Station Eleven (2011) by Emily St. John Mandel

There are a number of things to like in Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven.

The structure of the book is scattered, but not overly so. She manages it with admirable skill, always varying the experience for the reader and never feeling too disorganized or too jarring in her transitions. The variety in formats, settings, and time periods for any given chapter are quite compelling and serve to keep the experience fresh and engaging. I particularly enjoyed the bits of epistolary and loved how they changed up the narrative.

Additionally, St. John Mandel is subdued, effective writer of prose and a skilled writer of characters. Although I felt a bit tired of the the-way-it-used-to-be bits and thought she went back to the well a bit too often in that regard, I did very much enjoy her exploration of her characters' feelings. Character was the big winner for me in Station Eleven. I felt engaged and drawn to characters like Arthur and Miranda, particularly. By the end I grew to dislike Arthur, but he felt like a real human being to me, whereas he could have come off as a flimsy caricature of the typical Hollywood actor. Miranda, likewise, is fresh and entertaining as a career-oriented corporate type who manages, miraculously, not to be insufferable. Both characters feel well-rounded and both are stumbling through life, attempting to find contentment. I enjoyed their narratives.

However, Station Eleven falters in how cliched its post-apocalypse setting feels.

Initially the premise is unique and interesting: A traveling theater troupe in a ruined world! What an idea. The promise of existentialist themes drew me in immediately and it was, indeed, what got me to pick up this book in the first place. Survival is not enough is an idea I find compelling and worthy of exploration. Unfortunately the post-apocalypse narrative doesn't do very much with its unique premise or its stated themes. Instead it tends to rely on tried-and-true post apocalypse tropes that you've seen and heard a thousand times before. Scavenging in ruined locales, human beings falling prey to savagery, and, of course, the stale, overused meme that is religious-nutjobs-in-the-apocalypse. I found the character of the prophet to be so dry and uninteresting I couldn't even manage to bring myself to be repulsed by his cackling, boring evildoing.

I suppose it's possible that much of the past decade's post-apocalypse fiction has spoiled Station Eleven for me with the Seinfeld effect, but so much of it is so stale at this point that I couldn't bring myself to enjoy almost any of the post-apocalypse scenes. Fiction such as The Walking Dead and The Last of Us have already depicted these post-apocalyptic tropes so much more skillfully, more well-rounded, more engaging than Station Eleven does that I ended up feeling like this book including its post-apocalypse content as a selling point—"Nerds love post-apocalyptic shit!"—when St. John Mandel really wanted to tell a story about Arthur and his many failures, Miranda and her successes, and so on. For me, the latter is far more interesting and engaging than the former, and I wish this book had leaned more heavily on exploring these interesting characters and spent far less time in the post-apocalypse sandbox where so many others have already built and left superior sandcastles before.

⭐⭐

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Here it was just about bearable.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich must have been far more noteworthy on its release, back in the days when mum was the word on the Siberian Soviet work camps. Having a window into the daily life of these 'zeks'—convicts—must have been enlightening and thought-provoking to those living outside the iron curtain in the 1950s. 

Sadly much of it does not ring very noteworthy or affecting today. Rather than horror, Solzhenitsyn's depiction of the gulag work camps relies on showing the hopeless ennui of the prisoners. Robbed of everything fulfilling in life, the zeks are focused instead of how to get a bit more food, steal a bit more sleep, or avoid the overseers' sticks. I found myself considering this more a fictionalized pamphlet than an actual novella. It was surprising to me that something written on the gulag—a topic which I'm intensely interested in—could be so unaffecting and emotionally unengaging. It shouldn't be that difficult to generate sympathy for wrongly imprisoned human beings, yet that was the case for me. None of the zeks in the story felt human or relatable, despite their circumstances.

I didn't find any of the characters particularly noteworthy, the prose was straightforward, and the events of the story did not affect me, either. So what we have here is mostly a dry, uneventful window into the life of a political prisoner. One which is surprisingly mundane and deadened rather than brutal, humiliating, or torturous. I opened the book expecting (and desiring) to be galvanized against the injustice of the work camps and found myself turning pages in a ho-hum fashion.

Perhaps the translation is partly to blame? I don't speak Russian, so I can't be sure. I picked up the H.T. Willetts translation after hearing it praised, but I found the syntax read rather awkwardly, and the prose, though it had potential, was mostly dry. Whether this is due to Solzhenitsyn's writing style or Willetts' translation, I couldn't say.

I dislike calling media 'boring' because it's always felt like a lazy criticism to me. But, if the tattered footwrap fits...

I haven't yet read Solzhenitsyn's epic journalized-fiction on the gulags, The Gulag Archipelago, but I suspect that style suits Solzhenitsyn far more than this type of fiction does. I wasn't a huge fan of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, but I do still look forward to reading Solzhenitsyn's other, more praised work sometime in the near future.

