would also argue he was crucified precisely because he opposed the religious leaders of his day.)
Kushner winds up his short book with an odd "call to action" on the final page: "Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect..." (p. 148) Wow. There's another audacious statement. *We* need to forgive *God*. I put the book down, curious about how much of Kushner's Jewish theology was being expressed in his writing. I did a bit of sleuthing and reading online that provided me with some answers; turns out, quite a bit.
The name Israel means, literally, "God contended" or "wrestles with God." And contending with God--or arguing with God--seems to be a long-held and cherished Jewish tradition. This is even the title of a 1977 book by Jewish writer Anson Laytner! From that book's description comes this text: "As an old proverb puts it, 'Two Jews, three opinions.' In the long, rich, tumultuous history of the Jewish people, this characteristic contentiousness has often been extended even unto Heaven. Arguing with God is a highly original and utterly absorbing study that skates along the edge of this theological thin ice_at times verging dangerously close to blasphemy_yet also a source of some of the most poignant and deeply soulful expressions of human anguish and yearning."
That's a very helpful description: "close to blasphemy." It helped me to know that that author (Laytner) understands he's skating "close to blasphemy." Because that's what I felt Rabbi Kushner was doing in several passages in When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
A book related to Arguing with God by Laytner is Facing the Abusing God, where author "David Blumenthal maintains that having faith in a post-Holocaust world means admitting that while God is often loving and kind, fair and merciful, God is also capable of acts so unjust they can only be described as abusive." This is also helpful background to understanding Kushner's book, who mentions the Holocaust in several passages. From this worldview we understand that God is to blame, that God is unjust, and that God is abusive. What a powerful and warped view of God.
(Do more digging and you'll find that Kushner, as part of the Holocaust theology movement, denies the omnipotence of God. In other words, God is not all-powerful, is not perfect. [In other words, contrary to what Kushner claims in the first sentence of his book, we *do* have abstract theology here! The abstract is "How could God allow this?"--Holocaust theology; the concrete is "God is not perfect."] This is a play on that question school children ask, "Can God make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?" It's a fun exercise, and for the Christian philosophical response search "Can God Make a Stone So Heavy He Can't Lift It? William Lane Craig" for a one-minute video answer.)
All in all I found When Bad Things Happen to Good People to be infused with this like-minded and, to me, woefully inadequate theology. It can't help but be expressed throughout the book. I'll attribute this to Kushner's Judaism. But is the book a complete loss? No. There are some personal gems he shares. and some of his advice is spot on; for example, the advice to be gained from his Job story can be boiled down to: "Be with your friends in their time of need; simply *be* with them. Because this is what they need to know; that you are there for them. Because your presence during their time of sorrow *is* their comfort." But to get to the gems you'll need to read and sift carefully and cautiously.
I'm glad I finally read this book, but I would never recommend it for any Christian wanting Christ-based answers to God-tier questions. (Unless you're reading it out of curiosity.) I don't enjoy reading a book where I have to correct the author's misunderstandings and misrepresentations of scripture. Kushner is a rabbi, so he sees things through his Jewish lens and his Holocaust theology. That's fine for him as far as it goes. But I was left wondering how many thousands (millions?) of Christians have been hurt by Kushner's theology. The God described in Kushner's book seems to me to be a morally deficient being, and that's not the person I worship.
Did not like it
1/5 Goodreads
2/5 Amazon
April 1, 2017
Review of Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Story, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
Mitch Albom confesses in his 2007 Afterword that Tuesdays with Morrie almost didn’t find a publisher. What a shame that would have been!
The story is well known by now: Two men--one young, one old; the student, the teacher--sit down every Tuesday for several weeks to have a conversation. The old man is dying, slowly, from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). It's a "final class," as Albom writes. And what are the lessons? On life, death, and everything in between, from both the young man's and the old man's perspectives.
I enjoyed this book on multiple levels: for the idea, its execution, and its message. Albom records his conversations with Morrie and uses the best snippets from their fourteen Tuesdays together to create the journey both men take, one towards death, the other towards insight. Interspersed are Albom's recollections and musings on life, death, and what it truly means to live. By book's end, Albom has "graduated from class."
I used a similar technique in my nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing (working title), for which I conducted a year-long series of interviews with my good friend John Robinette after his wife, Amy Polk, was killed in a pedestrian traffic accident in Washington, DC. Talking with John--just as we'd done over a number of years, as friends--seemed to me to be the best thing I could for him in that circumstance. Just sit and talk with him, and listen to what he was going through, as he was going through it. Our narrative weaves John’s story of anguish and recovery with my reflections about his loss, my evolving understanding of my own past losses, and the project itself. Often, it seems, the greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of ourselves, by simply being there for the other person in pain, to walk with them in their difficult time.
To learn more about our book project, visit http://www.robert-jacoby.com, and to follow John's journey, visit him at http://www.hole-in-the-sun.com.
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
Mitch Albom confesses in his 2007 Afterword that Tuesdays with Morrie almost didn’t find a publisher. What a shame that would have been!
The story is well known by now: Two men--one young, one old; the student, the teacher--sit down every Tuesday for several weeks to have a conversation. The old man is dying, slowly, from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). It's a "final class," as Albom writes. And what are the lessons? On life, death, and everything in between, from both the young man's and the old man's perspectives.
