By Design: Book Review (ish)

Almost a year ago I began working with Dr. Martha MacCullough, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Cairn University to shape her manuscript on educational philosophy into a book. I learned a lot about the editing process, educational philosophy, page layout, and the awesome name pairings of educational scholars (seriously, "Chubb and Moe"? "Long and Frye"? "Bigge and Shermis"? I came to the conclusion they should either open pubs or start law firms). It's been a long, crazy journey, and once or twice I wasn't sure we'd ever get this thing done in time...

But last week, just in time for the first classes to use it, By Design: Developing a Philosophy of Education Informed by a Christian Worldview showed up from the printer, looking all spiffy.

The educators who have reviewed the book are singing its praises already. I'll let you read their notes rather than giving you my own, as I put too much work into this one to be objective, but I think we can look forward to it being useful and helpful for Christian educators around the globe in the future. For now, though, it's a matter of getting the word out. By Design is available for sale now from the Cairn website and will be available in other venues soon. Check out the first chapter on the site, and tell your Christian friends who teach – whether it be in a Christian school, home schooling, or even in public schools – that this is a resource for them.

Book Info:
By Design: Developing a Philosophy of Education Informed by a Christian Worldview
by Martha E. MacCullough, Ed.D.
Cairn University, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0-615-74352-3

The Gospel According to Eliot

This winter, I'm taking part in a virtual reading group hosted by Greener Trees. We're going through the book The Art of T.S. Eliot, by Helen Gardner. I adore Eliot's Four Quartets, so Gardner's examination of Eliot's work through the lens of that great work has been right up my alley.

I was asked to write a guest post for Chapter Three of Gardner's book, "Poetic Communication." In the chapter Gardner looks at the methods Eliot used to communicate ideas through his poetic medium. I was struck by the artful way Eliot uses words to examine spiritual concepts, without ever being "churchy." He wrestles with and through the difficulty of finding the right words for his ideas. An excerpt:

"And in spite of all this, Eliot chooses to write. He attempts to use words to communicate. Not only that, but in Four Quartets Eliot attempts to communicate ideas which are spiritual, deep, broad, and resonant. He compounds his own struggles, reaching – as those of us too timid to try it might say – perhaps higher than he should. Helen Gardner puts it this way: “He is not intentionally writing obscurely in order to mystify, or to restrict his audience to a few like-minded persons with a special training, but is treating a subject of extreme complexity, which is constantly eluding formulation in words."

You can read the rest at Greener Trees.

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes: Book Review

“Adventure ho!” reads the author’s inscription on the first page. Jonathan Auxier is a friend of a friend who lent me her signed copy of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes for a read. Auxier wasn’t wrong. From the first page, Peter Nimble rollicks forward through adventure with barely a missed beat along the way.

Peter Nimble is an orphan, blinded by a raven, found as a baby floating in the river by sailors, who turn him over to the town magistrates, who name him and leave him to fend for himself. He takes up with a family of cats under the porch of an alehouse until the whole lot are found by the tavern owner, scooped into a bag, and tossed in the river. There Peter’s innate skills as a thief show themselves when he looses the knots and swims to safety.

And that’s in the first two pages.

Even better, this line comes at the end of it: “Until this point, you have been witness to Peter’s rather typical infancy—probably not unlike your own.”

Peter’s career as a thief takes off, and by age ten he’s well-known enough to capture the attention of those who know that goodness is not the same thing as following the law, but something much deeper and much greater altogether. His encounter with them sets him on the journey of the story – with a cursed knight, Sir Tode, as a sidekick – to find the vanished kingdom and answer the plea for help they sent out.

A giant dogfish named Frederick, thieves and criminals in deserts, an unkindness of ravens, a king who keeps children for slave labor and makes their parents forget about them, an army of gorillas, sea serpents, and a ten-year-old princess with a temper fill in the rest of the pages of Peter’s adventure.

Auxier’s writing style is extremely clever, with comments throughout that parents will probably find as funny as their children. Comments like these and the fact that he does not shy away from portraying real violence and real evil probably skew the book slightly older than its ten-year-old protagonist, but smaller children could enjoy it being read to them. There are complicated relationships between children and adults, but in general, once all enchantments are broken, there is mutual respect and love on both sides. Peter is a delightful hero – one who does not think too highly of himself, except once, and then he finds that working without the aid of his friends is much more difficult than working with them.

