The Emmaus Readers: Listening for God in Contemporary Fiction ed. by Susan M. Felch and Gary D. Schmidt (review)

• Published in: Christianity & literature Vol. 60; no. 2; pp. 358 - 361
• Main Author: Zinck, Arlette
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Malibu Johns Hopkins University Press 2011
• Subjects: Children; Christianity; Compassion; Conversation; Fiction; Graphic novels; Literary characters; Literature; Narrative techniques; Narrative theme; Questions; Readers; Readership; Reading; Schmidt, Gary D; Silence; Spirituality; Subjectivity; Theme
• ISSN: 0148-3331; 2056-5666

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 358 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE social reform and a compassion for those normally kept on the other side of sacred thresholds. He understands that the Rev. Emmett in Tyler's Saint Maybe is not a meddler in the grief-filled life of Ian Bedloe but a pastor who bluntly calls the sinful to holiness by way of accountability and reparation. He appreciates that the Rev. Margaret Bonner in Godwin's Evensong is not to be taken for granted, for she is that rarity in southern fiction, a female priest facing the everyday struggles and graces of her vocation. If Ramsey reads southern fiction to gain insights into the ministry, he also writes out of his own ministry to provide insights into southern fiction. Gary M. Ciuba Kent State University The Emmaus Readers: Listening for God in Contemporary Fiction. Edited by Susan M. Felch and Gary D. Schmidt. Brewster, Mass: Paraclete Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-55725-543-3. Pp xii + 206. $17.95. As the description on the back cover of The Emmaus Readers declares, this is a volume "Designed for reading groups, book clubs, librarians and any individual reader who simply loves novels that explore spiritual issues relevant to daily life:' This is not an academic study, although it is produced by a group of academics. Whether or not this book will be of interest to readers of Christianity and Literature will depend on how many among the journal's readership also fall into these other categories. My guess is that many will, and most of these will find this volume a helpful resource for its intended purpose. As the following review will make clear, the single limitation with this volume is that its authors have distanced their academic theorizing from this project. In doing so, they missed an opportunity to reflect on their own reading practices and to forward a conversation about how one reads wellfrom a Christian perspective, and about the methods and theoretical assumptions that make a life-giving reading possible. The Emmaus Readers is a collection of readers' guides to twelve books. Each of the twelve entries contains a synopsis of the novel, author's biography, and review of the issues raised in the novel, study questions for each individual book, and an integrative set of questions for each section as well as a list for further reading for each of the twelvenovels. The collection itself is organized in four thematic clusters, and around a line extracted from Horatio Spafford'sVictorian era hymn "It Is Well with my Soul:' The trajectory of thought in this collection of essays moves from a meditation on God's silence in suffering to the triumphant pronouncement that all is indeed "well with my soul:' The first selection of four novels explores the moments when "sorrows like sea billows roll:' The essays on Ron Hanson's Mariette in Ecstasy, PD. James' The Children ofMen, and Maria Dora Russell'scompanion novels The Sparrow and The BOOK REVIEWS 359 Children of God draw readers' attention to the subtle exploration of the theme of sorrows and the ensuing doubts about God's omnipotence and goodness in worlds where sorrows are abundant. The second set of novels explores the limited vision that yearns for fulfillment of the biblical promise that we shall see "not in part but the whole:' Essays on David Gutersons Snow Falling on Cedars, Nicole Mazzarella's This Heavy Silence, and Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner's graphic novel The Road to Perdition investigate this theme ofpartial vision as it is employed as both a narrative technique (for example, the first quarter ofSnow Falling on Cedars is a mystery story) and as a more subtle theme in the interactions among the characters. In the third cluster of novels, limited vision is explored from another angle. The section titled "Thou has taught me to say" probes issues of subjectivity, and the relativity of truth through discussions of Leif Engers' Peace Like a River, Yann Martel's TheLife ofPi, and Ian McEwan's Atonement. The essays foreground questions posed by the novels themselves: which of Pi's stories is believable and why? What does one make of the "bleakest realism" related in...