I enjoyed this book on multiple levels: for the idea, its execution, and its message. Albom records his conversations with Morrie and uses the best snippets from their fourteen Tuesdays together to create the journey both men take, one towards death, the other towards insight. Interspersed are Albom's recollections and musings on life, death, and what it truly means to live. By book's end, Albom has "graduated from class."
I used a similar technique in my nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing (working title), for which I conducted a year-long series of interviews with my good friend John Robinette after his wife, Amy Polk, was killed in a pedestrian traffic accident in Washington, DC. Talking with John--just as we'd done over a number of years, as friends--seemed to me to be the best thing I could for him in that circumstance. Just sit and talk with him, and listen to what he was going through, as he was going through it. Our narrative weaves John’s story of anguish and recovery with my reflections about his loss, my evolving understanding of my own past losses, and the project itself. Often, it seems, the greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of ourselves, by simply being there for the other person in pain, to walk with them in their difficult time.
To learn more about our book project, visit http://www.robert-jacoby.com, and to follow John's journey, visit him at http://www.hole-in-the-sun.com.
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
March 25, 2017
Review of A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Memoir, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
This was the first Joyce Carol Oates book I read, and it won't be my last. It's a long book (the longest by far of the seven I read, at 415 pages), but well worth the trip. Oates and her husband Ray Smith were married for 47 years--"forty-seven years and twenty-five days" as she likes to write, "together nearly every day and every night until the morning of February 11, 2008". All the confusion and despair and sorrow and pain she's experienced after his death is poured out onto the pages. Sometimes strewn. Many passages have a choppy, disorienting style, done to reflect her emotions and her thoughts in those moments she's recalling.
One of the powerful themes in the book, for me, was the way she brought to life the real emptiness she felt after her husband's death. Everyone knows "Joyce Carol Oates," and at times she'll even refer to that public persona ("JCO") and comment on how she feels dissociated from it, as if it's another person altogether. She's crafted a writer's life, basically her entire life, around that persona, and with and around her husband--and now with him gone it leaves the door open for exploration of what that meant and means. Those were the most startling and haunting passages for me. I kept seeing that image of her in "the nest," the place she's built up on their bed to stay in at night....
A very moving, very touching, and, sometimes, very disturbing read.
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
This was the first Joyce Carol Oates book I read, and it won't be my last. It's a long book (the longest by far of the seven I read, at 415 pages), but well worth the trip. Oates and her husband Ray Smith were married for 47 years--"forty-seven years and twenty-five days" as she likes to write, "together nearly every day and every night until the morning of February 11, 2008". All the confusion and despair and sorrow and pain she's experienced after his death is poured out onto the pages. Sometimes strewn. Many passages have a choppy, disorienting style, done to reflect her emotions and her thoughts in those moments she's recalling.
One of the powerful themes in the book, for me, was the way she brought to life the real emptiness she felt after her husband's death. Everyone knows "Joyce Carol Oates," and at times she'll even refer to that public persona ("JCO") and comment on how she feels dissociated from it, as if it's another person altogether. She's crafted a writer's life, basically her entire life, around that persona, and with and around her husband--and now with him gone it leaves the door open for exploration of what that meant and means. Those were the most startling and haunting passages for me. I kept seeing that image of her in "the nest," the place she's built up on their bed to stay in at night....
A very moving, very touching, and, sometimes, very disturbing read.
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
March 18, 2017
Review of About Alice by Calvin Trillin
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Story, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
This was one of the shortest books on my list. At just 78 pages, this book was developed from a 12-page essay Trillin had written and published shortly after his wife, Alice, died from complications with cancer. He's been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963, and that professionalism is on display here in what is really not a book but an expanded essay.
Throughout, Trillin does an interesting thing. He doesn't focus on his grief or sorrow; rather, he writes a lovely and loving tribute to Alice. So through his vignettes we learn how he met her and what she was like as a wife, mother, and friend. He's a skilled writer who brings Alice to life on the page in different life settings—home, family, parties with friends. You leave the book feeling like you've missed out on something by *not* knowing Alice personally. High marks for that.
I liked it
4/5 Amazon
3/5 Goodreads
This was one of the shortest books on my list. At just 78 pages, this book was developed from a 12-page essay Trillin had written and published shortly after his wife, Alice, died from complications with cancer. He's been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963, and that professionalism is on display here in what is really not a book but an expanded essay.
Throughout, Trillin does an interesting thing. He doesn't focus on his grief or sorrow; rather, he writes a lovely and loving tribute to Alice. So through his vignettes we learn how he met her and what she was like as a wife, mother, and friend. He's a skilled writer who brings Alice to life on the page in different life settings—home, family, parties with friends. You leave the book feeling like you've missed out on something by *not* knowing Alice personally. High marks for that.
I liked it
4/5 Amazon
3/5 Goodreads
March 11, 2017
A Letter to My Editor
Dear Robyn,
You asked in our last phone call about my writing process (how I actually worked on my current novel Dusk and Ember), and I have some energy to describe it to you now, so here goes:
I write methodically, and organically. That's the best way I can describe it to you, and to myself, as I sit here trying to put words to it.
