10 writers with appropriate adjectives

1. Aesop - fabulous
2. Homer - epic
3. Thomas Malory - legendary
4. J R R Tolkien - fantastic
5. Edgar Allan Poe - terrific
6. Lewis Carroll - wonderful
7. John Grisham - definitive
8. Khaled Hosseini - splendid
9. F X Toole - knock out
10. Ralph Ellison and H G Wells - both out of sight

Sycamore Row

So not having read a John Grisham for a while I enjoyed the latest, Sycamore Row, on Kindle. Typically, while not being great literature, it is interesting, well told and very enjoyable. Grisham has a knack of assembling the right number of characters, fixing them on your mind and interesting you in their story. Wealth is always in the background and plenty of coffee is drunk and food consumed - how much that lures you in I'm not sure. For me there are also constant references to church life and this time the whole matter of forgiveness is raised (Grisham is some sort of Baptist). There are also occasional statistical sound bites too, like the number of lynchings in America. The man's a genius.

Christmas Books

One of the joys of Christmas is getting books as gifts. I did well this year with about eight altogether plus a Big book of Knowlege from one of my sons. There's not been muchtime to read them so far. They are

1. Britannica Guide to India
2. The Pedant's return
3. Giles Collection 2012 (cartoons)
4. The Litigators John Grisham
6. The Lives of the novelists John Sutherland
7. The Holy Spirit Geoff Thomas
8. Ministry by his grace and for his glory in honour of Tom Nettles

Five Christmas films

1. Arthur Christmas (2011)
2. Elf (2003)
3. Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
4. Millions (2004)
5. Nativity (2006)

I seem to have watched more Christmas movies than usual this year. BTW the whole subject area is problematic and I have no time to discuss theology or the baneful influence of the Father Christmas myth. Meanwhile let me say

1. Yesterday it was Arthur Christmas with two of the (older) boys who hadn't seen it either at the cinema. Highly competent it was a fine film though it could have benefited from being 10 or 20 minutes shorter. As is so often done the Christmas myth has been taken up and adapted to produce a heart warming and fun story in impossible cartoon style. If only life was so simple. No high spots in this film but quite a spectacle in some ways.

2. A couple of weeks or so back I watched our Elf DVD with two of the boys. It's often been on in the background but I'd never watched it until then. It's an excellent comedy exploring the oft visited theme of an innocent abroad, an elf in New York on this occasion. Great fun. I love Will Ferrell's reaction when told that his father is on the naughty list. Arthur does show a similar spirit with his "A child's been missed!" but not as funny.3. More recently I joined the boys watching Christmas with the Kranks on DVD. I have a soft spot for this as I read the book first - John Grisham's Skipping Christmas and on that basis we all saw it in the cuinema when it came out. It's okay and very Christmassy with the usual Hollywood optimism thrown in but hardly a great film, I guess. It got panned at the time. I liked Tim Allen's botox scene.

4. Then this afternoon Dylan was looking for a film and found Danny Boyle's film Millions on BBC iplayer. This is technically not a Christmas film but no doubt was on TV for its Christmas content. Coming out of a Roman Catholic milieu and raising various ethical issues it was a great alternative Christmas film and as a comedy is as good as anything in this list. Well worth seeking out. Apparently the screenplay was written in response to an interview remark by Martin Scorsese about reading the lives of the saints. The book "Six O'Clock Saints" from the fifties is very much at the heart of the story. (Perhaps the worst scene in the film features St Peter supposedly giving that old liberal rubbish about the feeding of the 5000 being just a matter of sharing).

5. Nativity has been on TV today. We may have the DVD somewhere. I've never watched it all the way through. It looks like fun.

Grisham The Confession

Having read one or two John Grisham's some years ago and being an obsessive I try to read all he writes. I think this is the latest. I took it on the plane to Kenya. It focuses on the death penalty as apparently practiced in Texas and makes for a very good and easy read. You get both a good story and a mildly stimulating opportunity to think over some of the issues with regard to that matter. A bonus for me was perhaps that the hero is a clergyman (a Lutheran minister). That gave Grisham (a Baptist I believe but decidedly liberal) opportunity to say one or two interesting things that I might share in a separate blog. It also helped with the title, I guess. I also spotted a brief namecheck for Nick Needham (a detective mentioned at the beginning and end adn nothing to do with the Inverness pastor adn church historian).

The Spoiler Problem

Spoiler alert! (possibly necessary)

I've just started reading John Grisham's The Associate. I'm reading it because someone gave me a book token and having read nearly everything by Grisham I like to try and keep up. I knew nothing about the book before starting beyond knowing Grisham's usual favourite subjects. Having got through the opening chapters I then read the blurb on the back, which basically sets out the plot. I am very glad I read those opening chapters without it as at first it seems to be quite a different book and so I was able to enjoy the main characters own confusion much more than I would have if I had read the blurb. This is a general problem with fiction, of course. How much do you give away?

I will never forget the surprise and joy one night when, having been dragged off to see Enchanted the cartoon suddenly (and for me quite unexpectedly) turned from a second rate cartoon into a well crafted live action film!

The subject also reminds of how I once watched the 1984 film Passage to India which was rather spoiled for me because I had read some blurb about another film of the same year, Jewel in the Crown, and assumed it applied to the former. Both set in India the films have some similarities in their plot lines but are far from identical.

So what do we actually do about it? People are generally aware of the problem and so the use of the words "spoiler alert" as above are now quite common. Part of the problem is that sometimes it is useful to know ahead the subject matter or certain plot turns and sometimes it isn't.

*

One application of all this is to reading the Bible. I well remember doing a Bible study at a camp once and a teenage girl finding out that Noah got drunk after he came from the ark. She greeted the news with all the disappointment it deserves. Similarly, I remember my mother telling me how when she first read from Scripture the life of David, she kept thinking "God's not going to forgive him this time - and yet he does!" Priceless. On the negative side I remember hearing someone doing a children's talk and mentioning the death of Lazarus as a rather inconsequential thing (probably because he knew what was coming next). Somehow as we read the Bible we need to keep it fresh even though we know it so well. Blessed are the poor in spirit!! A Samaritan! The father ran to him? You know what I mean.

The Appeal John Grisham

One unmentioned penchant is the novels of John Grisham. Some years ago we stayed in a house that had a collection of novels by John Grisham and I read The Testament partly for its religious content (Grisham has a Southern Baptist background). I enjoyed it and being obsessive I went on to read most of his other novels. I'm slightly behind at present (I've missed the factual one and the non-legal Playing for Pizza one but have read the others). I recently read his latest novel The Appeal which is written in his usual easy undemanding style but raises interesting issues regarding Christians and involvement in politics. it traces the machinations that lead to changes on the Mississippi Supreme Court so that an evangelical Christian comes to power. Grisham's own liberal Baptist agenda intrudes a little but it is a thought provoking piece and good fun. The final line is very good - "now that he had three billion, he really wanted six." For more on Grisham see here. The line "His extended vacation from hard-hitting fiction is over" sounds about right for me. More here.