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The Blood of the Lamb
This autobiographical novel of family tragedy by the author of Slouching Towards Kalamazoo "moves deftly from manic hilarity to manic fury, and back again" (Newsday).
The most poignant of Peter De Vries's novels, The Blood of the Lamb is also his most personal. It follows the life of Don Wanderhop from his childhood in an immigrant Calvinist family living in Chicago in the 1950s through the loss of a brother, his faith, his wife, and finally his daughter--a tragedy drawn directly from De Vries's own life.
Despite its basis in personal tragedy, The Blood of the Lamb offers glimpses of the comic sensibility for which De Vries was famous. Written with a powerful blend of grief, love, wit, and fury, De Vries's "sensitive treatment of the death of a beloved child it has scarcely a superior in contemporary fiction" (Chicago Tribune).
The most poignant of Peter De Vries's novels, The Blood of the Lamb is also his most personal. It follows the life of Don Wanderhop from his childhood in an immigrant Calvinist family living in Chicago in the 1950s through the loss of a brother, his faith, his wife, and finally his daughter--a tragedy drawn directly from De Vries's own life.
Despite its basis in personal tragedy, The Blood of the Lamb offers glimpses of the comic sensibility for which De Vries was famous. Written with a powerful blend of grief, love, wit, and fury, De Vries's "sensitive treatment of the death of a beloved child it has scarcely a superior in contemporary fiction" (Chicago Tribune).
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Peter De Vries
54 books164 followersPeter De Vries is responsible for contributing to the cultural vernacular such witticisms as "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be" and "Deep down, he's shallow." He was, according to Kingsley Amis, "the funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic." “Quick with quips so droll and witty, so penetrating and precise that you almost don’t feel them piercing your pretensions, Peter De Vries was perhaps America’s best comic novelist not named Mark Twain. . .” (Sam McManis, Sacramento Bee).
His achievement seemed best appreciated by his fellow writers. Harper Lee, naming the great American writers, said, “Peter De Vries . . . is the Evelyn Waugh of our time". Anthony Burgess called De Vries “surely one of the great prose virtuosos of modern America.”
Peter De Vries was a radio actor in the 1930s, and editor for Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. During World War II he served in the U.S. Marines attaining the rank of Captain, and was seconded to the O.S.S., predecessor to the CIA.
He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987. A prolific writer, De Vries wrote short stories, reviews, poetry, essays, a play, novellas, and twenty-three novels, several of which were made into films.
De Vries met his wife, Katinka Loeser, while at Poetry magazine. They married and moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they raised 4 children. The death of his 10-year-old daughter Emily from leukemia inspired The Blood of the Lamb, the most poignant and the most autobiographical of De Vries's novels.
In Westport, De Vries formed a lifelong friendship with the young J. D. Salinger, who later described the writing process as "opening a vein and bleeding onto the page." The two writers clearly "understood each other very well” (son Derek De Vries in "The Return of Peter De Vries", Westport Magazine, April 2006).
De Vries received an honorary degree in 1979 from Susquehanna University, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 1983.
His books were sadly out of print by the time of his death. After the New Yorker published a critical reappraisal of De Vries’ work however (“Few writers have understood literary comedy as well as De Vries, and few comic novelists have had his grasp of tragedy”), The University of Chicago Press began reissuing his works in 2005, starting with The Blood of the Lamb and Slouching Toward Kalamazoo.
His achievement seemed best appreciated by his fellow writers. Harper Lee, naming the great American writers, said, “Peter De Vries . . . is the Evelyn Waugh of our time". Anthony Burgess called De Vries “surely one of the great prose virtuosos of modern America.”
Peter De Vries was a radio actor in the 1930s, and editor for Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. During World War II he served in the U.S. Marines attaining the rank of Captain, and was seconded to the O.S.S., predecessor to the CIA.
He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987. A prolific writer, De Vries wrote short stories, reviews, poetry, essays, a play, novellas, and twenty-three novels, several of which were made into films.
De Vries met his wife, Katinka Loeser, while at Poetry magazine. They married and moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they raised 4 children. The death of his 10-year-old daughter Emily from leukemia inspired The Blood of the Lamb, the most poignant and the most autobiographical of De Vries's novels.
In Westport, De Vries formed a lifelong friendship with the young J. D. Salinger, who later described the writing process as "opening a vein and bleeding onto the page." The two writers clearly "understood each other very well” (son Derek De Vries in "The Return of Peter De Vries", Westport Magazine, April 2006).
De Vries received an honorary degree in 1979 from Susquehanna University, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 1983.
His books were sadly out of print by the time of his death. After the New Yorker published a critical reappraisal of De Vries’ work however (“Few writers have understood literary comedy as well as De Vries, and few comic novelists have had his grasp of tragedy”), The University of Chicago Press began reissuing his works in 2005, starting with The Blood of the Lamb and Slouching Toward Kalamazoo.
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May 7, 2023
I was raised as a (Dutch) Christian Reformed boy (DeVries uses Dutch Calvinist as shorthand for his many fans NOT in his tradition) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, graduated from (the Dutch Calvinist) Calvin College (associated with the Christian Reformed Church, which is seen as theologically slightly distinct from the Reformed Church--more liberal--or the Protestant Reformed Church--more conservative), gradually extricated myself from the tradition, leaving the church at last when I was 28, and at 61 had never read the most celebrated and famous Calvin College author's greatest book. I think most people who know me from those days assume I had read it. I'd read others from DeVries, but not this one, the Great One. Why not? I think it was the topic of (spoiler) child cancer--something I couldn't connect with in my early twenties--and that for the ex-Calvinist I was becoming, it was the Everest of "my tradition's" works of literature. Read Camus and Celine and Dostoevsky instead, I thought.
His skepticism, that I also came to adopt, should have brought me to read this book. But the more I think about it, I guess I wanted to avoid uncomfortable books about death and grief. I tried hard to avoid funerals for much of the teen/early adulthood years, though there weren't that many in those years. All my grandparents had been dead before I was born. I lost a close uncle, which affected me pretty deeply, at 13, I had a cousin killed in Vietnam, I had started to lose distant uncles and aunts, but I was pretty sheltered from death until I was well into my thirties.
Now, at 61, I have known lots of losses: Both parents and all my Mom's 13 siblings and most of my Dad's 5 siblings. I have known the deep and continuing grief about my now 18-year-old son who in many ways slipped away from me into severe autism, and am dealing with some serious psychological/neurological issues with my 14-year-old son, too. I'm happily married now, but I am twice divorced, have had my history of screw-ups that cost me the love of some friends and family, and so on. But in that time, in my early thirties, I associated DeVries with all things Calvin and (Dutch) Christian Reformed and left it all behind. I had sort of forgotten him, and could hardly remember which of his novels I had read when I began reading this.
But it suddenly felt timely to read this book; I am myself trying to write about fathers and sons and grief and separation and this book fits. Also, I had read that one of the inspirations for the Peter Van Houten character in John Green's The Fault in our Stars was Peter DeVries (I could be wrong about this specific fact, but it is true that Green loves this book and he admits it helped him shape Fault in many ways; he says "this is the best novel about cancer I have ever read" and he says "It's one of my favorite books ever"). I liked Fault quite a bit, and so Green's liking it nudged me to read it.
DeVries was born in Chicago, graduated from Calvin in 1931, was editor of Poetry magazine for years, joined the staff of The New Yorker, published 23 novels, and was known primarily for his wit. An erudite humorist; a smart smart-ass. He did not return to Calvin College until 1976, the year after I had graduated, and I had been part of the effort to invite him there, which took years, in part because many of his novels were of course satirical about being Dutch, Calvin and its religious tradition, which he had left, and some people at Calvin hadn't liked that, and in part because he just didn't feel the need to go back there. But he did finally speak there, and it was amazing (for me and all the future ex-pats that loved his blasphemy) to hear him speak about art and comedy and comic writing and lightly make fun of Calvin and all things Dutch in front of us.
So (sorry for the delay) The Blood of the Lamb I consider a masterpiece. It's a book about loss, death, grief, and its last third (SPOILER alert from here on in) is in particular about the narrator Don Wanderhope's eleven-year-old daughter Carol dying of cancer--leukemia--something that DeVries had experienced himself less than a year before he had published his book. It is set in Chicago, where I now live, where DeVries grew up and was raised in the CR Church, and worked for his Dad as a garbageman for a time. The Chicago scenes are great. There are flat out hilarious scenes in the first half of the book that may be funnier to me because I can relate to them as a skeptic, but his tales of a young man questioning his family's doctrinal "truths" in front of his family are familiar to me and many of my friends. There is a scene where the narrator and his father are neck deep in garbage that is terrific, laugh-out-loud comedic writing. There is a funny scene where the narrator is caught in bed with his girlfriend by her parents which I loved. But the humor is a kind of set-up; what happens to a funny guy when it's more than a pie he gets in the face? What happens to a man who receives the greatest blow of his life?
As a writer, DeVries's style is somewhat urbane and formal with ironic and caustic observation his strengths. James Thurber, who invited him to join the staff of The New Yorker, saw him as a fellow traveler in ridiculing society, and readers in the sixties and seventies agreed; he was very popular then. In this book the very funny DeVries remains very funny, but also weds grief with satire; the narrator experiences many losses through madness and death in the book and along the way finds a way to keep himself and us laughing. The first half of the book balances laughter with loss in almost equal measure; in the second half, however, the balance can't be maintained.