Methodically, because writing is a discipline for me now, and over the years, after working on this novel, my fourth book, especially, I can say that I've made a discipline of it. There are patterns. Routines. Every morning I sit down to work; every day; sometimes on Saturday but generally never on a Sunday. When I sit down to write in the mornings I usually know where that day's work will start. But often I do not know where that day's work will end; that is, I often do not know what will happen inside the world of the story until I put my pen to paper. Which leads me to the mechanics of writing.
I write all first drafts in longhand, on yellow legal pads. I buy them by the pack. Docket. Sturdy back cover. 16 pound paper. 50 sheets. I date it at the top, I number the pages as I go. I've developed a coding system over the years so that I can use text inserts freely between the yellow legal pad pages and my printed manuscript pages. I work early, usually from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. or so, quick breakfast, then sometimes back at it. Perhaps I'll work another hour, sometimes not. More often than not the writing of this novel laid me waste. I mean: the extent of the work had me in tears most days. I can describe it both as sheer exhaustion and sheer elation. It brings to mind a story I read once about Flannery O'Connor's writing habits. How she too wrote in the mornings, usually to about noon, then sat herself on the front porch of her house and stared at peacocks in the yard all afternoon to recover. She was that blasted by her work, by what it took out of her, by what she gave to it. So the running joke in our house last year was: Am I staring at peacocks in the yard now? The work of the novel for me is a grand emptying of myself out onto the page.
After I have five or ten or fifteen yellow legal pad pages of text I'll key them in and then of course edit and revise as I type. After I have a new length of ten or twenty manuscript pages, or when the story seems to me to be wanting to be printed (to be needing to be printed) in a fresh manuscript file, I'll do that. The new printed manuscript file is always a celebration day. Whether I have fifty pages of the book or 350 pages of the book, it's always a milestone.
So, for the method of writing, the mechanics of writing, I have three stages: writing longhand first drafts, keying that into the file, and then printing the file and working on that most recent version of the entire manuscript. I'm in one of these three phases on any given day. (I suppose there's a fourth phase, too, now that I'm thinking about method and mechanics. I like words. I enjoy words. I enjoy finding new words, or new uses for words. So, sometimes, typically in the afternoons, when my mind is too spent to really "work" on the book, I'll take my journal and notebook and dictionary and thesaurus, and I'll just page through to find words, to read words, to see their meanings, and I'll take notes, about use and form and meanings. It's very enjoyable for me, when I'm in the mood to do this, and I find that I discover new ways to use language. This practice was invaluable to me during the writing of Dusk and Ember. I would come across a word and at the same time the thought would come to me—I could actually "see" the story in my mind—that could be used on page x or page y to deepen or strengthen this scene or that conversation or that description. Those moments especially are very invigorating for me.) When I print the full manuscript I'll usually start reading to review and revise from the very beginning. Unless, of course, I'm much further into the story. After I split Dusk and Ember into the five parts, it became easier to focus on one of the parts at a time.
The amount of time I can spend working each day depends greatly on the phase I'm in. Writing longhand is exhausting work, but it's the most releasing, and, in a way, relaxing work. I suppose it's because I'm actualizing the contents of my mind, my heart, my soul. I can typically work about two and no more than four hours a day. If I'm keying in my first draft, that's easier work. The material is already there and I'm only cleaning it up, but it can often be just as tiring. So on any day I'll work two up to six hours. Mornings, definitely, and sometimes after lunch. Afternoons are for resting or working out, exercise; flipping through pages of the dictionary and thesaurus; personal writing in my journal; some evenings, if the ideas are flowing, I will have to write them down. I work in silence. No music. Nothing. I don't know how other writers can create with anything going on in the background. Except when I'm typing in new text, or working through page revisions. Then I may have some ambient music playing. I can't tell you how many loops I went through of Brian Eno's album Thursday Afternoon. It was perfect so many days.
During all of last year sleep was usually difficult. Ideas and thoughts and scenes and sentences and words would come, and I'd have to get up out of bed to write them down on the manuscript or yellow legal pads before they all floated away from me. I can't tell you how much escaped; I don't know; too much. Then back to bed. A few seconds, then more ideas and words and scenes would come. Then back to the manuscript. Then back to bed. And on.
I write organically, too. I usually have a pen and notepad with me at all times. In my writing bag or in my pocket. Ideas, thoughts, words, sentences come to me, and I write them down, then something gets built from that. Years ago I got into the good habit of taking a small notebook in my writing bag everywhere I went. Too many good ideas and thoughts and sentences were getting away from me. I'd have to write things down on grocery lists, bank receipts. Ridiculous! Then, when I couldn't bring the bag with me—to restaurants, to church services—I bought a bunch of smaller pocket notebooks. So, now, I'll usually never leave home without a pen and notebook of some kind.
Dusk and Ember started about ten years ago. In November 2005 I had 30,000 words, a mess of notes and fragments of scenes and a loose structure for all of it. It seemed to me to be like a many-branched tree with some flowering branches, some wilting branches, some dying or dead branches. Four years later, by 2009, I had another 20,000 words but not much else. I had eight more versions from 2013 to 2014, but it didn't get much better. In 2015 I had the idea of splitting the novel into its five parts to better separate actions and story lines. I did this as much for myself as for the story. It felt to me that I could get a better handle on the story and where it was going—and where I wanted it to go—after I did this.
