The poet Christian Wiman is giving voice to the hunger for faith — and the challenges of faith — for people living now. After a Texas upbringing soaked in a history of violence and a charismatic Christian culture, he was agnostic until he became actively religious again in his late 30s. Then he was diagnosed with a rare form of incurable blood cancer. He’s bearing witness to something new happening in himself and in the world.
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New York Times on ‘My Bright Abyss,’ by Christian Wiman
‘My Bright Abyss,’ by Christian Wiman reviewed at the NYT:
This is a daring and urgent book, written after the author learned he had a rare, incurable and unpredictable cancer. But it is not a conventional memoir of illness and treatment. Beyond informing us that he received his dire news in a “curt voice mail message,” Christian Wiman says very little about his experience of the medical world. He is after bigger game. More than any other contemporary book I know, “My Bright Abyss” reveals what it can mean to experience St. Benedict’s admonition to keep death daily before your eyes.
New York Times on ‘My Bright Abyss,’ by Christian Wiman
‘My Bright Abyss,’ by Christian Wiman reviewed at the NYT:
This is a daring and urgent book, written after the author learned he had a rare, incurable and unpredictable cancer. But it is not a conventional memoir of illness and treatment. Beyond informing us that he received his dire news in a “curt voice mail message,” Christian Wiman says very little about his experience of the medical world. He is after bigger game. More than any other contemporary book I know, “My Bright Abyss” reveals what it can mean to experience St. Benedict’s admonition to keep death daily before your eyes.
My Brother's Book by Maurice Sendak
I think most of this very short book just went over my head. I’m not real knowledgeable about his life or the literature and art from which it seems to draw its inspiration. And while I can appreciate it to some degree my overall reaction was “interesting but rather dull.”
Continue readingThe Singer by Calvin Miller
For most who live, hell is never knowing who they are. The Singer knew and knowing was his torment. Recalling the popularity of The Singer: A Classic Retelling of Cosmic Conflict by Calvin Miller when I was younger, and having a vaguely positive recollection of reading and enjoying it as a teenager, when I saw… Continue reading
Mrs. Scrooge by Carol Ann Duffy
I realize it isn’t even Thanksgiving so perhaps I shouldn’t be reviewing Christmas books just yet. But I thought I would offer a quick take on this slim volume now otherwise I would probably forget to write about it come Christmas. Here is the publisher’s blurb for Mrs. Scrooge: A Christmas Poem by Carol Ann… Continue reading
NYTBR on The Anthologist
I am not a big poetry person so I was a little worried about reading The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker. The NYTBR review makes me want to read it however: And let’s face it, stories involving poets tend to be hokey or, worse, excruciatingly literary. Maybe the spires of libraries rise darkly in the gloaming;… Continue reading
Eliot and His Age
Had he lived, T.S. Eliiot would be 120 on Friday. With that in mind, allow me to recommend this John J. Miller interview with Benjamin Lockerd on Russell Kirk’s Eliot and His Age.