The book itself is gorgeous, with cover illustrations that hint at the adventures within without giving away too much. Auxier himself drew the illustrations at the start of each chapter. The text is set in a font that’s easy to read and lovely to look at. The effort put into book design makes holding it in your hands an honor.

In the end, the reader is left with a sense that all is well and a hope that perhaps, if the fancy strikes him, Jonathan Auxier could tell us more about Peter’s adventures.

Book Info:
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

By Jonathan Auxier

Amulet Books, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4197-0025-5

"Every Creation Myth Needs a Devil."

I finally saw The Social Network yesterday. Yes, I know I'm well behind the times. But, you know, these things happen. There were many fascinating aspects to the film. I see why they have continually pointed out that this is an unauthorized version of events, and that these are characters based upon the real people, not representations of the people themselves. I see exactly why it has been winning awards left and right. There are great things I could mention about the writing, the directing, and the acting - but those are all well-discussed elsewhere. I don't need to.

Instead, I've been dwelling on one line that caught in my memory, which in the context of the story being told is directed at the main character, Mark Zuckerberg: "Every creation myth needs a devil." The phrase is stated to Zuckerberg at the end of the film, following the depositions which have been used as the framework device to communicate the tale of the origin of Facebook. The character speaking is saying that Zuckerberg himself will play the role of the devil in that particular creation story - that is, the version that arose from the depositions. But what fascinates me is the layering of this creation story throughout the film.

Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter, and David Fincher, the director, have managed, in a single film, to tell at least two creation myths for the phenomenon which is Facebook. Atop the myth that reveals itself through the depositions in the film, casting Zuckerberg as the devil, is the myth revealed by the film overall, in which identifying the devil is more complicated.

In the film's version of the creation story, Zuckerberg certainly is one candidate for the role of devil. He begins the film by eviscerating an ex-girlfriend in a blog; he promises three other students that he will build a website for them, and instead builds Facebook for himself; he begins the company with his best friend, and then dissolves his friend's ownership share in it down to nearly nothing, while keeping his own share absolutely intact. There's plenty of evidence for the deposition version of the creation myth.

But there are enough nuances throughout the film which raise doubt about Zuckerberg's role. When he meets the girl he wrote about in the blog later in the film, he goes to speak to her. He does not apologize, per se, but the audience is not quite sure whether he would have had he been able to. His attitude is such that we think he might truly regret his actions. When he reneges on his promise to build the website, there's a certain amount of understanding we have for him. He was 19 years old. He talked with some guys who had a great idea for a website. He said he'd help them out. Then he started thinking more about it, and came up with a better idea - yes, inspired by the first, but bigger and broader - and got excited about it. Perhaps the fact that he didn't follow through on his promise was not, after all, deliberate perfidy, but rather the immaturity of a teenager who has a brilliant idea. The betrayal of his best friend is, perhaps, the hardest element of Zuckerberg's devil-role to poke holes through, but the film brings in other characters whose influence over him could be the reason for it.

It is one of these characters, Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, who is, in the end, the other best contender for the devil role in the film's version of the creation myth. I was reminded every time Parker came on screen with Zuckerberg of a snake fascinating its prey before it strikes, weaving to and fro before it, beautiful and dangerous. The character Zuckerberg is on the one hand, lured into a world he doesn't really care about.

But here's the thing about humankind: even when they are archetypes in a creation myth, they don't stop being human. Zuckerberg is not innocent. While the character is portrayed as not caring about the money his new company will bring him, he is consumed with a desire for prestige on his own terms. We see that he was not deeply involved in the dissolution of his friend's shares in the company, but we also see that he allowed them to be dissolved. While Parker fascinates him, he buys into the fascination, because he sees in Parker something of what he wants to be.

In the end, the film leaves us with a creation myth that needs a devil, and Zuckerberg is probably the best option for the role. But it also leaves us with questions about the nature of mankind, about brilliance without guidance, and about the idea of influence and power.

And, finally, we're left with a character who could be any one of us: a young man who had a great idea and was capable of accomplishing it. And we're left asking what the cost was for him to do so.