Only when I went to Costa Rica for those thirty days in October 2015 to work specifically on this novel did everything gel in my mind. A new way of seeing the work opened up for me. I so very much needed that time alone by the sea to focus solely on the novel. From October 2015 to December 2016 I count 14 versions of book files for Dusk and Ember. That means I wrote about 10,000 words per month. That sounds about right.
About my use of poetry in the novel. Let's call them "poetic diversions." You wrote earlier to me: "You use poetry to great effect throughout the book—blurring the lines between prose and poetry and, in a way, creating a new form entirely..." I have to say that my intention was not to create any new form; it's just that the story develops this way sometimes for me. I get to a point in the story and it feels to me that the words I'm using must convey a certain tone and space for the world on the page, and that's the language that comes out of me.
You mentioned that the novel is a little long. Let's talk leftovers. Leftovers. Let me tell you about what didn't get into this final draft. I have a "leftover" file of 70,000 words and another file from 2005 with 71,000 words. That's a novel itself; it's about 30,000 words more than the novel. What's in those files? False starts, old outlines, parts of chapters abandoned, sections of text written that will never see the light of day. As the novel progressed, especially into 2016, I can say that there were fewer and fewer times I had to abandon large portions of text. It seems to me that by that time the story was fairly solid in my mind and that I only had to get it out on paper.
I know that this novel would not be what it is today without the solid and unhindered time and dedication I've put into it over the past 14 months. Which is a nice coincidence, I think, of time. In the novel it was 14 months that Richard spent in the foundry, brewing over what his life could or should be, or would be. What he could want it to be. Possibilities and probabilities. So many different cuts at the same gem of thought. And time. 14 months. Hard to believe it's coming to an end. Yet here I am. Here we are. At the end of it.
This is the second and the last novel I'll write about Richard, I think. I can't say "never"—that I'll never re-visit these characters—but it does feel like that, at the end of this now. If it is, it's alright with me. It's a good end. I'm pleased and satisfied with how the novel turned out, and I think that's about as much as a novelist can say, or would want to say, about his work. Is it "better" than my first novel There are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes? I'm not sure about that. I'll use the words that you told me: "It's a more mature work." I like that. That fits. Also: It's a more robust work. That works, too.
No doubt people reading this novel—perhaps yourself—will ask or wonder: how much of this is autobiographical? How much of Robert is Richard. To answer that I can say, I am Richard. And in the same breath, I am not Richard. Richard is a vehicle through which I was able to create a world more real to me sometimes than the world I see when I look outside my window. He's given me that freedom, that cross to bear. Now it's close to being over, and I can set that particular cross aside. I don't think I can convey the joys and sorrows of carrying it, though. Not through words. There's too many meanings lost, misconveyed, misconstrued.
This little exercise has been helpful and enjoyable to me to set my thoughts down here to you. I hope it's of some value.
I want to finish by saying thank you so very much for your time and effort and talents on my novel. It's no cliche to say that Dusk and Ember would not be what it is today without your help. For that I'll be ever grateful. I could hear the sadness in your voice on the phone when we talked about this being the end of this work now. I confess: I'm sad, too, when I stop myself to think about it. Really think about it. To leave the writing of this behind, the characters, the story, their world. But my gladness comes in to overcome that sadness. I'm pleased with the novel, and I'm satisfied that I gave it everything I had to give, my craft, my passion, my mind and my soul. A writer can't ask for more than that; it's the culmination of our craft. So I can be happy that it's over.
And I have to tell you that I'm very much looking forward to working on my third novel. I've already started work on it, as you know. I shared with you already what it's about so I won't rehash that here. When I write about it—a novel I'm working on—it feels a bit like I'm letting the air out of a full tire. And I don't want to do that. I think it's the internal tension of the story, the work of it, that I must keep inside until there is the proper time and proper place to let it out so that I can actually see what it is that I'm trying to write, to craft, to tell.
It's a strange and lovely process, this writing. I think I can call myself a novelist now, now that I have completed Dusk and Ember, my second novel, and now that I'm starting in earnest on my third novel. It's funny even writing that, even though it's true. Time does odd things to us. We're unique among creatures that way, though, aren't we? We know enough about our own mortality to try to leave something of us behind, to let others know we were here, that we might have mattered to someone else, to anyone else.
I think that's all any of us really wants, in the end. To matter.
Thank you for helping me make this book matter.
Sincerely,
Robert
You asked in our last phone call about my writing process (how I actually worked on my current novel Dusk and Ember), and I have some energy to describe it to you now, so here goes:
I write methodically, and organically. That's the best way I can describe it to you, and to myself, as I sit here trying to put words to it.
Methodically, because writing is a discipline for me now, and over the years, after working on this novel, my fourth book, especially, I can say that I've made a discipline of it. There are patterns. Routines. Every morning I sit down to work; every day; sometimes on Saturday but generally never on a Sunday. When I sit down to write in the mornings I usually know where that day's work will start. But often I do not know where that day's work will end; that is, I often do not know what will happen inside the world of the story until I put my pen to paper. Which leads me to the mechanics of writing.