The rage and despair and grief are so raw in the last section of the book, anyone who has faced the death of a loved one can relate to it, though maybe it is rawer because it is the death of a child. Senseless. And DeVries, raised in the bosom if the church, led to believe God has a purpose for everything, points his rage at a God he is not sure exists and mostly doubts does exist. Wanderhope has a debate about this with another father who is an angry atheist railing against God and the universe, but DeVries is not quite that guy, though he is not quite Wanderhope, either, as this is still a novel, as seeringly autobiographical as it is. The characters help him work out his various views on the subject of faith and loss.
This is flat out the best book I have ever read about cancer, and one of the best novels I have ever read, ever, so I agree with John Green, yeah. And it's an achingly painful read about fatherhood and fragility. Terrifying. And what I am going through with my own son Sammy and very severe autism after his having been seemingly heteronormative until the age of four is an ongoing trauma for me (f not quite the same kind of loss) so I know a little bit of what he is talking about.
And it's a great book for railing against the narrowness of religion (and he rails against God, or against a concept of God that would allow for the slaughter of innocent lambs such as he sees in the pediatric cancer ward, too). There's DeVries at his caustic best; to take a phrase familiar to the faithful like "washed in the blood of the lamb" (i. e., the innocent Jesus who died on the cross for our sins) and turn it on itself, to show how the blood of his own lamb (he calls her this at her death, weeping) has washed him in the way he will see the world thereafter; as random, not predestined for meaning or salvation. I don't mean he is lost to me entirely--I work with a range of kids on the spectrum and always have--but Sammy is severely autistic, and wasn't early on, so it has taken some adjustment to figure out how to appreciate his "differences," let's say.
DeVries's writing is not my favorite style--I prefer something leaner and more minimal than one so consciously crafted and stylized--but I like its sudden, breath-taking rawness in its dealing with reality, while also making you laugh, since I now know quite a bit about cancer and loss and grief, and hope I don't learn much more about it, except to hear news of cancer's final and complete cure [and then got cancer--melanoma--early in 2022! though am cancer-free at the moment]. The writing is, still, astonishingly good throughout, whether of hilarity or grief, or both. I highly recommend it. No one seems to read DeVries anymore, though this book was re-released in 2005 and maybe it got a few people to check him out. I hope so. When he died, all his books were out of print. But this one, especially, should be read. It took my breath away and left me in tears in part from my own and his griefs, and in part for my admiration for the beauty of his insights.
His skepticism, that I also came to adopt, should have brought me to read this book. But the more I think about it, I guess I wanted to avoid uncomfortable books about death and grief. I tried hard to avoid funerals for much of the teen/early adulthood years, though there weren't that many in those years. All my grandparents had been dead before I was born. I lost a close uncle, which affected me pretty deeply, at 13, I had a cousin killed in Vietnam, I had started to lose distant uncles and aunts, but I was pretty sheltered from death until I was well into my thirties.
Now, at 61, I have known lots of losses: Both parents and all my Mom's 13 siblings and most of my Dad's 5 siblings. I have known the deep and continuing grief about my now 18-year-old son who in many ways slipped away from me into severe autism, and am dealing with some serious psychological/neurological issues with my 14-year-old son, too. I'm happily married now, but I am twice divorced, have had my history of screw-ups that cost me the love of some friends and family, and so on. But in that time, in my early thirties, I associated DeVries with all things Calvin and (Dutch) Christian Reformed and left it all behind. I had sort of forgotten him, and could hardly remember which of his novels I had read when I began reading this.
But it suddenly felt timely to read this book; I am myself trying to write about fathers and sons and grief and separation and this book fits. Also, I had read that one of the inspirations for the Peter Van Houten character in John Green's The Fault in our Stars was Peter DeVries (I could be wrong about this specific fact, but it is true that Green loves this book and he admits it helped him shape Fault in many ways; he says "this is the best novel about cancer I have ever read" and he says "It's one of my favorite books ever"). I liked Fault quite a bit, and so Green's liking it nudged me to read it.
DeVries was born in Chicago, graduated from Calvin in 1931, was editor of Poetry magazine for years, joined the staff of The New Yorker, published 23 novels, and was known primarily for his wit. An erudite humorist; a smart smart-ass. He did not return to Calvin College until 1976, the year after I had graduated, and I had been part of the effort to invite him there, which took years, in part because many of his novels were of course satirical about being Dutch, Calvin and its religious tradition, which he had left, and some people at Calvin hadn't liked that, and in part because he just didn't feel the need to go back there. But he did finally speak there, and it was amazing (for me and all the future ex-pats that loved his blasphemy) to hear him speak about art and comedy and comic writing and lightly make fun of Calvin and all things Dutch in front of us.
So (sorry for the delay) The Blood of the Lamb I consider a masterpiece. It's a book about loss, death, grief, and its last third (SPOILER alert from here on in) is in particular about the narrator Don Wanderhope's eleven-year-old daughter Carol dying of cancer--leukemia--something that DeVries had experienced himself less than a year before he had published his book. It is set in Chicago, where I now live, where DeVries grew up and was raised in the CR Church, and worked for his Dad as a garbageman for a time. The Chicago scenes are great. There are flat out hilarious scenes in the first half of the book that may be funnier to me because I can relate to them as a skeptic, but his tales of a young man questioning his family's doctrinal "truths" in front of his family are familiar to me and many of my friends. There is a scene where the narrator and his father are neck deep in garbage that is terrific, laugh-out-loud comedic writing. There is a funny scene where the narrator is caught in bed with his girlfriend by her parents which I loved. But the humor is a kind of set-up; what happens to a funny guy when it's more than a pie he gets in the face? What happens to a man who receives the greatest blow of his life?
As a writer, DeVries's style is somewhat urbane and formal with ironic and caustic observation his strengths. James Thurber, who invited him to join the staff of The New Yorker, saw him as a fellow traveler in ridiculing society, and readers in the sixties and seventies agreed; he was very popular then. In this book the very funny DeVries remains very funny, but also weds grief with satire; the narrator experiences many losses through madness and death in the book and along the way finds a way to keep himself and us laughing. The first half of the book balances laughter with loss in almost equal measure; in the second half, however, the balance can't be maintained.
The rage and despair and grief are so raw in the last section of the book, anyone who has faced the death of a loved one can relate to it, though maybe it is rawer because it is the death of a child. Senseless. And DeVries, raised in the bosom if the church, led to believe God has a purpose for everything, points his rage at a God he is not sure exists and mostly doubts does exist. Wanderhope has a debate about this with another father who is an angry atheist railing against God and the universe, but DeVries is not quite that guy, though he is not quite Wanderhope, either, as this is still a novel, as seeringly autobiographical as it is. The characters help him work out his various views on the subject of faith and loss.
This is flat out the best book I have ever read about cancer, and one of the best novels I have ever read, ever, so I agree with John Green, yeah. And it's an achingly painful read about fatherhood and fragility. Terrifying. And what I am going through with my own son Sammy and very severe autism after his having been seemingly heteronormative until the age of four is an ongoing trauma for me (f not quite the same kind of loss) so I know a little bit of what he is talking about.
And it's a great book for railing against the narrowness of religion (and he rails against God, or against a concept of God that would allow for the slaughter of innocent lambs such as he sees in the pediatric cancer ward, too). There's DeVries at his caustic best; to take a phrase familiar to the faithful like "washed in the blood of the lamb" (i. e., the innocent Jesus who died on the cross for our sins) and turn it on itself, to show how the blood of his own lamb (he calls her this at her death, weeping) has washed him in the way he will see the world thereafter; as random, not predestined for meaning or salvation. I don't mean he is lost to me entirely--I work with a range of kids on the spectrum and always have--but Sammy is severely autistic, and wasn't early on, so it has taken some adjustment to figure out how to appreciate his "differences," let's say.
DeVries's writing is not my favorite style--I prefer something leaner and more minimal than one so consciously crafted and stylized--but I like its sudden, breath-taking rawness in its dealing with reality, while also making you laugh, since I now know quite a bit about cancer and loss and grief, and hope I don't learn much more about it, except to hear news of cancer's final and complete cure [and then got cancer--melanoma--early in 2022! though am cancer-free at the moment]. The writing is, still, astonishingly good throughout, whether of hilarity or grief, or both. I highly recommend it. No one seems to read DeVries anymore, though this book was re-released in 2005 and maybe it got a few people to check him out. I hope so. When he died, all his books were out of print. But this one, especially, should be read. It took my breath away and left me in tears in part from my own and his griefs, and in part for my admiration for the beauty of his insights.
January 10, 2010
This is my new favorite author. Not capital F favorite, like DFW or James Ellroy, but my new, ‘oh my god how could someone this good be so obscure and have almost all of his books be out of print’, good.
Kingsley Amis called him the funniest author on either side of the Atlantic, which is a pretty big compliment, since at the time Amis senior might have wanted to consider himself the holder of that title. And Amis is not wrong, De Vries is funny. There is a bit of the funniness that one would expect to find from English authors like Amis and Waugh (not that you’d expect that from De Vries, since he’s American), but there is also mixed into his writing the ‘jewish’ humor of someone like Stanley Elkin. Actually De Vries is more like Elkin than the British writers. He mixes his humor with the awfulness of life (aka ‘the tragic’) in a similar way. Huh?
Who would think that a book pretty much about the death of ones beloved child from leukemia would be a book that could in any way be called funny? And then on top of that realize from the introduction that this book was written while the authors own beloved daughter was dying from the same disease? To say the book is funny though downplays the non-sentimentalizing devastation that the author is also able to write into some of the scenes; but then to come up out of those scenes to (spoiler? I don’t know) have a magical realism slap stick pie fight with Jesus?
