The Best Books of 2011: as told by Me

Please note that these books are arranged in no important order, and that exactly 0 of them were published in 2011. Well, ahem:

Best Books of 2011
Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
Autobiography of a Reformed Jewish girl turned Orthodox Jew turned Episcopalian. It's beautifully written, intelligent, meaningful, and hilarious. As a friend described it, "I kind of hate her. It's like, I love her, but I want to be her at the same time".

Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
All of these are autobiographical non-fiction. These books I group together because it took reading through the first two of them before I loved Anne Lamott. At first, I passionately hated her. Though I disagree with some of the things she says, I've ultimately learned a lot from her. Anne Lamott stretched my understanding of sin, love, and faith. She's also hilarious and a very good writer. The third book, Bird by Bird, is primarily advice for beginning writers.

Housekeeping and Home by Marilynne Robinson
Two lovely texts by the patron saint of creative writing. I love this woman. The only problem with her writing is that I love all of it completely. It's a mystical experience every time. Her stories are all slow moving, and I love this, because she writes at the pace of my own soul. Home is the sequel to Gilead, an epistolary novel and one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I cried through both of them. Housekeeping is a simply exquisite work of fiction. It's beautiful language, image, and narrative.

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
This fall I tried to read more plays and this is what came of it. I mean, this is my favorite out of the dozen or so that I read. This is the play from which we get the more familiar film, My Fair Lady. I have to say that George Bernard Shaw is generally heavily political and long-winded. I liked Pygmalion because I think he was more focused on real human interaction: Eliza, Prof. Higgins, and the relationship between them. It was entirely enjoyable, if enjoyable includes both the hilarious and the heart-wrenching.

Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
Another epistolary novel. It's perfect fall reading, as it's a book about school. Everybody knows that books about school and orphans make for good reading. It's humorous, sweet and makes me want to go to an all-girls college.

Phantastes and At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
George MacDonald is the patron saint of everything. I love this man. This year, I re-read Phantastes after reading At the Back of the North Wind. He's just so good at what he does. What does he do? He takes gigantic, universal themes and gives them to you in beautiful, gloriously-simple fairy tales. He's bursting with truth, light, and beauty. It's like carrying a star in your pocket. It's wonderful.

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O' Connor
Another book largely about writing. I have a secret delight in reading writers talking about the craft of writing. It makes me feel better about my own lack of discipline in that area. In this book, Flannery mockingly and helpfully presents the writing life and the purpose of writing.

Revelation by St. John & the Holy Spirit
Not a first read, but this year Revelation suddenly made sense. I think I made it past all of the bewildering discussions of "pre vs. post-trib" and finally came to see the drama of the book itself. I love it; it's well written, mystical, prophetic, and, as I've recently discovered, unbelievably straightforward. God wins! Revelation is a new favorite.

Pensées by Pascal
Read this for school, back in the early days of 2011 when I was still a student. I loved this because it's like philosophy for the literary. It is beautifully written and has a heart. I don't know how else to say it.

Emma by Jane Austen
Of course I've seen the movies 12,000 times. But, I've somehow never made it through the book before. I'm amazed upon this read to see aspects of myself in Emma Woodhouse. I, too, fall prey to my own imaginative speculations. Shocking, I know.

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
I didn't like Henry James before I read it, and I didn't even like this work until I was about 150 pages in, but I did really enjoy it. I was surprised, which is the main thing. The characters feel like real people. Good work, Henry.

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
Hard to categorize, but harder to read. Boethius sort of socks you in the belly and makes you consider life's hardest questions. Why is there suffering? Boethius can tell you. Read him.

I don't generally like "best of" lists. But now I've posted for the last time in 2011. Ha!
Let's all choose to believe that I'll post more frequently in 2012. Bonne Année!

Vision of The Grotesque & The Beautiful

I hate ugliness. I hate ugliness so much that I try not to see it, to hear it, to smell it, or to conceive of it in any way that reveals its presence to me. I look at the world through a lens that denies the presence of what is ugly. No, not a vision of denial, but a vision of discontent. I look at things only to wish them more beautiful. I see wilting roses and picture them whole, full, devoid of brownish edges or insect perforations. It extends to all my senses. I attempt to keep out of my ears the noises of the world--television, radio stations, muzak in grocery stores--noise being its own kind of ugliness. There is a large medical building in my city painted a tawdry muddy-orange color. It makes me angry, it might have been prettier.

