The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

Book Review by Zinta Aistars

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics; Reissue edition (September 6, 1983)
• Price: $6.95
• ISBN-10: 0451523482
• ISBN-13: 978-0451523488

If there is one test that tries all equally, it is the test of time. What is merely a statement of a fad, or a passing whim, quickly fades away. What lasts, thick and thin, good times and bad, passing through fashion and invention and change, proves itself worthy. So has Nathanael West's short novel, The Day of the Locust, passed its test of time. Written in and about the 1930s, it is a portrait of the most superficial of places: Hollywood. And, aside from progress in computerized special effects and the ever quickening turnaround of superstar marriages and divorces, what has changed about this town and its culture? Ah, nothing. The superficial reigns.

West calls to stage a most colorful array of, some might say, "freaks." But perhaps that is too harsh. These are misfits and fantasizers and wildly hopefuls. There is the actress part-timing as a prostitute, the cowboy without a ranch, the drunken dwarf, the lonely and geekish hotel bookkeeper in stupid devotion to the actress who never quite knows what to do with his immense hands, the screenwriter with a rubber horse in his swimming pool, the obnoxious and precocious child star, and a string of other unusuals that, in Hollywood, are all too usual. Their backdrops and scenarios are no less so: cockfights and porn flick screenings, questionable deaths, business schemes based on anatomy overthinking brain. It's all here. And West handles it all like a fine juggling act, never dropping the ball.

His grand finale is indeed grand. It is what brings to mind the locust. This seething insect that acts en masse and without thinking, following just to follow, stampeding and destroying all in its ravenous path, yet not without eruptions of the grotesque.

Perhaps what makes this all so moving is that Hollywood brings to spotlight what, after all, exists everywhere. Only here it is the stuff of which movies are made. Or, in this case, a masterly piece of fine literature.

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Book Review by Zinta Aistars

• Hardcover: 334 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (October 1, 2002)
• Price: $19.99
  
• ISBN-10: 0310205719
• ISBN-13: 978-0310205715

I bypassed this book for a long time, naturally resistant to anything that smacks of "fad," however well-intentioned. My thinking tends to be that anything with such mass appeal tends to be watered down in order to appeal to the greatest number. Then again, Christianity and its manual for life, the Bible, have had more mass appeal than just about anything one could name in human history. And so, at last, I made this book a part of my personal spiritual journey and exploration.

Rick Warren, a pastor and Christian writer, has organized his book into six parts, each into short sections numbering 40, meant to be read one section per day. That is how I read it. Makes sense, because each section is just enough to offer a daily meditation that, if rushed, would fail to properly be "tried on for size" in daily life. Warren's purpose in this book is, after all, to transform the reader's life - via a point-by-point analysis of understanding of why we are here, living beings on earth, in a life that often seems painfully meaningless and chaotic. If there is one main underlying purpose to remember, then, it is that we are not here for our own individual purposes, but for the purpose of serving God. All else if off the mark.

Warren's writing style is clear and easy to read in layman's terms. He uses many different biblical translations to bolster his point, and he chooses well. Each of the 40 days ends with a "point to ponder," a "verse to remember," and, finally, a "question to consider," that urges the reader to apply what has just been read to practical, everyday living. His topics addressed range from understanding worship and its purpose, cultivating relationships and community, transformation through truth and temptation (resisting it, suffering from it, being brought down by it), restoring our broken fellowships, being servants not only to God but to each other, finding balance, respecting our commitments, even learning acceptance of the shape and form of the physical bodies God has given us to inhabit. He covers pretty much everything.

Was I transformed by reading this book? Perhaps not entirely. Although something in me is surely transformed to some degree by all that I take in and consider, all that I give out to others, even in the writing of such a review as this. Warren gave me pause to ponder, and surely I am at least a little better for it. I've read various theologians in their criticisms of this book, and it could be I simply lack the theological background to give much heed to their criticisms, but in general, I see much good in this book, and its mission of giving pause to its readers to consider the meaning of their lives - successful. If I haven't given it an entirely standing ovation, it may be that I might have wanted a few more specific and practical suggestions, but I would freely recommend it to anyone who is grappling with this age-old question of: "What on earth am I here for?" It could provide some much needed guidelines.

The Handmaid and The Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg

Book Review by Zinta Aistars

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Random House, 2006
• Price: $17.95
• ISBN-10: 1400065380
• ISBN-13: 978-1400065387

I was pleased to come across an Elizabeth Berg novel in a Christian bookstore, shopping for gifts appropriate to the holiday season. Prior to spotting this novel, I had thought of Berg only as a "secular" novelist, albeit a good one, and to find this familiar name among Christian literature seemed a bonus.

The topic is, of course, as old as Christianity. How to write it new and fresh? I chose the novel as a gift for a young niece who enjoys reading and is currently in a place of spiritual seeking - and how refreshing to find such literary treasure at this season increasingly becoming known for anything but the spiritual. Would Berg succeed? I had time enough before wrapping to read the book myself, and I did so in a day, intrigued.

It is not about the child born to Mary, not nearly as much as it is the tender love story between Mary and Joseph. Woven into the well known spiritual tale was a pleasing human element: the vulnerability of love, the flush of romance, the fears and insecurities of opening a very human heart to another, along with the very understandable doubts and questioning when faced with events only a divine intervention could explain away. Berg succeeds on these fronts. The tale becomes a pleasing literary backdrop to the story we know in the gospels. Mary is the strong woman with independent spirit that we would expect her to be; Joseph is the devoted and loving husband he would have to be to stand beside her, quite human in his occasional wondering about the story he must accept if he is to accept her as his wife - his doubts are ever so human, his overcoming those doubts ever so faithful.

Berg's novel won't stand alongside some of the great Christian-themed tomes such as the Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain or Exodus by Leon Uris. But for a young woman looking to relate to a love in pure heart and pure spirit, tender with inspiration, adding humanity to the divine, Berg's novel is just right, perhaps leading a reader towards deeper reads such as the aforementioned.