Month: January 2005 (Page 2 of 2)

I am a long-time fan of Shusaku Endo, the Japanese writer. I have read (I think) nearly all of his books available in English translation. I discovered this book of short stories during my recent adventure at the St Paul Public Library.

If you have read Silence or any of the other Endo novels, you might find this collection interesting. He used many of the short stories (and, to be accurate, personal essays) as exercises for working out many of the characters that appear in other novels.

If you read one Endo novel, I’d recommend Silence or Deep River.

If your tastes run more to nonfiction, I highly recommend his A Life of Jesus, one of the most thoughtful and moving retellings of the Christian story that I have read. Note: in The Final Martyrs is an essay talking about the experience of writing Life and he mentions that he re-wrote it, feeling very dis-satisfied with the original edition. I’d like to read both editions now, to see if I can understand his feelings.

I finished Frank’s Kansas much quicker than I expected (though it bears a more thorough re-read) and picked up Chaim Potok’s novel from my in-laws’ shelf. It got me thinking about the complicated feelings America has toward the Jews who live here and in Israel, and the horrific events of the Shoah.

On that thread, I highly recommend James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword. I read it a couple summers ago and was all fired up to start a grad program in ancient Jewish studies…till my lack of ancient Hebrew finally got in my way. A piercing history of the Church and the Jews. There are lots of holes in his academic theories, but they are very interesting holes, and his case is very compelling.