The story is about death, but it’s also a sustained attack on religion the popular sentiment that even if it’s true that god doesn’t exist, it’s still important to let people believe in god because it brings comfort. As one character says in the book, “Show me that God exists and I’ll really start to despair.” Why, because the tragic absurdity of a life where a kid is dies slowly and painfully from some untreatable illness makes no sense and is the result of winning at the cosmic lottery of bad luck, but if one believes that there is a God who makes choices and answers prayers, then there is something really fucking wrong with a God who could make things otherwise but has chosen to give kids diseases like this and instead of say giving them an easy death, let them suffer. Does this offer comfort? The popular answer is that God works in mysterious ways. This is a bullshit answer, which basically amounts to letting every card in the deck of cards in the poker game of life be a wild card except for the ace of spades, and then marveling that God always turns up the strongest royal flush possible.
Or to put this another way, think of some budding little sociopath who lives on your street. This kid finds bugs and while the normal person would kill them (lets assume that bugs must be killed, why I don’t know), little Jimmy likes to capture them, bring them to where the other bugs can see them and then slowly dismember them, pulling their little bug lets off, their antennas’ wings, and whatever else these bugs have, making it a point to keep them alive while doing this. That child we would think has something really wrong with him, but if we believe in God then we just chalk up behavior like this to ‘mysterious ways’.
The despair is pretty much, if God exists he (or she) is a sociopath. Not much comfort there. Yeah he might answer your prayers but more likely he has some nasty little surprises waiting for you, which of course if he was all good he could tone down a bit, or maybe make the suffering less, but it’s just part of his mysterious ways.
The first chapter of this book is a wonderfully comic family fight about Darwin and evolution waged between a college student and his fundamentalist family. Even if the rest of the book had been boring I’d still recommend that people read this chapter. But the rest of the book isn’t boring, or terrible, it’s really fucking good. It seems to be a tragedy that De Vries has fallen into almost total obscurity, sort of the same way that Stanley Elkin has, but at least almost all of Elkin’s books are in print, where as I’m going to have to rely on the library system to track down all but one other of this very promising writer’s books.
Kingsley Amis called him the funniest author on either side of the Atlantic, which is a pretty big compliment, since at the time Amis senior might have wanted to consider himself the holder of that title. And Amis is not wrong, De Vries is funny. There is a bit of the funniness that one would expect to find from English authors like Amis and Waugh (not that you’d expect that from De Vries, since he’s American), but there is also mixed into his writing the ‘jewish’ humor of someone like Stanley Elkin. Actually De Vries is more like Elkin than the British writers. He mixes his humor with the awfulness of life (aka ‘the tragic’) in a similar way. Huh?
Who would think that a book pretty much about the death of ones beloved child from leukemia would be a book that could in any way be called funny? And then on top of that realize from the introduction that this book was written while the authors own beloved daughter was dying from the same disease? To say the book is funny though downplays the non-sentimentalizing devastation that the author is also able to write into some of the scenes; but then to come up out of those scenes to (spoiler? I don’t know) have a magical realism slap stick pie fight with Jesus?
The story is about death, but it’s also a sustained attack on religion the popular sentiment that even if it’s true that god doesn’t exist, it’s still important to let people believe in god because it brings comfort. As one character says in the book, “Show me that God exists and I’ll really start to despair.” Why, because the tragic absurdity of a life where a kid is dies slowly and painfully from some untreatable illness makes no sense and is the result of winning at the cosmic lottery of bad luck, but if one believes that there is a God who makes choices and answers prayers, then there is something really fucking wrong with a God who could make things otherwise but has chosen to give kids diseases like this and instead of say giving them an easy death, let them suffer. Does this offer comfort? The popular answer is that God works in mysterious ways. This is a bullshit answer, which basically amounts to letting every card in the deck of cards in the poker game of life be a wild card except for the ace of spades, and then marveling that God always turns up the strongest royal flush possible.
Or to put this another way, think of some budding little sociopath who lives on your street. This kid finds bugs and while the normal person would kill them (lets assume that bugs must be killed, why I don’t know), little Jimmy likes to capture them, bring them to where the other bugs can see them and then slowly dismember them, pulling their little bug lets off, their antennas’ wings, and whatever else these bugs have, making it a point to keep them alive while doing this. That child we would think has something really wrong with him, but if we believe in God then we just chalk up behavior like this to ‘mysterious ways’.
The despair is pretty much, if God exists he (or she) is a sociopath. Not much comfort there. Yeah he might answer your prayers but more likely he has some nasty little surprises waiting for you, which of course if he was all good he could tone down a bit, or maybe make the suffering less, but it’s just part of his mysterious ways.
The first chapter of this book is a wonderfully comic family fight about Darwin and evolution waged between a college student and his fundamentalist family. Even if the rest of the book had been boring I’d still recommend that people read this chapter. But the rest of the book isn’t boring, or terrible, it’s really fucking good. It seems to be a tragedy that De Vries has fallen into almost total obscurity, sort of the same way that Stanley Elkin has, but at least almost all of Elkin’s books are in print, where as I’m going to have to rely on the library system to track down all but one other of this very promising writer’s books.
September 19, 2023
' When the last caller had left, my uncle sat down to draft at white heat some notes for a sermon inspired by the evening's events. Its text was the first verse of Genesis, and it was to be a treatise on the exact age of the earth as deduced from chronologies of the Old and New Testaments and other reliable sources to be six thousand years. He wrote at a parlor table overflowing, as did many another piece of furniture, with my mother's beloved specimens - talismans from her Dutch birthplace carried across the sea, souvenirs of every vacation taken in this country and every walk along the Lake Michigan beach. I sat nearby, permitted to watch.
"There," said my uncle, when his pencil had raced to a flourishing stop. He evened the manuscript pages together, then looked for a paperweight to keep them from flowing away in the summer breeze that rustled the curtains at the open window. He selected, of course, one of my mother's minerals. It was a piece of fossil, from the Paleozoic era, five hundred million years old. ' (end of chapter one)
So far so good.
"There," said my uncle, when his pencil had raced to a flourishing stop. He evened the manuscript pages together, then looked for a paperweight to keep them from flowing away in the summer breeze that rustled the curtains at the open window. He selected, of course, one of my mother's minerals. It was a piece of fossil, from the Paleozoic era, five hundred million years old. ' (end of chapter one)
So far so good.
Read
June 3, 2020No rating as I didn't get past 30%. The conversations are just dated and so argumentative etc. that I am not intrigued. Not for me. To me it felt like discussing dogma with a priest, a rabbi, a minister, and an anthropologist in a bar. And it wasn't a joke, or funny. Or interesting.
September 7, 2025
One of the most honest and intense explorations of grief I have read. It demands confrontation with the reality of suffering, and its accompanying difficult questions often evaded on purpose or through ignorance. I’m not sure how to put this book into words, but I laughed out loud, felt rage and grief, and I am now left in its tension.
“‘What would you do if you were God?’
‘Put a stop to all this theology.’”
“Thus Wanderhope was found at that place which for the diabolists of his literary youth, and for those with more modest spiritual histories too, was said to be the only alternative to the muzzle of a pistol: the foot of the Cross.”
“Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal ‘Why?’ When there is no Why, that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart.”
-.5 stars because reading his prose was such a challenge, and the way he writes about women at certain points deserves jail time! I did not have much hope for this book at the beginning, but by the end I can say it climbed the ranks of one of my favorites, so stick with it!
“‘What would you do if you were God?’
‘Put a stop to all this theology.’”
“Thus Wanderhope was found at that place which for the diabolists of his literary youth, and for those with more modest spiritual histories too, was said to be the only alternative to the muzzle of a pistol: the foot of the Cross.”
“Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal ‘Why?’ When there is no Why, that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart.”
-.5 stars because reading his prose was such a challenge, and the way he writes about women at certain points deserves jail time! I did not have much hope for this book at the beginning, but by the end I can say it climbed the ranks of one of my favorites, so stick with it!
July 12, 2012
This is a marvelous read. The mirthful first half, however, fails to balance against the devastatingly heartfelt second half. De Vries's writes so well from his soul it is as if you are inside him and suffer with him.
Fanny Butcher of the Chicago Tribune comments on the back cover are so true: "The last half [of The Blood of the Lamb] is an emotional experience so rare in books, in its sincerity and its tender, almost breathless sharing of an author's heartbeats, that it should not be missed."
At one point near the end the protagonist, alone in a church, in the closest he comes to saying a prayer says:"when winter comes, we will let no snow fall ignored. We will again watch the first blizzard from her window like figures locked snug in a glass paperweight. 'Pick one out and follow it to the ground!' she will say again." It is his pleading promise to live wholly and fully with his doomed daughter. This book is like an incredible snowflake that everyone should read and 'follow it to the ground.'
After reading this book you too will not be able to "decline the burden of resumption."
Fanny Butcher of the Chicago Tribune comments on the back cover are so true: "The last half [of The Blood of the Lamb] is an emotional experience so rare in books, in its sincerity and its tender, almost breathless sharing of an author's heartbeats, that it should not be missed."
At one point near the end the protagonist, alone in a church, in the closest he comes to saying a prayer says:"when winter comes, we will let no snow fall ignored. We will again watch the first blizzard from her window like figures locked snug in a glass paperweight. 'Pick one out and follow it to the ground!' she will say again." It is his pleading promise to live wholly and fully with his doomed daughter. This book is like an incredible snowflake that everyone should read and 'follow it to the ground.'
After reading this book you too will not be able to "decline the burden of resumption."