I write all first drafts in longhand, on yellow legal pads. I buy them by the pack. Docket. Sturdy back cover. 16 pound paper. 50 sheets. I date it at the top, I number the pages as I go. I've developed a coding system over the years so that I can use text inserts freely between the yellow legal pad pages and my printed manuscript pages. I work early, usually from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. or so, quick breakfast, then sometimes back at it. Perhaps I'll work another hour, sometimes not. More often than not the writing of this novel laid me waste. I mean: the extent of the work had me in tears most days. I can describe it both as sheer exhaustion and sheer elation. It brings to mind a story I read once about Flannery O'Connor's writing habits. How she too wrote in the mornings, usually to about noon, then sat herself on the front porch of her house and stared at peacocks in the yard all afternoon to recover. She was that blasted by her work, by what it took out of her, by what she gave to it. So the running joke in our house last year was: Am I staring at peacocks in the yard now? The work of the novel for me is a grand emptying of myself out onto the page.
After I have five or ten or fifteen yellow legal pad pages of text I'll key them in and then of course edit and revise as I type. After I have a new length of ten or twenty manuscript pages, or when the story seems to me to be wanting to be printed (to be needing to be printed) in a fresh manuscript file, I'll do that. The new printed manuscript file is always a celebration day. Whether I have fifty pages of the book or 350 pages of the book, it's always a milestone.
So, for the method of writing, the mechanics of writing, I have three stages: writing longhand first drafts, keying that into the file, and then printing the file and working on that most recent version of the entire manuscript. I'm in one of these three phases on any given day. (I suppose there's a fourth phase, too, now that I'm thinking about method and mechanics. I like words. I enjoy words. I enjoy finding new words, or new uses for words. So, sometimes, typically in the afternoons, when my mind is too spent to really "work" on the book, I'll take my journal and notebook and dictionary and thesaurus, and I'll just page through to find words, to read words, to see their meanings, and I'll take notes, about use and form and meanings. It's very enjoyable for me, when I'm in the mood to do this, and I find that I discover new ways to use language. This practice was invaluable to me during the writing of Dusk and Ember. I would come across a word and at the same time the thought would come to me—I could actually "see" the story in my mind—that could be used on page x or page y to deepen or strengthen this scene or that conversation or that description. Those moments especially are very invigorating for me.) When I print the full manuscript I'll usually start reading to review and revise from the very beginning. Unless, of course, I'm much further into the story. After I split Dusk and Ember into the five parts, it became easier to focus on one of the parts at a time.
The amount of time I can spend working each day depends greatly on the phase I'm in. Writing longhand is exhausting work, but it's the most releasing, and, in a way, relaxing work. I suppose it's because I'm actualizing the contents of my mind, my heart, my soul. I can typically work about two and no more than four hours a day. If I'm keying in my first draft, that's easier work. The material is already there and I'm only cleaning it up, but it can often be just as tiring. So on any day I'll work two up to six hours. Mornings, definitely, and sometimes after lunch. Afternoons are for resting or working out, exercise; flipping through pages of the dictionary and thesaurus; personal writing in my journal; some evenings, if the ideas are flowing, I will have to write them down. I work in silence. No music. Nothing. I don't know how other writers can create with anything going on in the background. Except when I'm typing in new text, or working through page revisions. Then I may have some ambient music playing. I can't tell you how many loops I went through of Brian Eno's album Thursday Afternoon. It was perfect so many days.
During all of last year sleep was usually difficult. Ideas and thoughts and scenes and sentences and words would come, and I'd have to get up out of bed to write them down on the manuscript or yellow legal pads before they all floated away from me. I can't tell you how much escaped; I don't know; too much. Then back to bed. A few seconds, then more ideas and words and scenes would come. Then back to the manuscript. Then back to bed. And on.
I write organically, too. I usually have a pen and notepad with me at all times. In my writing bag or in my pocket. Ideas, thoughts, words, sentences come to me, and I write them down, then something gets built from that. Years ago I got into the good habit of taking a small notebook in my writing bag everywhere I went. Too many good ideas and thoughts and sentences were getting away from me. I'd have to write things down on grocery lists, bank receipts. Ridiculous! Then, when I couldn't bring the bag with me—to restaurants, to church services—I bought a bunch of smaller pocket notebooks. So, now, I'll usually never leave home without a pen and notebook of some kind.
Dusk and Ember started about ten years ago. In November 2005 I had 30,000 words, a mess of notes and fragments of scenes and a loose structure for all of it. It seemed to me to be like a many-branched tree with some flowering branches, some wilting branches, some dying or dead branches. Four years later, by 2009, I had another 20,000 words but not much else. I had eight more versions from 2013 to 2014, but it didn't get much better. In 2015 I had the idea of splitting the novel into its five parts to better separate actions and story lines. I did this as much for myself as for the story. It felt to me that I could get a better handle on the story and where it was going—and where I wanted it to go—after I did this.
Only when I went to Costa Rica for those thirty days in October 2015 to work specifically on this novel did everything gel in my mind. A new way of seeing the work opened up for me. I so very much needed that time alone by the sea to focus solely on the novel. From October 2015 to December 2016 I count 14 versions of book files for Dusk and Ember. That means I wrote about 10,000 words per month. That sounds about right.