This vision of discontent, of continual demand for perfection from an imperfect world, may be a gift. Otherwise, it is my own ugliness. An ugliness that wants always to deny the imperfections of real things. It's not a blindness, it's a judging vision. It's been said that prophets are afflicted with divine discontent, and I like to believe that it is this affliction I bear. This kind of affliction made people like Amy Carmichael and George Mueller take in hundreds of street children, it's the kind that fuels abolition movements and unreasonable demands for justice--because these people were dissatisfied with what is. Lately though, I am in doubt.

This week I finished Mystery and Manners, a posthumous collection of prose by Flannery O' Connor. I love St. Flannery for so many reasons. First, because she is an excellent writer. Second, because she is right about everything. Third, because her own spiritual and artistic vision is so perfectly shaped and presented. She has left nothing out. This being said, it is disconcerting to be at odds with Flannery in my own way of looking at the world. But then, maybe I am not. Flannery is all about observation: she is concerned with looking at and recognizing what is present in the natural world in order to faithfully reveal its link to supernature. Nature pairs with grace & mystery with manners, Flannery tells us. Thus, her vision of the world involves judgment, because she sees the ultimate reality of the Triune God making himself known to us. And, along with this, she sees the rebellion and misery of humanity in fighting against this, its own perfect end. But what strikes me most is that Flannery concerns herself so much with seeing what is there and presenting exactly this to the reader. Her characters are often people who are physically ugly, as well as being spiritually so. Perhaps this is where our vision differs. I see what is there and in my own mind's eye strive to correct, to improve, to soften it's garishness. Flannery even extols the benefits of drawing classes for young novelists, drawing being an activity that helps you to see what is there. Flannery's thorough perception recognizes what is there and serves it to you raw and unedited--grotesque humanity on a silver platter of truth.

Do I shun the grotesque? Or do I, like Flannery, see the world and human nature in it's impoverished state and yearn for what it ought to be? For what it may be? In my view of the world do I miss something? Am I ignoring the downtrodden? The broken-hearted? The least of these?

The smelly, filthy, homeless, disabled man on the bus is grotesque. I sit with him in a vehicle with large, glassy windows that let in the light. Together we travel, our lives drowned out under the roar of the engine. But I sit there because I can't escape. I politely breathe through my mouth instead of covering my nose so that he will not realize the smell of him makes me afraid. I look at him and think detached, philosophical thoughts about humanity and its depravity. Is that the way to look at the grotesque? I sit there with him and think about other things, with my nose stuck in a book, ignoring the present scents of disaster and decay to picture clean skin, beds of lavender, rain-washed air.

To see the grotesque do I have to love it? Or merely embrace its presence? Are loving and embracing one act?

Am I looking for the good beneath the ugliness? Or am I simply trying to recognize and greet the presence of the ugly?

I know it is wrong to only love what is beautiful. Or rather, is it wrong to love what only appears beautiful? Love is not concerned, perhaps, with the goodness of the thing loved; but with willing and bringing good to the object of the love.

And what am I to think of my own grotesqueness? God does not love me because I am beautiful. He loves me even though I am ugly. And in this love his beauty is communicated to me. If the call is merely to love, then my response ought to be constant, loving, attentiveness.

Yes! This is it, attention well paid, a certain homage performed. A recognition of presence. The presence of the grotesque.


and the real always trumps the imagined
as the invisible transcends the perceived


Are perfection, beauty, & goodness the result of that loving attentiveness? Do I look at what is and love it because it ought to be higher? Love it for what it could be? Love it to make it rise?

I am on a quest to use my imaginative faculty for good. I want to know how to see what is there, but not in a dull complacency that makes me wring my hands. Nor in a zeal for perfection that makes me sweep over any good concealed. Rather, I want to cultivate a welcoming attentiveness that helps me to see the good that is present--for what is good is better than what is beautiful. I think.


Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.