March 29, 2013
I think this is one of those books that would have read better in the era in which is was written. I picked it up on a tangential mention from John Green, who used it as some of his background reading (I think?) for The Fault in Our Stars--or maybe he read it in the course of his theology studies? Either way, I think this book would've been far stronger a read, for me, as a memoir, but can understand as much as I'm able why it was written as fiction, and thus published so shortly after the death of De Vries' own daughter, Emily, who died of leukemia in 1960 at age 10. I would imagine things were still brutally raw then.
The beginning of the book reads a bit more like a satire, regarding the Dutch in Chicago and immigrant culture in general, and was fairly approachable. The latter part was much more interesting to me, because there was more...sharpness...to it, I'd say. I nearly returned the book to the library multiple times as I got bogged down in the first half to two thirds of the book, then resolutely plowed through till it got to Don's daughter Carol, who made Don as a character and the book in general much better.
The focus of this book, however, is supposedly on man's relationship with God. I think this book would make an excellent addition to a reading list for an entry level philosophy class, or a Christian theology class, or something like that, and provide fodder for discussion. Reading it on my own, the religious stuff felt thrown in randomly, as a supposed thread with which to tie the book together, and a ragged thread it was. Partly, I couldn't be bothered to put the thought into the dilemma, and partly, I think the whole thing could have been tighter. I wish I knew more about the religious and political culture of the late 50s/early 60s; I think that would help the reading of this book.
In short: not worth the read. Though I'm not exactly sorry I read it. The double meaning of the title is very well taken, too.
The beginning of the book reads a bit more like a satire, regarding the Dutch in Chicago and immigrant culture in general, and was fairly approachable. The latter part was much more interesting to me, because there was more...sharpness...to it, I'd say. I nearly returned the book to the library multiple times as I got bogged down in the first half to two thirds of the book, then resolutely plowed through till it got to Don's daughter Carol, who made Don as a character and the book in general much better.
The focus of this book, however, is supposedly on man's relationship with God. I think this book would make an excellent addition to a reading list for an entry level philosophy class, or a Christian theology class, or something like that, and provide fodder for discussion. Reading it on my own, the religious stuff felt thrown in randomly, as a supposed thread with which to tie the book together, and a ragged thread it was. Partly, I couldn't be bothered to put the thought into the dilemma, and partly, I think the whole thing could have been tighter. I wish I knew more about the religious and political culture of the late 50s/early 60s; I think that would help the reading of this book.
In short: not worth the read. Though I'm not exactly sorry I read it. The double meaning of the title is very well taken, too.
May 20, 2020
This started out as one of the funniest books I've ever and ended as one of the most soul crushing. The fact De Vries manages to pilot the ship through such a giant tonal shift is proof enough of his narrative mastery, but there's plenty more to recommend him as a writer. He's as witty as Wodehouse but far more biting, as capable of Dickens at drawing eccentrics, and crafts his philosophical and theological questioning like a more lighthearted Dostoevsky. This is an instant Hall of Famer for me. Just be warned there's a price for admission when it comes to the laughs—your heart getting ripped out of your chest.
October 14, 2025
This was exceptional and now I want to read everything by Peter De Vries. De Vries has the same genius as Flannery O’Connor: fiction plunges us into the cruel realities of this fleeting life.
January 7, 2022
"What people believe is a measure of what they suffer ... All the theologies inherent in the minister's winding drone came down to this: Believe in God and don't put anything past him. Or ... 'Why doesn't He pick on somebody his size?'" (25)
"The superficial and the slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization" (111)
"The quest for Meaning is foredoomed. Human life 'means' nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy Arabesque 'mean,' or a rainbow or a rose. A man delighted in all of these, knowing himself to be no more – a wisp of music and a haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third" (167)
"Time heals nothing – which should make us the better able to minister. There may be griefs beyond the reach of solace, but none worthy of the name that does not see free the springs of sympathy. Blessed as they that comfort, for they too have mourned, and may be more likely the human truth" (246).
"The superficial and the slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization" (111)
"The quest for Meaning is foredoomed. Human life 'means' nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy Arabesque 'mean,' or a rainbow or a rose. A man delighted in all of these, knowing himself to be no more – a wisp of music and a haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third" (167)
"Time heals nothing – which should make us the better able to minister. There may be griefs beyond the reach of solace, but none worthy of the name that does not see free the springs of sympathy. Blessed as they that comfort, for they too have mourned, and may be more likely the human truth" (246).
March 13, 2014
"What baffles me is the comfort people find in the idea that somebody dealt this mess. Blind and meaningless chance seems to me so much more congenial -- or at least less horrible. Prove to me that there is a God and I will really begin to despair."
September 19, 2020
Peter Devries was one of the funniest authors to ever put pen to page. Only once did he go in the opposite direction with this, a partly autobiographical novel, about family and mortality. Some of his wit is still present but this might be the saddest book I've ever read. I cried real tears at the end.
February 25, 2019
Never doubt the power of uncertainty, even in the darkest moments of life. Author Peter De Vries, having lost his daughter to childhood leukemia, dares to find the humor in the raw material of his own life to describe the fictional life of Don Wanderhope. Don (like De Vries) was reared in Calvinism and through education, reading, sexual awakening, and terrible luck becomes a buffeted and shell-shocked man, quietly resigned to the tragicomedy of life.
Before early middle age, Don has buried his teenage brother, his lover, his wife, and his little girl. Of his daughter’s body, he observes: She looked finally like some mangled flower, or like a bird that had been pelted to earth in a storm. Like Ishmael, only Don survives to tell the tale of ruin and doubt.
Don careens from despair to comedy, to faith, to doubt and to memory. “How I hate this world. I would like to dismantle the universe star by star, like a treeful of rotten fruit. Man is a mistake, to be corrected only by his abolition, which he gives promise of seeing to himself. Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal “Why?” when there is no Why?--that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart.
Don scorns theology, and he equates theologizing (the act of cramming the great mysteries of life into formulas) with playing God. To the question, “What would you do if you were God? Don answers, Put a stop to all this theology. Instead, Don would suggest his own rough-hewn idea of the Trinity. “Man has only his two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third.” On the other hand, Don scorns the certainty of some atheists who take glee in tormenting and insulting believers.
Don doubts both belief and unbelief. He is as skeptical of his doubt as he is of his faith. Where do these doubts come from? To Don, they are the shadows reaching out to declare him his father’s son; his brother’s brother; and his daughter’s father. Now through the meadows of my mind wander hand in hand [my brother, wife, and daughter], saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” For we are indeed saved by grace in the end– but to give, not take. This, it seems then, is my Book of the Dead. All I know I have learned from [the Dead]. All I am worth I got from them.
“The Blood of the Lamb” should be required reading for any priest or minister who wants to console the grieving. I believe it would also be helpful to readers with a religious background who might be grieving. Time heals nothing– which should make us the better able to minister. There may be griefs beyond the reach of solace, but none worthy of the name that does not set free the springs of sympathy. Blessed are they that comfort, for they too have mourned. Again the throb of compassion rather than the breath of consolation: the recognition of how long, how long is the mourners’ bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity.
I came to this book through a tortured path of my own. I read it while undergoing a severe crisis. Years later, having put a little distance behind me and my own battles, I remembered a few summers ago when I learned that a tumor had snaked its way around the parotid gland of my 14-year old daughter. It took more than six weeks of anxiety and a seven-hour surgery to discover that the tumor was benign, but until that sweet relief, I did not think myself capable of enduring one more fishhook to the heart.
Some people will never make devout atheists or devout believers. They have too much uncertainty. Were they to temporarily declare their allegiance to either camp, they will backslide fast. They know that with nothing certain, anything is possible. Because of this doubt, they are outcasts from all entrenched sides of the theological wars between belief and unbelief. Some need to hug “that little doubt that is so desperately needed today.” As Devries calls it--“Doubt the ray of hope.” Go thy way, thy doubt hath made thee whole.
*****
P.S. Although my review does not capture it, this is a very funny book—a tragicomedy. I just was not up to demonstrating the humor. There are many laughs through the tears. Perhaps you will take my word on faith-- or just observe the pageant of life yourself to know that this, like all else, is possible.
“Thou shalt not kill.” This was advertised as the law of someone who had also created a universe in which one thing ate another. (De Vries, Peter, The Blood of the Lamb, 1961, P108
It was miracle enough that the pastry should reach its target at all, at that height from the sidewalk. The more so that it should land squarely, just beneath the crown of thorns. Then through scalded eyes, I seemed to see the hands free themselves of the nails and move slowly toward the soiled face. Very slowly, very deliberately, with infinite patience, the icing was wiped from the eyes and flung away. I could see it fall in clumps to the porch steps. Then the cheeks were wiped down with the same sense of grave and gentle ritual, with all the kind sobriety of one whose voice could be heard saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.. For of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (De Vries, Peter, The Blood of the Lamb, 1961, 237 (After the death of his daughter on her birthday, Wanderhope throws her birthday cake in the face of Christ on the crucifix, prefigured in the Laurel and Hardy pie-throwing quote.)
Before early middle age, Don has buried his teenage brother, his lover, his wife, and his little girl. Of his daughter’s body, he observes: She looked finally like some mangled flower, or like a bird that had been pelted to earth in a storm. Like Ishmael, only Don survives to tell the tale of ruin and doubt.
Don careens from despair to comedy, to faith, to doubt and to memory. “How I hate this world. I would like to dismantle the universe star by star, like a treeful of rotten fruit. Man is a mistake, to be corrected only by his abolition, which he gives promise of seeing to himself. Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal “Why?” when there is no Why?--that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart.