About my use of poetry in the novel. Let's call them "poetic diversions." You wrote earlier to me: "You use poetry to great effect throughout the book—blurring the lines between prose and poetry and, in a way, creating a new form entirely..." I have to say that my intention was not to create any new form; it's just that the story develops this way sometimes for me. I get to a point in the story and it feels to me that the words I'm using must convey a certain tone and space for the world on the page, and that's the language that comes out of me.
You mentioned that the novel is a little long. Let's talk leftovers. Leftovers. Let me tell you about what didn't get into this final draft. I have a "leftover" file of 70,000 words and another file from 2005 with 71,000 words. That's a novel itself; it's about 30,000 words more than the novel. What's in those files? False starts, old outlines, parts of chapters abandoned, sections of text written that will never see the light of day. As the novel progressed, especially into 2016, I can say that there were fewer and fewer times I had to abandon large portions of text. It seems to me that by that time the story was fairly solid in my mind and that I only had to get it out on paper.
I know that this novel would not be what it is today without the solid and unhindered time and dedication I've put into it over the past 14 months. Which is a nice coincidence, I think, of time. In the novel it was 14 months that Richard spent in the foundry, brewing over what his life could or should be, or would be. What he could want it to be. Possibilities and probabilities. So many different cuts at the same gem of thought. And time. 14 months. Hard to believe it's coming to an end. Yet here I am. Here we are. At the end of it.
This is the second and the last novel I'll write about Richard, I think. I can't say "never"—that I'll never re-visit these characters—but it does feel like that, at the end of this now. If it is, it's alright with me. It's a good end. I'm pleased and satisfied with how the novel turned out, and I think that's about as much as a novelist can say, or would want to say, about his work. Is it "better" than my first novel There are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes? I'm not sure about that. I'll use the words that you told me: "It's a more mature work." I like that. That fits. Also: It's a more robust work. That works, too.
No doubt people reading this novel—perhaps yourself—will ask or wonder: how much of this is autobiographical? How much of Robert is Richard. To answer that I can say, I am Richard. And in the same breath, I am not Richard. Richard is a vehicle through which I was able to create a world more real to me sometimes than the world I see when I look outside my window. He's given me that freedom, that cross to bear. Now it's close to being over, and I can set that particular cross aside. I don't think I can convey the joys and sorrows of carrying it, though. Not through words. There's too many meanings lost, misconveyed, misconstrued.
This little exercise has been helpful and enjoyable to me to set my thoughts down here to you. I hope it's of some value.
I want to finish by saying thank you so very much for your time and effort and talents on my novel. It's no cliche to say that Dusk and Ember would not be what it is today without your help. For that I'll be ever grateful. I could hear the sadness in your voice on the phone when we talked about this being the end of this work now. I confess: I'm sad, too, when I stop myself to think about it. Really think about it. To leave the writing of this behind, the characters, the story, their world. But my gladness comes in to overcome that sadness. I'm pleased with the novel, and I'm satisfied that I gave it everything I had to give, my craft, my passion, my mind and my soul. A writer can't ask for more than that; it's the culmination of our craft. So I can be happy that it's over.
And I have to tell you that I'm very much looking forward to working on my third novel. I've already started work on it, as you know. I shared with you already what it's about so I won't rehash that here. When I write about it—a novel I'm working on—it feels a bit like I'm letting the air out of a full tire. And I don't want to do that. I think it's the internal tension of the story, the work of it, that I must keep inside until there is the proper time and proper place to let it out so that I can actually see what it is that I'm trying to write, to craft, to tell.
It's a strange and lovely process, this writing. I think I can call myself a novelist now, now that I have completed Dusk and Ember, my second novel, and now that I'm starting in earnest on my third novel. It's funny even writing that, even though it's true. Time does odd things to us. We're unique among creatures that way, though, aren't we? We know enough about our own mortality to try to leave something of us behind, to let others know we were here, that we might have mattered to someone else, to anyone else.
I think that's all any of us really wants, in the end. To matter.
Thank you for helping me make this book matter.
Sincerely,
Robert
February 27, 2017
Review of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Story, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
Joan Didion writes her way through the first year after her husband's death and only child's serious illness. Her style is sparse and stark. I'd say clinical, too, almost cold, as if she's describing someone else's experiences, as though she's writing through/with a flat affect. This is the first time I've read anything by Didion, so I'm not sure if this is how she expresses herself now, as an older writer, or if this is just her style. Either way, be aware that this is what you'll be getting if you decide to read this book.
Be prepared, too, for a lot of name- and place-dropping along the way. At first I found it irritating, like plenty of other reviewers, but then I thought perhaps that this is simply part of her grieving process, how she's working through the reality of losing her husband so suddenly. (One minute she was talking to him, then she turned around and he was face down on the dining room table.) She's recalling the pleasant times she's had in her life with her husband to remember him. Often, though, it feels as if the descriptions are turning into an autopsy, like she's picking through the memories to convince herself, to convince her readers, that these things actually did happen. It's eerie.