⭐⭐

The Aeneid (19 BC) by Virgil

Aeneas Flees Burning Troy by Federico Barocci (1598)

The more I read ancient, epic poetry, the more I suspect that it's really just not for me.

As a Roman civ fanboy, I should have had a far greater interest in this than I did Homer's original poems. I found The Iliad to be beautifully written, but overly long and more than a bit repetitive. The Odyssey I liked quite a bit more. The Aeneid feels like more of the same, but of lesser quality.

It is, after all, propagandist fan-fiction of the highest caliber. Perhaps it's not the point, but I found little to hook me in the narrative and continued reading this with more of a rote feeling than an active engagement with it. Virgil was blatant in his intent to write this for a contemporary, Roman audience, so a lot of that blood-red chest-thumping is going to be lost on those of us reading it in the modern day. Was I supposed to feel some desire for the Trojans to found their new home? If so, I never did. So their serpentine journey through the Mediterranean felt more like just going through the motions to me rather than the winding adventure it was perhaps meant to be. Was I supposed to root for Aeneas? I never felt much sympathy for him, so his trials were rendered less entertaining than maybe they should have been.

I did find it interesting that the actual Trojan horse and sack of troy come from The Aeneid's second chapter rather than Homer's original poems. I noted their absence during my prior reads of The Iliad and The Odyssey. And there are portions of the story which are quite compelling; Aeneas coming across Dido in the underworld and the entire episode of Aeneas exploring the underworld with the Sibyl surely had to be an inspiration for Dante's later work Inferno. The Ahl translation that I read was superb, and my edition featured many illuminating endnotes which regularly described Virgil's brilliance in the construction of his Latin to feature multiple meanings, nearly by the page. Such is lost in the English translation, sadly, but it did allow me to appreciate why this was considered such a great work for so long by Latin readers over the past couple of millennia.

But there's just a bit too much of retreading Homer's steps going on. The most interesting portion of the story, to me, was trying to gain a grasp of whether or not Virgil was attempting to glorify the contemporary Augustan regime, and to what extent. It made for an interesting layer. But on its own, the story let me down. Maybe I should have waited a few more years between reading Homer and tackling The Aeneid.

I once read someone call a book "more enjoyable to appreciate than to read", and I'm feeling that with The Aeneid like I did with The Iliad. They were constructed as poetry, and I can't shake the suspicion that there's something lost in translation, because they just don't read the same prosaically. They're very repetitive, very indulgent, but not so much fun to read.

⭐⭐

Slow Learner (1961-1964) by Thomas Pynchon

The short story collection Slow Learner is my first exposure to Pynchon. I wonder if I've made a mistake and should have begun with one of the novels, such as V, or The Crying of Lot 49 instead.

Beginning with The Small Rain, I was struck immediately by some of the odd dialogue present (Pynchon seems to have confused Canadian accents with Southern), and the sex scene towards the end was curiously written. But I liked the character of Levine and the backdrop of a town destroyed by a hurricane and how the setting challenged Levine's worldview and lifestyle.

A bit rough in patches but it served as a decent enough introduction, I suppose.

The second story I found far more palatable. It's casually poetic, witty, fluid, dryly humorous, and more than a bit weird, Low-lands has me beginning to see what people adore so much in Pynchon. What I most enjoy about postmodern writers is the skill with which they render daily ennui interesting, and Pynchon does that well in the initial half of the story.

Pynchon is the second author (the other being Haruki Murakami) I've read lately who, in his own words, admits to disliking his early writings and tears them down in a foreword as amateurish work. Far be it for me to disagree with these legendary, masterful writers, but I've quite enjoyed the early material of both of them and found it worthwhile as a lead-in to later, more polished, and higher quality work.

Interestingly, Pynchon's story reminds me of a more humorous predecessor and obvious influence of Murakami's work in the surrealistic turn Low-Lands takes in its latter half, where we find our hero literally crawling down the rabbit gypsy hole and exploring an underground network of tunnels dug into a garbage dump in which a whole society of gypsies live in order to marry a three-foot-five-inch gypsy woman named Nerissa and help raise her pet rat called Hyacinth.

I swear I'm not making this up.

Up third, the story Entropy contains a few beautiful and genuinely humorous scenes that are well written, but both are constantly tempered by Pynchon's reversion back to having his characters talk at me as if he had a bullet list next to his typewriter filled with themes and ideas he had to force into this story by any means necessary. This doesn't work for me, and if Pynchon continues like this, I don't think we'll be able to be friends.

I could chalk this one up to being very-much-not-my-thing--I usually like my short stories subtle, laconic, and peppered with a bit of ambiguity; all of which Pynchon—in his overwritten style jam-packed with random factoids and obscure references—represents the polar opposite of.