Don scorns theology, and he equates theologizing (the act of cramming the great mysteries of life into formulas) with playing God. To the question, “What would you do if you were God? Don answers, Put a stop to all this theology. Instead, Don would suggest his own rough-hewn idea of the Trinity. “Man has only his two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third.” On the other hand, Don scorns the certainty of some atheists who take glee in tormenting and insulting believers.
Don doubts both belief and unbelief. He is as skeptical of his doubt as he is of his faith. Where do these doubts come from? To Don, they are the shadows reaching out to declare him his father’s son; his brother’s brother; and his daughter’s father. Now through the meadows of my mind wander hand in hand [my brother, wife, and daughter], saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” For we are indeed saved by grace in the end– but to give, not take. This, it seems then, is my Book of the Dead. All I know I have learned from [the Dead]. All I am worth I got from them.
“The Blood of the Lamb” should be required reading for any priest or minister who wants to console the grieving. I believe it would also be helpful to readers with a religious background who might be grieving. Time heals nothing– which should make us the better able to minister. There may be griefs beyond the reach of solace, but none worthy of the name that does not set free the springs of sympathy. Blessed are they that comfort, for they too have mourned. Again the throb of compassion rather than the breath of consolation: the recognition of how long, how long is the mourners’ bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity.
I came to this book through a tortured path of my own. I read it while undergoing a severe crisis. Years later, having put a little distance behind me and my own battles, I remembered a few summers ago when I learned that a tumor had snaked its way around the parotid gland of my 14-year old daughter. It took more than six weeks of anxiety and a seven-hour surgery to discover that the tumor was benign, but until that sweet relief, I did not think myself capable of enduring one more fishhook to the heart.
Some people will never make devout atheists or devout believers. They have too much uncertainty. Were they to temporarily declare their allegiance to either camp, they will backslide fast. They know that with nothing certain, anything is possible. Because of this doubt, they are outcasts from all entrenched sides of the theological wars between belief and unbelief. Some need to hug “that little doubt that is so desperately needed today.” As Devries calls it--“Doubt the ray of hope.” Go thy way, thy doubt hath made thee whole.
*****
P.S. Although my review does not capture it, this is a very funny book—a tragicomedy. I just was not up to demonstrating the humor. There are many laughs through the tears. Perhaps you will take my word on faith-- or just observe the pageant of life yourself to know that this, like all else, is possible.
“Thou shalt not kill.” This was advertised as the law of someone who had also created a universe in which one thing ate another. (De Vries, Peter, The Blood of the Lamb, 1961, P108
It was miracle enough that the pastry should reach its target at all, at that height from the sidewalk. The more so that it should land squarely, just beneath the crown of thorns. Then through scalded eyes, I seemed to see the hands free themselves of the nails and move slowly toward the soiled face. Very slowly, very deliberately, with infinite patience, the icing was wiped from the eyes and flung away. I could see it fall in clumps to the porch steps. Then the cheeks were wiped down with the same sense of grave and gentle ritual, with all the kind sobriety of one whose voice could be heard saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.. For of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (De Vries, Peter, The Blood of the Lamb, 1961, 237 (After the death of his daughter on her birthday, Wanderhope throws her birthday cake in the face of Christ on the crucifix, prefigured in the Laurel and Hardy pie-throwing quote.)
February 11, 2018
"...my grandfather went out to the front porch, where he stood scratching himself in a manner said to be depreciating property values" (7).
"This being our view of human merit, it can be imagined what we thought of vice" (18).
"He breathed through his mouth, irregular gasps that strained his throat and reached the vain destination of his lungs..." (28).
"The old grin wreathed his lips..." (30). *That verb is perfection.
"'Sometimes I think this leg is the most beautiful thing in the world, and sometimes the other,' I said. 'I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between'" (33).
"It was the one time I heard guests ask for the bathroom as though they intended to bathe in it" (60).
"Blonde as the butter she would have been churning had her parents remained in the Netherlands..." (66).
"...as the bell of the stethoscope stalked my ribs" (87). *Stalked!
"Thus began a relationship which I pursued with a kindled heart..." (97). *Once again, the perfect verb.
"An economist with conspicuous consumption was all Bontekoe needed to make his day..." (97). *Clearly the man has a bad case of witzelsucht, but I approve.
"'Are you an atheist?'
"'Not a very devout one,' I reassured her..." (103).
"'Thou shalt not kill.' This was advertised as the law of someone who had also created a universe in which one thing ate another" (108).
"The superficial and the slipshod have ready answer, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization" (111).
"'You believe what you must in order to stave off the conviction that it's all a tale told by an idiot'" (111).
"Thus in my father's devout periods, when he outdid the longest-winded clergymen, guidance was besought for the President and his Cabinet, legislatures both state and federal, as well as emissaries engaged on diplomatic undertakings then in the news, while the food itself grew cold in its bowls" (115). *The detail "both state and federal" cracks me up.
"'...in the last brandied hours of which we got to debating the question, 'What is the greatest experience open to man?'"
"...the luckless Andy Biddle, who, head in hand, was trying to conceal the effect on him of the image of his lord slogging through an Alpine hell sans earmuffs" (162).
"Man has only his own two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third" (167).
"'Do you believe in God as well as play at him?'" (174).
*The thrush on p. 177.
"...I awoke with the tears leaking from sealed lids" (177).
*reference to her "fleece" p. 178 (title of the book)
*A brown thrush shows up again on p. 204 (this time he stones it).
"'Someone has pointed out that nothing proves the validity of the Church so much as its ability to survive its own representatives. It's got to be divine to stand up against them'" (210).
"In this exile from peace of mind to which his reason doomed him, he was like an insomniac driven to awaken sleepers from dreams illegitimately won by going around shouting, 'Don't you realize it was a placebo!' Thus it seemed to me that what you were up against in Stein was not logic rampant, but frustrated faith. He could not forgive God for not existing" (214).
"Airing the absolutes is no longer permitted in polite society, save where a Stein and a Wanderhope meet and knock their heads together..." (215).
"There is another reason why we chatter of this and that while our hearts burn within us" (215).
"'Who creates a perfect blossom to crush it?'" (225). *Later, he does just that himself.
"...know in blooming not to bloom" (228). *An allusion to Robert Frost's poem, "The Oven Bird."
"...to catch the snowdrop's first white whisper in the wood" (229). *Ahh..."whisper."
"Thus Wanderhope was found at that place which for the diabolists of his literary youth, and for those with more modest spiritual histories too, was said to be the only alternative to the muzzle of a pistol: the foot of the Cross" (238).
"Human life 'means' nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living" (241).
*repetition of the Reason, Courage, and Grace passage which I liked.
"All the stars were out. That pit of jewels, heaven, gave no answer" (242).
"...saved by grace in the end--but to give, not take" (243).
"Blessed are they that comfort, for they too have mourned, may be more likely the human truth" (246). *This is beautiful.
"...long since begun to embalm her dreams in alcohol" (246).
"Again the throb of compassion rather than the breath of consolation: the recognition of how long, how long is the mourners' bench up on which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity" (246). *The perfect ending.
"This being our view of human merit, it can be imagined what we thought of vice" (18).
"He breathed through his mouth, irregular gasps that strained his throat and reached the vain destination of his lungs..." (28).
"The old grin wreathed his lips..." (30). *That verb is perfection.
"'Sometimes I think this leg is the most beautiful thing in the world, and sometimes the other,' I said. 'I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between'" (33).
"It was the one time I heard guests ask for the bathroom as though they intended to bathe in it" (60).
"Blonde as the butter she would have been churning had her parents remained in the Netherlands..." (66).
"...as the bell of the stethoscope stalked my ribs" (87). *Stalked!
"Thus began a relationship which I pursued with a kindled heart..." (97). *Once again, the perfect verb.
"An economist with conspicuous consumption was all Bontekoe needed to make his day..." (97). *Clearly the man has a bad case of witzelsucht, but I approve.
"'Are you an atheist?'
"'Not a very devout one,' I reassured her..." (103).
"'Thou shalt not kill.' This was advertised as the law of someone who had also created a universe in which one thing ate another" (108).
"The superficial and the slipshod have ready answer, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization" (111).
"'You believe what you must in order to stave off the conviction that it's all a tale told by an idiot'" (111).
"Thus in my father's devout periods, when he outdid the longest-winded clergymen, guidance was besought for the President and his Cabinet, legislatures both state and federal, as well as emissaries engaged on diplomatic undertakings then in the news, while the food itself grew cold in its bowls" (115). *The detail "both state and federal" cracks me up.
"'...in the last brandied hours of which we got to debating the question, 'What is the greatest experience open to man?'"
"...the luckless Andy Biddle, who, head in hand, was trying to conceal the effect on him of the image of his lord slogging through an Alpine hell sans earmuffs" (162).
"Man has only his own two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third" (167).
"'Do you believe in God as well as play at him?'" (174).
*The thrush on p. 177.
"...I awoke with the tears leaking from sealed lids" (177).
*reference to her "fleece" p. 178 (title of the book)
*A brown thrush shows up again on p. 204 (this time he stones it).
"'Someone has pointed out that nothing proves the validity of the Church so much as its ability to survive its own representatives. It's got to be divine to stand up against them'" (210).
"In this exile from peace of mind to which his reason doomed him, he was like an insomniac driven to awaken sleepers from dreams illegitimately won by going around shouting, 'Don't you realize it was a placebo!' Thus it seemed to me that what you were up against in Stein was not logic rampant, but frustrated faith. He could not forgive God for not existing" (214).