Layered over the experience of losing her husband she was dealing with her only daughter who was battling a serious illness and nearly died. Which, she did, later, during the publication process of The Year of Magical Thinking, but Didion decided to leave the text unrevised to include that information. So, as she's musing over the loss of her husband there are interspersed sections on her dealing with the present realities of her very sick (adult) child.
It's true that we each grieve and recover in our own way; there is no "right" or "wrong" way because what a spouse meant and means to the surviving spouse is for the survivor to say. I learned that the hard way during the year-long series of interviews I conducted with my good friend John Robinette for our book Never Stop Dancing (working title). In The Year of Magical Thinking, though, Didion is a bit too much the "cool customer"--her own term--for my taste, but I can still recommend it for its clear look into someone's personal account of the grieving process.
It's okay
2/5 Goodreads
3/5 Amazon
Joan Didion writes her way through the first year after her husband's death and only child's serious illness. Her style is sparse and stark. I'd say clinical, too, almost cold, as if she's describing someone else's experiences, as though she's writing through/with a flat affect. This is the first time I've read anything by Didion, so I'm not sure if this is how she expresses herself now, as an older writer, or if this is just her style. Either way, be aware that this is what you'll be getting if you decide to read this book.
Be prepared, too, for a lot of name- and place-dropping along the way. At first I found it irritating, like plenty of other reviewers, but then I thought perhaps that this is simply part of her grieving process, how she's working through the reality of losing her husband so suddenly. (One minute she was talking to him, then she turned around and he was face down on the dining room table.) She's recalling the pleasant times she's had in her life with her husband to remember him. Often, though, it feels as if the descriptions are turning into an autopsy, like she's picking through the memories to convince herself, to convince her readers, that these things actually did happen. It's eerie.
Layered over the experience of losing her husband she was dealing with her only daughter who was battling a serious illness and nearly died. Which, she did, later, during the publication process of The Year of Magical Thinking, but Didion decided to leave the text unrevised to include that information. So, as she's musing over the loss of her husband there are interspersed sections on her dealing with the present realities of her very sick (adult) child.
It's true that we each grieve and recover in our own way; there is no "right" or "wrong" way because what a spouse meant and means to the surviving spouse is for the survivor to say. I learned that the hard way during the year-long series of interviews I conducted with my good friend John Robinette for our book Never Stop Dancing (working title). In The Year of Magical Thinking, though, Didion is a bit too much the "cool customer"--her own term--for my taste, but I can still recommend it for its clear look into someone's personal account of the grieving process.
It's okay
2/5 Goodreads
3/5 Amazon
February 20, 2017
Review of Two Kisses for Maddy by Matt Logelin
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Story, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
In Two Kisses for Maddy, Matt Logelin recounts the year after he lost his wife Liz, just 27 hours after she gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Maddy. It's a terrible roller-coaster ride of emotions and memories and stories from Matt's first year without Liz and learning how to care for his preemie baby Maddy.
Some reviewers have a problem with Matt Logelin's use of coarse language, in parts. I'll agree, his use of colorful language seems unneccesary to me. I think it just distracts from his story. But he states he is no writer. In fact, the first line of this book is: "I am not a writer." So, to me, these bits are his way of expressing feelings and thoughts he'd otherwise be unable to express.
Other reviewers noted Matt's "attitude" about things: his love of indie music, his anger towards "others" in general, his sometimes sniping back-and-forth relationship with Liz in their marriage. I take his writing at face value: he's simply describing who is, take it or leave it.
I liked this book for its honest, soul-baring portrayal of a young father going through what most of us can barely imagine. I think Matt did a brave thing by putting his thoughts and feelings down here, in Two Kisses for Maddy, to show the world what he went through and how he came out on the other side.
If you want to know more about Matt and Maddy and their lives now and during their terrible journey together, visit him online at mattlogelin.com. Matt was already blogging when Liz died, and he kept on through it all.
In the same way, when my co-author John Robinette's wife Amy died, he started to document his journey through grief and recovery at his own blog. Visit John online at Hole in the Sun to read about his life, then and now, and how he's learned to incorporate Amy's loss into his life. My interviews with John during that first terrible year after Amy died form the basis for our nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing (working title).
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
In Two Kisses for Maddy, Matt Logelin recounts the year after he lost his wife Liz, just 27 hours after she gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Maddy. It's a terrible roller-coaster ride of emotions and memories and stories from Matt's first year without Liz and learning how to care for his preemie baby Maddy.
Some reviewers have a problem with Matt Logelin's use of coarse language, in parts. I'll agree, his use of colorful language seems unneccesary to me. I think it just distracts from his story. But he states he is no writer. In fact, the first line of this book is: "I am not a writer." So, to me, these bits are his way of expressing feelings and thoughts he'd otherwise be unable to express.
Other reviewers noted Matt's "attitude" about things: his love of indie music, his anger towards "others" in general, his sometimes sniping back-and-forth relationship with Liz in their marriage. I take his writing at face value: he's simply describing who is, take it or leave it.
I liked this book for its honest, soul-baring portrayal of a young father going through what most of us can barely imagine. I think Matt did a brave thing by putting his thoughts and feelings down here, in Two Kisses for Maddy, to show the world what he went through and how he came out on the other side.