I've heard that Entropy serves as a great introduction to Pynchon's unique style, which was made famous in his later work such as Gravity's Rainbow, which I'm building up to reading by first sampling some of his short stories. This is a bit worrisome since I didn't much care for this one. But I have a feeling his style will work better with a bit more polish and the more ample legroom offered by the novel versus the short story. We'll see.

Under the Rose, unfortunately, did nothing to dissuade the opinion formed by the prior story. Surely reading Raymond Carver's short fiction and John le Carré's spy fiction immediately before this didn't do any favors for Pynchon's brand of short spy fiction, which falls short of the high mark set by each. I found Under the Rose to be little more than an exercise in dry tedium. It's another story that probably works better in a longer format. I didn't feel I was given enough time to get to know these characters, indeed the only thing noteworthy about the characters are their silly names. The setting could have been an interesting one, but we're kept from spending much time there by a plot that trips forward monotonously, allowing for little life or character to the people in the story as it reaches a conclusion surely meant to have more impact than it does. Pynchon seemed more comfortable commenting on boring minutiae than filling out his characters. I found the entire thing a silly bore and loathed it.

I found the final story, titled The Secret Integration, to be a far more compelling one—at least initially. We're given a number of characters who instantly jump off the page at you, colored with Pynchon's trademark wackiness. The premise of a group of mischievous, memorable youths is whimsical and charming, but the serious edge Pynchon sets to it (the racial integration of a Massachusetts school during the American Civil Rights movement of the '60s) all but dissipates as Pynchon wastes his story mostly rambling on tangents about the various minutiae present in the story such as political figures of the Berkshires' past. I suspect this is just sort of Pynchon's thing: he seems to like vomiting his deep knowledge of useless, irrelevant facts onto the page right in the middle of a narrative that was really beginning to get interesting 8 pages ago when this meaningless diversion just got started. I didn't find any of these expository tangents engrossing enough to warrant their inclusion.

It's not all bad, though. This is the most well written story of the collection by far, featuring moments of virtuoso talent from Pynchon's pen. But the lack of a strict editor sees Pynchon waste this potentially entertaining story, and it fizzles out before it can make much of an impact, then ends.

Now that I've finished Slow Learner, my initial thoughts seem true: I do think I made a mistake reading this first of all Pynchon's work. It seems uneven and rambling, but I can see a glimmer of what folks must like about his work. So I'll pick another Pynchon up soon and hope that the good stuff shines through more often and more strongly, but for now I can't shake the fact that Pynchon's style just isn't for me.

⭐⭐

The Traveling Companion (1835) by Hans Christian Andersen

The Traveling Companion features the same charm that makes other Andersen stories so celebrated, but he dips too frequently into cloying irritation and I didn't find this story to be up to par with some of the others I've read from him recently. It lacks the sheer beauty of something like Thumbelina and the surprising dark humor of Big Claus and Little Claus, but I did find the resolution to be satisfying.

Worth reading, but a lesser entry in Andersen's celebrated canon than some of its contemporary counterparts.

⭐⭐

South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992) by Haruki Murakami

Perhaps this book is the result of Murakami looking at the protagonists he's written before and realizing, finally, that they just aren't all that interesting.

Our protagonist, Hajime, is typical of the men Murakami writes—Unfulfilled, uninteresting, and with no strong desires or momentous events earlier in their lives to give shape to what identifies most protagonists to us: What they want. They rarely show any agency, taking part in the story merely by being the vessel we as the reader use to experience the various weirdlings and surreal occurrences that Murakami dreams up and throws into his books. Murakami's protagonists are almost universally boring, unfulfilled, weak, middle-aged men to whom various interesting things happen to happen to. He's never been a great character writer—or even a good one—And perhaps this was the first time when he actually considered that fact.

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a book about finding purpose and fulfillment in a post-modern world dominated by capitalism, but for nine of its tenths it's focused mostly on masquerading as a book about relationships, sex, and how we sometimes make choices that hurt the people around us. For the vast majority of my read, I wasn't sure that Murakami was even aware of how unlikable his protagonist was. I waffled back and forth considering whether Murakami was blithely unaware of the supreme asshole his protagonist was, or whether Murakami was purposefully crafting a narrative subversion with consideration of his typical protagonists.

Towards the end of the novel it becomes obvious, as the protagonist himself undergoes an epiphany in which he considers his own self-centered, vapid, worthless character and finally begins to consider the people he has hurt throughout the story. The problem with this narrative is that it requires a better character writer than Murakami to pull off. The main character is an empty, uninteresting asshole, and the side characters all lack depth. Additionally, this book lacks Murakami's ethereal, quiet, melancholy atmospheric ability—One of my favorite things about his writing.

This is just an okay Murakami novel. Towards the end it became clear what he was trying to do, but most of the book is an unenjoyable read, and the conclusion left me questioning whether or not he said what he was trying to say in the best possible way.