"Airing the absolutes is no longer permitted in polite society, save where a Stein and a Wanderhope meet and knock their heads together..." (215).
"There is another reason why we chatter of this and that while our hearts burn within us" (215).
"'Who creates a perfect blossom to crush it?'" (225). *Later, he does just that himself.
"...know in blooming not to bloom" (228). *An allusion to Robert Frost's poem, "The Oven Bird."
"...to catch the snowdrop's first white whisper in the wood" (229). *Ahh..."whisper."
"Thus Wanderhope was found at that place which for the diabolists of his literary youth, and for those with more modest spiritual histories too, was said to be the only alternative to the muzzle of a pistol: the foot of the Cross" (238).
"Human life 'means' nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living" (241).
*repetition of the Reason, Courage, and Grace passage which I liked.
"All the stars were out. That pit of jewels, heaven, gave no answer" (242).
"...saved by grace in the end--but to give, not take" (243).
"Blessed are they that comfort, for they too have mourned, may be more likely the human truth" (246). *This is beautiful.
"...long since begun to embalm her dreams in alcohol" (246).
"Again the throb of compassion rather than the breath of consolation: the recognition of how long, how long is the mourners' bench up on which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity" (246). *The perfect ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2019
I loved the writing style and honesty in the writing. Coming from a Dutch Calvinist background, I related to much of the setting of the book. Questions on God and His part in disease, our life struggles, and juxtaposing belief and relationship were clearly portrayed in this somewhat autobiographical novel by De Vries. I'm thankful I was able to finally read this novel.
April 24, 2022
De Vries’ most personal book, a fictionalization of his own grief at losing his young daughter to leukemia, had me bawling like a baby. No one writes or wrote like he did. David Foster Wallace, perhaps?
December 3, 2018
Surprisingly good!
It takes some time to get used to the formal voice of the narrator, but this is one of those literary comedies that are comic precisely because it is also tragic. Gripping narrative that engages with big philosophical life questions and punctuated with laugh-out-loud funny moments as well as deep human insight. Started reading side by side with Grace Paley's short story collection, but I enjoyed this far more than Paley's book (though it's an unfair comparison, like comparing apples and oranges, but still, I'm a sucker for a good old-fashioned story like the one De Vries weaves).
Will definitely read more of De Vries's works—highly recommended if you can get past the rather old-school formal voice of the narrator.
Quotes:
"Dr. Simpson, do you believe in a God?" ... It took me some years to attain his mood and understand my blunder. He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and the slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight int he eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom. (111)
"It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration: not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is." (164, recalling Schopenhauer)
"The greatest experience open to man then is the recovery of the commonplace. Coffee in the morning and whiskeys in the evening again without fear. Books to read without that shadow falling across the page..." (166)
"We live this life by a kind of conspiracy of grace: the common assumption, or pretense, that human existence is 'good' or 'matters' or has 'meaning,' a glaze of charm of humor by which we conceal from one another and perhaps even ourselves the suspicion that it does not, and our conviction in times of trouble that it is overpriced—something to be endured rather than enjoyed" (215)
"Two people can't share unhappiness" (219)
"Blessed are they that comfort, for they too have mourned, maybe more likely the human truth" (246)
"Again the throb of compassion rather than the breath of consolation: the recognition of how long, how long is the mourners' bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity" (246)
It takes some time to get used to the formal voice of the narrator, but this is one of those literary comedies that are comic precisely because it is also tragic. Gripping narrative that engages with big philosophical life questions and punctuated with laugh-out-loud funny moments as well as deep human insight. Started reading side by side with Grace Paley's short story collection, but I enjoyed this far more than Paley's book (though it's an unfair comparison, like comparing apples and oranges, but still, I'm a sucker for a good old-fashioned story like the one De Vries weaves).
Will definitely read more of De Vries's works—highly recommended if you can get past the rather old-school formal voice of the narrator.
Quotes:
"Dr. Simpson, do you believe in a God?" ... It took me some years to attain his mood and understand my blunder. He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and the slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight int he eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom. (111)
"It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration: not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is." (164, recalling Schopenhauer)
"The greatest experience open to man then is the recovery of the commonplace. Coffee in the morning and whiskeys in the evening again without fear. Books to read without that shadow falling across the page..." (166)
"We live this life by a kind of conspiracy of grace: the common assumption, or pretense, that human existence is 'good' or 'matters' or has 'meaning,' a glaze of charm of humor by which we conceal from one another and perhaps even ourselves the suspicion that it does not, and our conviction in times of trouble that it is overpriced—something to be endured rather than enjoyed" (215)
"Two people can't share unhappiness" (219)
"Blessed are they that comfort, for they too have mourned, maybe more likely the human truth" (246)
"Again the throb of compassion rather than the breath of consolation: the recognition of how long, how long is the mourners' bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity" (246)
September 16, 2010
Peter DeVries was a very popular writer who contributed many stories to the New Yorker in the fifties and sixties and who wrote several very funny novels. This autobiographical novel describes the growth to maturity of Don Wanderhope, member of a strictly Calvinist Dutch Reform family, whose brother becomes a heretic, whose father becomes addicted to drink and goes insane, and whose wife commits suicide after giving him a child whom he loves deeply. At age eleven, his daughter contracts leukemia, initially does quite well, but then succumbs to a staph infection in the hospital.
Wanderhope - I suspect the name is no accidental choice - in grief stricken anger rails against God and man. "I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration. Not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is. It was shortly after the evening in question that I had a taste of that truth on a scale that enabled me to put my finger on it." The happiest moment of his life comes when the doctor lets him know that his daughter will be all right - a mistake as it turns out. "The fairy would not become a gnome. We could break bread in peace again, my child and I. The greatest experience open to man then, is the recovery of the commonplace."
The book has many humorous moments and profound insights, as Wanderhope struggles with religion as he tries to deal with the death of his only child. "I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which his own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race. Philosophy really can give us nothing permanent to believe in either. It is too rich in answers; each canceling out the rest. The quest for meaning is foredoomed. Human life means nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy arabesque mean, or a rainbow, or a rose? A man delights in all of these knowing himself to be no more. A wisp of music and haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on his own human trinity to see him through: reason, courage and grace and the first plus the second equals the third."
Wanderhope - I suspect the name is no accidental choice - in grief stricken anger rails against God and man. "I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration. Not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is. It was shortly after the evening in question that I had a taste of that truth on a scale that enabled me to put my finger on it." The happiest moment of his life comes when the doctor lets him know that his daughter will be all right - a mistake as it turns out. "The fairy would not become a gnome. We could break bread in peace again, my child and I. The greatest experience open to man then, is the recovery of the commonplace."
The book has many humorous moments and profound insights, as Wanderhope struggles with religion as he tries to deal with the death of his only child. "I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which his own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race. Philosophy really can give us nothing permanent to believe in either. It is too rich in answers; each canceling out the rest. The quest for meaning is foredoomed. Human life means nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy arabesque mean, or a rainbow, or a rose? A man delights in all of these knowing himself to be no more. A wisp of music and haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on his own human trinity to see him through: reason, courage and grace and the first plus the second equals the third."
October 29, 2016
I first heard about "The Blood of the Lamb" a few years ago through a recommendation from John Green. He cited Peter De Vries' novel as being one of the influences for "The Fault in Our Stars," and if you know that story, there are definitely some comparisons to be made to the fictional author Peter Van Houten and the protagonist in this story.
The actual plot here skips around quite a bit, which can be a bit jarring, and even though this came out in the 60s, there's some outdated language that took me out of the story. But when taken as snapshots in one man's life, "The Blood of the Lamb" is a really interesting study of religion and philosophy, how the two intersect and where they diverge; why some people cling to their beliefs, and why others refuse, or are incapable of any sort of spiritual belief. It's not overly religious, though; it's more about asking questions. And because it's a book that dives deep, it touches on all kinds of big universal themes: loss, sickness, and suffering. In other words, it's not the most uplifting book. But it is 100% something John Green would be interested in, and it has its memorable moments.
The actual plot here skips around quite a bit, which can be a bit jarring, and even though this came out in the 60s, there's some outdated language that took me out of the story. But when taken as snapshots in one man's life, "The Blood of the Lamb" is a really interesting study of religion and philosophy, how the two intersect and where they diverge; why some people cling to their beliefs, and why others refuse, or are incapable of any sort of spiritual belief. It's not overly religious, though; it's more about asking questions. And because it's a book that dives deep, it touches on all kinds of big universal themes: loss, sickness, and suffering. In other words, it's not the most uplifting book. But it is 100% something John Green would be interested in, and it has its memorable moments.
December 29, 2012
The first half and second halves of this book seem like entirely separate books - it took me a couple of chapters to get in this, printed 1961, with the old book smell and the weird stain and that font that was so popular midcentury that just invites skimming, but I'm glad I gave it the time. This book is gorgeous. It's a semi-autobiographical account of the author's struggles with religion over the course of his life, and it ends up being kind of a defense of the idea that not everything can or should be redeemed - "Time heals nothing - which should make us the better able to minister." The author seems to give up on the possibility of satisfaction, but he continues anyway. "'Let there be light,' we cry, and only the dawn breaks." Compassion is possible, it's beautiful, but it's all. We can never be consoled, and maybe the worst thing is the waste that goes into trying to console ourselves, or trying to convince ourselves that there is something to console us. But there's no point in being angry about that. We can bear our own witness.
