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lilacs_book_bower's review
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
4.5
So good. Excellent read for Lent.
earth_and_silver's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
5.0
Ok. Having given it a fair second read, I feel I am a little better able to review this weird and wonderful book.
Jay's work here is full of wild places, thin places, legends and life and rot and ruins and the little chinks and chasms between what we know and what we wonder. It is a work of fiction with deep roots in reality. It is a work of hope with deep roots in death. And occasionally it contains things you might not expect in a religious book, like screaming rage at God for the abuses of His churchfolk, and speculation about the sexuality of female saints.
At its heart, I think, is something very delicate and tender. A seed that could become a whole forest of awe, if you listen and let it grow, or could just as easily be dismissed and tossed aside for its oddities.
evenstr's review
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
jessoehrlein's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
4.75
As usual, an entirely too long list of favorites:
*"An Almost Pilgrimage" -- The last few lines here are just everything about how it feels sometimes to be looking for God.
*"I'm not saying I talk to the dead, but the Saint and I chatted" -- "Robert, if you're listening, intercede for me" as a line just really really hit me
*"The Diocese has upheld your complaint of abuse" -- the anger and horror and desire to call out
*"Replacing the flowers on St. Valentine's head" -- The frankness around nature, death, relics, and religion in this one worked so well for me
*"'What rage or madness drives you?'" -- So I first saw this one when Jay posted it online, advertising the anthology, and the last stanza made me want to cry. I feel this very much.
*"The Holy Family" -- I love all kinds of different ways of thinking about the holy family, and this was lovely and has Opinions.
*"The Temptation of Simeon Theodochos" -- I knew the Anna & Simeon story, and then I started praying compline sometimes and got ~feelings~ about it. Also, separately, some wrestling with stuff around death. And this gets it.
*"The Creation of Adam" -- I think this one hit me because we had just been talking about this in Sunday school, but it's such a generous, insightful reading.
*Both "In the Pit Beneath Caiaphas's House" and "God as a Carpenter; hands shot through with nails" for capturing moments in the Good Friday story that really get at Jesus as both human and divine.
My list of favorites doesn't fully capture this, but I love how much this book was shaped by Jay's work as a churchwarden, by his care for an old cemetery, by interactions with an ornithologist. The medieval saints inspiration is strongest in the early part of the collection, but that reckoning with death and nature continues throughout. It's a book that is very, very embodied in ways that are meaningful to me.
*"An Almost Pilgrimage" -- The last few lines here are just everything about how it feels sometimes to be looking for God.
*"I'm not saying I talk to the dead, but the Saint and I chatted" -- "Robert, if you're listening, intercede for me" as a line just really really hit me
*"The Diocese has upheld your complaint of abuse" -- the anger and horror and desire to call out
*"Replacing the flowers on St. Valentine's head" -- The frankness around nature, death, relics, and religion in this one worked so well for me
*"'What rage or madness drives you?'" -- So I first saw this one when Jay posted it online, advertising the anthology, and the last stanza made me want to cry. I feel this very much.
*"The Holy Family" -- I love all kinds of different ways of thinking about the holy family, and this was lovely and has Opinions.
*"The Temptation of Simeon Theodochos" -- I knew the Anna & Simeon story, and then I started praying compline sometimes and got ~feelings~ about it. Also, separately, some wrestling with stuff around death. And this gets it.
*"The Creation of Adam" -- I think this one hit me because we had just been talking about this in Sunday school, but it's such a generous, insightful reading.
*Both "In the Pit Beneath Caiaphas's House" and "God as a Carpenter; hands shot through with nails" for capturing moments in the Good Friday story that really get at Jesus as both human and divine.
My list of favorites doesn't fully capture this, but I love how much this book was shaped by Jay's work as a churchwarden, by his care for an old cemetery, by interactions with an ornithologist. The medieval saints inspiration is strongest in the early part of the collection, but that reckoning with death and nature continues throughout. It's a book that is very, very embodied in ways that are meaningful to me.