Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz

For whatever reason, I'd always rolled my eyes at the fact that author Dean Koontz was so popular. Maybe it was the frequency with which his novels came out that bothered me (how can writing so fast be any good?); maybe it was his name that made me wonder (what kind of a name is "Koontz" anyway?). Whatever the reason, I never planned to give him or his books the chance to make their case. However, after finishing my first Koontz novel, the case has been made succinctly: the guy can write, pure and simple.

With a so-simple-it's-brilliant plot, snappy dialogue that would easily transfer well to the big screen, and characters who are as believable as they are likable, Life Expectancy is a literary dramedy with equal parts tension and humor that make for a frantic and fun ride through the blessed/cursed life of Jimmy Tock, pastry chef.

Born at the exact same time as his grandfather's passing (and just after the old man's prediction of five specific future dates that would be "terrible days" for Jimmy), Tock tells the story from the first person perspective (a vantage point I usually don't like in fiction, but Koontz pulls it off well), recounting in detail the aspects leading up to and surrounding each of his particular bad days. The story's peaks and valleys rise and fall with the proximity of the past or next approaching date, and you can almost feel yourself gearing up along with Jimmy and his family in preparation for what might come.

Along the way, Koontz introduces us to a colorful cast of characters - Jimmy's parents, lovable and actually functional, despite their keeping baker's hours and caring for their ultra-opinionated Grandmother Rowena; Konrad Beezo, the killer clown with revenge on the brain, who has much to do with Jimmy's five terrible days; and Lorrie, Jimmy's eventual wife and mother of his children, who comes off as witty, beautiful, and smart as Jimmy repeatedly says she is. (Note: Others are involved, but mentioning them would spoil the plot; rest assured, more personalities means more fun in Koontz's world.)

The story ebbs and flows in all the right places, the surprises (and there are several) are genuine, and the ending is both satisfying and sweet, wrapping up a strange, silly story you'd never believe, except for the fact that Koontz makes you believe it through his storytelling. This is what page-turning bedtime fiction is and should be.

Proper Confidence by Lesslie Newbigin

The first paper I was assigned to write in seminary had to do with Lesslie Newbigin's book, Proper Confidence. A now deceased bishop in the Anglican church in the 20th century, Newbigin's theology and views on biblical innerrancy have been important in academic discussions, and we were to engage them by comparing them with the more conservative evangelical theologian, B.B. Warfield. In reading the book, I postulated that B.B. Warfield and Lesslie Newbigin have more in common than any conservative or liberal evangelicals would be willing to say.

Of course, Warfield and Newbigin wouldn't have agreed on everything, and this doctrinal divergence is not to be minimized. Newbigin's assertion in Proper Confidence that Christian missions were a pawn of Enlightenment thinking or that apostolic knowledge and authority was no different than our knowledge and authority today are just a few examples of what would not have lined up with Warfield's more conservative and positive views of missional and church history. Suffice it to say, there would be others.

Newbigin would not have advocated a fundamentalist mentality of infallibility with regard to the Bible's transcription and translation processes; indeed, miniscule and non-message-changing copyist errors (among others) exist. But is this pursuit of the "affirmation of the factual, objective truth of every statement in the Bible" to prove the authority of the Word of God what Warfield was calling for when he spoke of inerrancy? Upon comparison, it doesn't seem so.

In the midst of the hypothesis-happy Enlightenment times of the 19th century, Warfield maintained a very non-modern call for "a 'presumption' of the truthfulness of Scripture among God's people," contrasting "exactness" with "accuracy" and striking a difference between a statement being a "rendering of details" instead of a "principle intended to be affirmed." In essence for Warfield, study meant nothing without meaning.

One hundred and fifty years (and an enormous postmodern paradigm shift) later, Newbigin declares roughly the same need for the same presumption: "Truth is not a fruit of freedom; it is the precondition for freedom." Newbigin then goes on to say that "demonstrable certainties" are not evidences of faith as much as a relationship with the object of that faith is: "I do not possess the truth, so that I do not need to be open to new truth; rather, I am confident that the one in whom I placed my trust, the one to whom I am committed, is able to bring me to the full grasp of what I now partly understand."

Historically speaking, we must remember that the concept of inerrancy was not an issue in pre-modern times; rather, its quest as a demonstrable quality in the Scriptures came in response to classical liberalism of the Enlightenment. As Warfield's resistance to the modernist argument for objective proof was important then, Newbigin's voice 150 years later was as well, "It is unreasonable to set up an opposition between observation and reason on the one hand, and revelation and faith on the other...The universe is not provided with a spectator's gallery in which we can survey the total scene without being personally involved."

Newbigin stands with Warfield and his call, not for objective rationale or fundamentalist infallibility, but for an accurate and trusting approach to the Bible, in its intention in what it says, and in the Divine Author who spoke it into being. After all, as Newbigin alludes to above, in conducting the experiments of life, we ourselves may be scientists of a sort, but we are also specimens in the Petri dish. And, like it or not, the Creator's given documentation (the Scriptures) is both for and about us. Warfield and Newbigin wouldn't have said it any differently...and, from my vantage point, didn't.

Chronicles, Volume One by Bob Dylan

I'm ashamed to admit it, but Bob Dylan's autobiographical first volume is my first real association with him. I knew he was a good songwriter, having heard enough of his songs (or at least enough covers of his songs) to generally agree; I knew he aspired to be a disciple of Woody Guthrie's (though with the exception of remembering "This Land Is Your Land" from elementary school chorus, I'm not sure I know much about Woody himself); and I knew he was married and had kids (his son, Jakob, is my age and lead singer for The Wallflowers, whom I like).

Here's what I discovered about Dylan: he is well-read in Beat authors like Kerouac and Ginsberg who defined so much of his coming of age, but also in classic and even contemporary authors; he is far more diplomatic in his politics and perspectives than I thought (especially in light of some of his songs, protest and otherwise); he has very much the heart of a family man, relentlessly trying to shield his wife and children from much of the press and publicity his music garnered and recoiling from the limelight whenever possible even today; and he is quite thoughtful and articulate, a real departure from so many of his slurred-lyric live performances and tired-looking appearances.

As a book, Chronicles, Volume One is a quirky, non-linear, amazingly detailed memoir of Dylan's early start, set mostly in New York and with a cast of interesting characters that rivals good fiction. Though the names and gigs get a little redundant after a while, Dylan's passion for songs - lots of them and good ones - is what struck me, as did his passion and teachability to do everything he could to learn more and more before he really ever started writing them.

As a respite from recalling the early years (made difficult as Dylan doesn't do that great of a job recounting any kind of chronology of significant events), the book makes a strange leap ahead to Dylan's late-80's career, including his involvement with Tom Petty and The Traveling Wilburys, but particularly focusing on the recording process of his New Morning album with U2 producer Daniel Lanois. This period of time (at least in this volume) was most interesting, as Dylan's recounting of all that the writing, rehearsing, and recording process is and was illustrates how much this man loves music.

Thankfully, reading Dylan write about his life makes me feel better about my lack of understanding of the person and artist as, according to him, everyone else in the world seems to have been as clueless as well. In essence (and as he has always been called), Dylan is indeed very much an enigma, one I look forward to figuring out a bit more through a new interest in his music and (eventually) his next volume of memoirs.