If you want to know more about Matt and Maddy and their lives now and during their terrible journey together, visit him online at mattlogelin.com. Matt was already blogging when Liz died, and he kept on through it all.
In the same way, when my co-author John Robinette's wife Amy died, he started to document his journey through grief and recovery at his own blog. Visit John online at Hole in the Sun to read about his life, then and now, and how he's learned to incorporate Amy's loss into his life. My interviews with John during that first terrible year after Amy died form the basis for our nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing (working title).
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
February 13, 2017
Review of A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
(In 3 weeks I read seven books in preparation to write the Analysis of the Competition section for the book proposal for my co-authored nonfiction book Never Stop Dancing. The seven books are A Grief Observed, Two Kisses for Maddy, The Year of Magical Thinking, About Alice, A Widow's Story, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I'll write a review for each book. Death and grief are common, but we experience each uniquely.)
Not so much a book as "notebooks" (because that's exactly what A Grief Observed is: a series of journal entries), A Grief Observed is the beloved classic from arguably the greatest Christian writer of the 20th century. These are personal meditations Lewis wrote after his brief marriage to his wife, who was dying of cancer when they married. First published in 1961 under a pseudonym to avoid identification as the author, the book was re-published in 1963 after his death under his own name.
In A Grief Observed Lewis records his intense struggles with the fundamental questions of faith, love, grief, and the purpose of life. It's clear that Lewis opened his heart into these notebook entries; the pages are loaded with spiritual candor and emotional depth. “Grief is like a long valley,” Lewis notes at one point, “a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” We're taken on that journey with Lewis as he shares many landscapes during the different contemplative seasons of his soul.
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
Not so much a book as "notebooks" (because that's exactly what A Grief Observed is: a series of journal entries), A Grief Observed is the beloved classic from arguably the greatest Christian writer of the 20th century. These are personal meditations Lewis wrote after his brief marriage to his wife, who was dying of cancer when they married. First published in 1961 under a pseudonym to avoid identification as the author, the book was re-published in 1963 after his death under his own name.
In A Grief Observed Lewis records his intense struggles with the fundamental questions of faith, love, grief, and the purpose of life. It's clear that Lewis opened his heart into these notebook entries; the pages are loaded with spiritual candor and emotional depth. “Grief is like a long valley,” Lewis notes at one point, “a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” We're taken on that journey with Lewis as he shares many landscapes during the different contemplative seasons of his soul.
I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
4/5 Amazon
February 10, 2017
Two New Books Progress
2016 for me was “The Year of Two New Books.” I'm nearly done with revisions on my second novel, and I’m finishing up work on my co-authored nonfiction book.
Dusk and Ember (novel, working title)
My second novel, Dusk and Ember, is a prequel to my first novel, There are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes . The story takes place over one night in December 1981. 19-year-old Richard Issych works the graveyard shift at a local foundry—a hellish world of molten metal, back-breaking work, and no prospects. Drawn into a downward spiral of easy drugs and strip clubs, Richard is on the cusp of making the biggest decision of his life when one friend is murdered by another friend. Now all Richard wants is to get to the wake to pay his last respects. But a lot of life can be lived in one car ride, and Richard is about to find out how much.
Never Stop Dancing (nonfiction, working title)
My nonfiction book, Never Stop Dancing, is a memoir-by-interview with my good friend John Robinette. Developed from our recorded conversations over 12 months, this book is about John’s life during the year after his 42-year-old wife, Amy, was killed in a pedestrian traffic accident in Washington DC on April 29, 2010. It’s a heart-wrenching and unforgettable account of a man living through unimaginable loss and grief, but also learning how to live a new life, even reclaiming life, for himself and their two young boys. It is also the story of another man’s search for clarity, trying to comprehend that loss and that journey in his friend. Never Stop Dancing captures the essence of modern male friendship, where two friends explore what it means to love, what it means to grieve, and, ultimately, what it means to live and laugh and love again.
Visit me at robert-jacoby.com.
Dusk and Ember (novel, working title)
My second novel, Dusk and Ember, is a prequel to my first novel, There are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes . The story takes place over one night in December 1981. 19-year-old Richard Issych works the graveyard shift at a local foundry—a hellish world of molten metal, back-breaking work, and no prospects. Drawn into a downward spiral of easy drugs and strip clubs, Richard is on the cusp of making the biggest decision of his life when one friend is murdered by another friend. Now all Richard wants is to get to the wake to pay his last respects. But a lot of life can be lived in one car ride, and Richard is about to find out how much.
Never Stop Dancing (nonfiction, working title)
My nonfiction book, Never Stop Dancing, is a memoir-by-interview with my good friend John Robinette. Developed from our recorded conversations over 12 months, this book is about John’s life during the year after his 42-year-old wife, Amy, was killed in a pedestrian traffic accident in Washington DC on April 29, 2010. It’s a heart-wrenching and unforgettable account of a man living through unimaginable loss and grief, but also learning how to live a new life, even reclaiming life, for himself and their two young boys. It is also the story of another man’s search for clarity, trying to comprehend that loss and that journey in his friend. Never Stop Dancing captures the essence of modern male friendship, where two friends explore what it means to love, what it means to grieve, and, ultimately, what it means to live and laugh and love again.
Visit me at robert-jacoby.com.