October 1, 2007
I found this book in the laundry room of my apt. The cover said something like, "the most well written and most extraordinary book of our time". So i thought, i better read it. It was surprisingly great! It dealt with love, loss and the struggle to believe in God all with a very dry wit and intellectual tone. The story is over such a long period of time that i keep thinking it was 2 or 3 different books, but each season of the main characters life is so amazing to read. I also learned later that the author used to work for new york magazine and this was one of his most serious books.
September 15, 2020
This year is proving to be the best year of my life in terms of discovery of real quality prose. "The blood of the lamb" entered my reading list shyly, but has wound up joining my all-time favourite ranking with the strength of a storm.
In the foreword of this book, Jeffrey Frank talks about Peter de Vries as the funniest American author he's ever read. I'm always skeptical when this particular claim is made, because humor is very hard to convey in a novel; but after reading this work, I have to say that I totally agree with it. More than that, I want to enforce it by saying that being wittily, smartly and tastefully funny like Peter de Vries is, is specially hard when one finds himself enclosed in the frame of a book that is definitely not about hilarious matters.
"The blood of the lamb" contains some of the purest, most honest and most sensible emotions I've ever read in a novel. The story told by de Vries is a sort of vessel that is already emotional in itself, but that at the same time encloses the deep, rooted feelings the author was experiencing at the moment in time where the different narrations were taking place.
At the beginning, when he's going through the motions of losing his brother, discovering romantic love and finally finding it during his sickness, we sense that his fundamental doubts about life and religion are still dressed by the natural, final easygoingness of youth. Although profound, these doubts haven't taken over him yet because the promise of yet so much to be found and known still overpowers them. He doesn't forget that solving them is the principal mission of his life, as acquired through the religious and traditional skepticism that his older brother instilled in him, but there is still a reason for him to think that the answers will come, that he still has time, that going through the stages of life will make sense as it will keep on coming for him.
Things become different in adulthood. During it, he realizes that none of his questions have been answered yet, but more than that, the mere logic of these questions starts to burn to ashes as he realizes that it might not even make sense to have them in the first place. The walk of adulthood marches by a series of facts that make him realize that his search for truth is as doomed as life itself. And when his beloved daughter falls ill, the last hopes for meaning are blown away like dust from the top of an old book.
The passage of his daughter's sickness is closer to being "The Best Love Story Ever Told" than any purely romantic story can ever be. The exquisite veracity of his pain, of his fear, of his disposition to reduce life to the meaning of this event, gives the writing a kind of soft intimacy that makes it just so beautiful, so unpretentious, so deeply felt. In fact, it feels like putting all of this in a book for the entire world to read mustn't have been an easy thing for de Vries; the only reason why he's giving us a free passage into his soul is that he needs to tell his story, he needs to immortalize it as it sits in his heart, just so it will stop being as heavy as it is inside him.
It's impossible not to feel for the characters of this book. It's impossible not to care about the innocent child that slowly withers in front of the merciless positivity and hope that the doctors keep until the day before she dies. It's impossible not to think about lost dreams, lost life, lost love, about the tyranny of a life that we constantly want to believe in but that strikes us in ways that make it very hard to get back up again.
It's impossible not to feel for the father who navigates the walk of life with skepticism, but also with a sort of positive wonder mixed with honest intention to listen to those who don't think like him, simply because they help him explore this very skepticism and understand life better. He makes accepting others exactly for who they are his way of loving, including the wife who couldn't love their child as much as he did. Among his complex doubts about the nature of life, he makes living very simple: love those who are around you, and experience all you can with them.
Reading "The blood of the lamb" felt like opening the secret chest of a person who needs to make himself be understood by a world that has betrayed him. At times, it felt like contemplating the most peaceful forest scenery, with leaves sighing at the caress of a soft breeze and the crack of dawn making its way inbetween the trunks. Other times, it felt like witnessing rage at its purest form, a rage that can't be questioned in the slightest so righteous it is. We could argue about what the loss of a child means in terms of the view one has about life, but "The blood of the lamb" makes this loss feel so incredibly final that any other thing that isn't it, including life itself, simply ceases to matter.
Believing in God after taking a walk in a children's cancer ward becomes impossible. And so does believing in existence, or even philosophizing about it as a concept. The cost at which de Vries gets his answers is unbearably high. In the end, he only gets that longed for, so-called peace with himself that he thought he'd find along the way after losing it all. And that's what makes this story truly heartbreaking.
In the foreword of this book, Jeffrey Frank talks about Peter de Vries as the funniest American author he's ever read. I'm always skeptical when this particular claim is made, because humor is very hard to convey in a novel; but after reading this work, I have to say that I totally agree with it. More than that, I want to enforce it by saying that being wittily, smartly and tastefully funny like Peter de Vries is, is specially hard when one finds himself enclosed in the frame of a book that is definitely not about hilarious matters.
"The blood of the lamb" contains some of the purest, most honest and most sensible emotions I've ever read in a novel. The story told by de Vries is a sort of vessel that is already emotional in itself, but that at the same time encloses the deep, rooted feelings the author was experiencing at the moment in time where the different narrations were taking place.
At the beginning, when he's going through the motions of losing his brother, discovering romantic love and finally finding it during his sickness, we sense that his fundamental doubts about life and religion are still dressed by the natural, final easygoingness of youth. Although profound, these doubts haven't taken over him yet because the promise of yet so much to be found and known still overpowers them. He doesn't forget that solving them is the principal mission of his life, as acquired through the religious and traditional skepticism that his older brother instilled in him, but there is still a reason for him to think that the answers will come, that he still has time, that going through the stages of life will make sense as it will keep on coming for him.
Things become different in adulthood. During it, he realizes that none of his questions have been answered yet, but more than that, the mere logic of these questions starts to burn to ashes as he realizes that it might not even make sense to have them in the first place. The walk of adulthood marches by a series of facts that make him realize that his search for truth is as doomed as life itself. And when his beloved daughter falls ill, the last hopes for meaning are blown away like dust from the top of an old book.
The passage of his daughter's sickness is closer to being "The Best Love Story Ever Told" than any purely romantic story can ever be. The exquisite veracity of his pain, of his fear, of his disposition to reduce life to the meaning of this event, gives the writing a kind of soft intimacy that makes it just so beautiful, so unpretentious, so deeply felt. In fact, it feels like putting all of this in a book for the entire world to read mustn't have been an easy thing for de Vries; the only reason why he's giving us a free passage into his soul is that he needs to tell his story, he needs to immortalize it as it sits in his heart, just so it will stop being as heavy as it is inside him.
It's impossible not to feel for the characters of this book. It's impossible not to care about the innocent child that slowly withers in front of the merciless positivity and hope that the doctors keep until the day before she dies. It's impossible not to think about lost dreams, lost life, lost love, about the tyranny of a life that we constantly want to believe in but that strikes us in ways that make it very hard to get back up again.
It's impossible not to feel for the father who navigates the walk of life with skepticism, but also with a sort of positive wonder mixed with honest intention to listen to those who don't think like him, simply because they help him explore this very skepticism and understand life better. He makes accepting others exactly for who they are his way of loving, including the wife who couldn't love their child as much as he did. Among his complex doubts about the nature of life, he makes living very simple: love those who are around you, and experience all you can with them.
Reading "The blood of the lamb" felt like opening the secret chest of a person who needs to make himself be understood by a world that has betrayed him. At times, it felt like contemplating the most peaceful forest scenery, with leaves sighing at the caress of a soft breeze and the crack of dawn making its way inbetween the trunks. Other times, it felt like witnessing rage at its purest form, a rage that can't be questioned in the slightest so righteous it is. We could argue about what the loss of a child means in terms of the view one has about life, but "The blood of the lamb" makes this loss feel so incredibly final that any other thing that isn't it, including life itself, simply ceases to matter.
Believing in God after taking a walk in a children's cancer ward becomes impossible. And so does believing in existence, or even philosophizing about it as a concept. The cost at which de Vries gets his answers is unbearably high. In the end, he only gets that longed for, so-called peace with himself that he thought he'd find along the way after losing it all. And that's what makes this story truly heartbreaking.
March 3, 2021
I'm not sure where I first read about Peter De Vries, but, being of Dutch extraction myself and raised in the Reformed Church in America (my father a pastor, no less) while also in the West Michigan vicinity of Calvin College, I felt almost duty-bound to read De Vries once I was aware of his work and biography.
I started with Slouching Towards Kalamazoo, which was interesting and amusing and yet too erudite for me to fully enjoy. Even though I'm an English teacher, it's clear to me I have not read enough of the canon De Vries alludes to. It may be that the canon he grew up with is too different from the canon I grew up with, and that rationalization comforts me.
The Blood of the Lamb has some of that, but it also has more emotional heft. As a father, I found several of the lines relating to and reflecting on the death of a child to be searing.
Before I was even done with this book, I ordered two more from De Vries's oeuvre. I expect that I will read as much of his work as I can track down.
I realize this is not so much a review of this particular book as it is a declaration of intent as I embark on a journey, but for a dead author whose books are mostly if not entirely out of print, I presume De Vries would appreciate it nonetheless.
I started with Slouching Towards Kalamazoo, which was interesting and amusing and yet too erudite for me to fully enjoy. Even though I'm an English teacher, it's clear to me I have not read enough of the canon De Vries alludes to. It may be that the canon he grew up with is too different from the canon I grew up with, and that rationalization comforts me.
The Blood of the Lamb has some of that, but it also has more emotional heft. As a father, I found several of the lines relating to and reflecting on the death of a child to be searing.
Before I was even done with this book, I ordered two more from De Vries's oeuvre. I expect that I will read as much of his work as I can track down.
I realize this is not so much a review of this particular book as it is a declaration of intent as I embark on a journey, but for a dead author whose books are mostly if not entirely out of print, I presume De Vries would appreciate it nonetheless.
June 19, 2019
This book blew me away. It speaks to topics I have always been interested in - the precipice between faith and despair - in a way that is nuanced, contradictory, and ultimately, I think, true. I can’t believe we don’t talk about this one more.
July 16, 2020
Inconsistent quality throughout. At its great moments, dryly funny in a completely satisfying way, and at its best moments, completely searing. The last fifty-odd pages might be unparalleled.
(Yes, I'm a Dutch Calvinist from the greater Grand Rapids area - shh.)
(Yes, I'm a Dutch Calvinist from the greater Grand Rapids area - shh.)
November 25, 2017
If you read only one book by Peter De Vries, let it be this one. His incredible vocabulary, his dexterous verbal skills, and his pungent humor are all on display here, as in all his novels. But this novel was written in the wake of the death to leukemia of his young daughter, and he pours his heartache and his search for the God of his youth into this novel.
Hilarious comedic set pieces, a heart-tugging narrative of a young girl's illness, and a search for faith, all in one novel. Not a bad way to spend an evening.
Hilarious comedic set pieces, a heart-tugging narrative of a young girl's illness, and a search for faith, all in one novel. Not a bad way to spend an evening.
August 28, 2012
This was a book I started to read at the end of the last school year in June and had a really difficult time with because of the very personal nature of the subject matter. (The forward by Jeffrey Frank gets into this quite a bit, speaking about how De Vries was usually known for writing more comedic novels and how this is perhaps the closest he got to autobiography with his own life's tragedies.
But, to be fair, this book is really more balanced than I thought it would be. Most of the book doesn't dwell too much on tragedies and loss, though it begins and ends with it full circle. However, the middle is mainly filled with philosophizing about religion and medicine as well as the first person protagonist's womanizing and overall experiences being young and a little frivolous with life's experiences.
I think those who want a glimpse of Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s and also who are curious to know what the religious and medical thinking was like in the area will not be disappointed. The conversations are just lengthy enough for a decent taste but not so lengthy that they get tedious.
Memorable Quotes:
pg. 110 "Death is the commonest thing in the universe."
pg. 111 "You believe what you must in order to stave off the conviction that it's all a tale told by an idiot."
pg. 117 "Ninety percent of the universe is missing."
pg. 208 "Prove to me there is a God and I will really begin to despair."
pg. 214 "Thus it seemed to me that what you were up against in Stein was not logic rampant, but frustrated faith. He could not forgive God for not existing."
pg. 220 "I sat mesmerized in my own seat, transfixed in perhaps the most amazing midnight I had ever lived through, yet one possessing, in the dreamy dislocations of whit it formed a part, a weird, bland naturalness like that of a Chirico landscape, full of shadows infinitely longer than the objects casting them."
pg. 228 "We will seek out the leaves turning in the little praised bushes and the unadvertised trees."
pg. 237 "It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate. The scattered particles of self-love, wood, thrush calling, homework sums, broken nerves, rag dolls, one Phi Beta Kappa key, gold stars, lamplight smiles, night cries, and the shambles of contemplation-are collected for a split moment like scraps of shrapnel before they explode."
But, to be fair, this book is really more balanced than I thought it would be. Most of the book doesn't dwell too much on tragedies and loss, though it begins and ends with it full circle. However, the middle is mainly filled with philosophizing about religion and medicine as well as the first person protagonist's womanizing and overall experiences being young and a little frivolous with life's experiences.
I think those who want a glimpse of Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s and also who are curious to know what the religious and medical thinking was like in the area will not be disappointed. The conversations are just lengthy enough for a decent taste but not so lengthy that they get tedious.
Memorable Quotes:
pg. 110 "Death is the commonest thing in the universe."
pg. 111 "You believe what you must in order to stave off the conviction that it's all a tale told by an idiot."
pg. 117 "Ninety percent of the universe is missing."
pg. 208 "Prove to me there is a God and I will really begin to despair."
pg. 214 "Thus it seemed to me that what you were up against in Stein was not logic rampant, but frustrated faith. He could not forgive God for not existing."
pg. 220 "I sat mesmerized in my own seat, transfixed in perhaps the most amazing midnight I had ever lived through, yet one possessing, in the dreamy dislocations of whit it formed a part, a weird, bland naturalness like that of a Chirico landscape, full of shadows infinitely longer than the objects casting them."
pg. 228 "We will seek out the leaves turning in the little praised bushes and the unadvertised trees."
pg. 237 "It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate. The scattered particles of self-love, wood, thrush calling, homework sums, broken nerves, rag dolls, one Phi Beta Kappa key, gold stars, lamplight smiles, night cries, and the shambles of contemplation-are collected for a split moment like scraps of shrapnel before they explode."
September 9, 2014
De Vries is very witty and keenly aware of the contradictions and absurdities inherent in the human condition. His book asks many interesting questions about life, faith, our relationships with other people, and the ultimate meaning of all these. It sometimes veers a little too much into philosophy at the expense of plot, but for the most part it was interesting to see how these issues were addressed. Also, the first two-thirds or so of the book is pretty funny, if considerably darker than what I usually read (though that was nice for a change). The last third or so is heartbreaking in a compelling (rather than aversive) way. I also liked--didn't love, but liked--the writing style, which is similar in tone to Salinger but flows better and is somewhat more descriptive, at times poetic. But it sometimes gets overly wordy and self-consciously "clever." The novel is reminiscent of Salinger in other ways as well, so I'd guess you won't like it if you don't like Salinger.
While reading, I found myself appreciating many of the author's insights, feeling like he was touching upon important and universal issues in an interesting way, especially on the subjects of illness and suffering. However, while parts of the book suggest a kind of hopefulness, the ultimate message and emotional tone were too pessimistic (though tinged with a sort of determination that I could imagine appealing to some) for me to be as moved by it as I get the sense other readers have been. I was riveted by the way the book wrestles with deep questions about human nature, but I find myself unable to agree with the way it ultimately resolves them. To paraphrase a character in a book I read once, "I have the same questions, but I can't accept his answers." But I still appreciated being motivated to examine those questions, and seeing how the author resolved them.
While reading, I found myself appreciating many of the author's insights, feeling like he was touching upon important and universal issues in an interesting way, especially on the subjects of illness and suffering. However, while parts of the book suggest a kind of hopefulness, the ultimate message and emotional tone were too pessimistic (though tinged with a sort of determination that I could imagine appealing to some) for me to be as moved by it as I get the sense other readers have been. I was riveted by the way the book wrestles with deep questions about human nature, but I find myself unable to agree with the way it ultimately resolves them. To paraphrase a character in a book I read once, "I have the same questions, but I can't accept his answers." But I still appreciated being motivated to examine those questions, and seeing how the author resolved them.
August 18, 2009
I enjoyed this book but I will leave the review to James Calvin Schaap.
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
I finished Peter De Vries's Blood of the Lamb last night, for the second time. I read it initially sometime in the Sixties, four or five years after it was published, at a time in my life when I loved the irreverence he wields at his tribe--the Dutch Reformed people into which he and I were both born. De Vries mocked us but good, for our silliness and the sometime idiocy of our piety.
...
There is humor in Blood of the Lamb too, Don Wanderhope and his father, aboard their garbage truck, slowly sinking like the Titanic into the primordial ooze of some Chicago-land refuse pit. Scared to death, they break out with--what else?--the doxology.
But far and away, Blood of the Lamb is not a funny novel--not at all, even though forty years ago, when I first read it, I thought it was a hoot. But then, I was a kid, a rebel chafing under the strictures of De Vries's own ethnic and religious heritage, a heritage in process of cataclysmic change. It was the Sixties, after all, and little, if any of our lives were left untouched by the seismic cultural shifts of the era. At twenty, I read Peter De Vries's Blood of the Lamb and laughed.
Forty years later, I almost cried...
April 19, 2012
A number of great American novelists from the 20th Century are disaffected or 'wrestling' Catholics; De Vries wrestles with his Dutch Reformed background. De Vries is frequently compared to Thurber or Mark Twain - he has rare gift of writing with great humor and tragedy, often in the same paragraph.
There were two main things I got out of this short but powerful read. First, 'The Blood of the Lamb' came out in 1961, and it has a 'Mad Men' era feel to the struggles and questions that may have faced nominal Protestant men of that time. You may get some insight into how the 'Silent Generation' dealt with money, a desire for sophistication (and the problems that go with it), sex, and God.
'Blood of the Lamb' is mainly known, however, for the loss of the narrator's only daughter to a battle with leukemia. De Vries lost a daughter himself to this evil cancer, and the writing of the last 75 pages is beautiful but harrowing. Highly recommended to Pastors and others dealing with parents struggling with grief; especially for those who may be struggling with God.
There were two main things I got out of this short but powerful read. First, 'The Blood of the Lamb' came out in 1961, and it has a 'Mad Men' era feel to the struggles and questions that may have faced nominal Protestant men of that time. You may get some insight into how the 'Silent Generation' dealt with money, a desire for sophistication (and the problems that go with it), sex, and God.
'Blood of the Lamb' is mainly known, however, for the loss of the narrator's only daughter to a battle with leukemia. De Vries lost a daughter himself to this evil cancer, and the writing of the last 75 pages is beautiful but harrowing. Highly recommended to Pastors and others dealing with parents struggling with grief; especially for those who may be struggling with God.
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