⭐⭐

Holy Bible: King James Version (1611)

So it’s taken me almost eight months, but I’ve finally finished reading the King James Bible from cover-to-cover. I can’t claim that I’ve retained all of it, or that my eyes didn’t regularly glaze over, but I’ve done it nonetheless, which I consider a pretty solid achievement considering how difficult portions of it are to grind through and how much of a plebeian reader I remain even after finishing it.

I have never felt very strongly about religion or Christianity, personally. But considering that I’m planning to read works like Inferno and Paradise Lost shortly, I felt like I should have a proper basis of Biblical knowledge when going in. And when choosing a Bible, I felt I should choose the most influential one in English-speaking history, thus I picked up a copy of Oxford’s wonderfully introduced and annotated King James Version.

I decided to take copious amounts of notes whenever reading so I could refer to them when finally constructing my review (you can see summarized versions of my notes on every single book of the Bible at the bottom of this review). The only “rule” I set for myself was that I would skip not a single page, no matter the content nor how it was presented. I also augmented my reading with an audio version (readily available on YouTube), which I often consumed when doing menial work such as building marketing plans and other boring busywork at my job, or doing laundry or cooking—things that didn’t require my higher brainpower and left me free to dedicate it to working through the Bible. In the end, I ended up consuming about two-thirds of the King James Bible in audio form, and reading the remaining third in my paperback Oxford copy, which was presented more as a research text than a religious text, which I appreciated, since with each new book I began and finished, I did my own research on its historicity and its meaning both in my Oxford copy’s footnotes and various internet resources. So, in total, I assume I’ve read probably closer to 3,000 pages during this project.

I should probably note here that I am not a Christian, and I am going to review the Bible in a somewhat irreverent, flippant manner. I apologize in advance for anyone who might be offended by this, but please note that you have been warned, and you are free to exit if you think my comments might bother you.

I picked up my massive tome and my resolve was immediately challenged by the glacial pacing and archaic content of the Five Books of Moses (aka the Torah, aka the Hebrew Bible, aka the Pentateuch, etc). The logic guiding morality here seemed arbitrary at best to me. Most crimes are punishable by death, including but not limited to things like stealing sheep, or working on a Sunday. In the latter portion of Numbers, Moses even dictates—with god’s support—that all of the male children of the conquered Midianites are to be executed. Another thing that struck me was how picky this god was about the way he required people to sing his praises. He even finishes the book of Exodus talking about how patient, forgiving, and generally how great a dude he is, immediately after spending dozens of pages dictating how he’s to be worshipped and describing various crimes that should be punishable by death. I grew to see him not so much as a unique, all-knowing deity, but as one of the more meddlesome Greek gods who enjoyed endlessly fucking with his worshippers more than anything else. Maybe he was just lonely.

As far as pacing, Moses’ books aren’t so much paced poorly as they are not paced at all. Throughout these books the overarching narrative is broken by vast, bloated lists of things that must have been important to early Jews, such as lists of people and their ages, proper rules for construction of places of worship, rules on how to construct candlesticks, long lists of people and their families, or the travel log of the Israelites. I regularly felt challenged in my commitment not to skip a single page, but stuck with it.

The Historical books proved a much more manageable read than the Pentateuch. It was during the story of Samson in the Book of Judges that I had my first moment of enjoyment in the entire story, more than 300 pages in. Samson shows some similarities to the story of the Greek hero Heracles, which I enjoyed. The following books were right up my alley. Though they’re religious text, they read more like histories: They depict the various wars, political struggles, civil unrest, and religious schisms within the states of Israel and Judah around the years of 1,000 BC through 500 BC. As someone who lacks Jewish or Christian faith, I took to reading between the lines with this portion of the Bible, seeing it not as the word of God, but as a theological propaganda piece written by later writers, eschewing the concrete, historical and political reasons for the fall of their state and instead providing reason for God’s allowing of it to happen. I found it entertaining despite this, at least until I reached Chronicles, which felt a lot like the Pentateuch in that it’s nearly 100 pages populated mostly by dry genealogical data. I’m continuously puzzled that stuff like this bloats the bible, but I suppose if you believe in the religion, it remains important to you. To me, it was useless, and I retain almost none of it.

I felt the Historical books ended on a high note with Esther, which is a book that mentions almost no religion or supernatural happenings whatsoever, instead relying on reading more like a historical novella of the Persian King’s wife, Esther, that was readable and entertaining. However this leads into the beginning of the Wisdom books with Job, a book I found particularly remarkable. It’s beautiful; poetically written, involving several lengthy but appealingly constructed monologues. It also encapsulates the Old Testament God’s endless cruelty, in which he allows Satan to torture the pious Job by killing all of his children, destroying his property and wealth, and inflicting horrible physical illnesses upon him, all justified by being a test of his piety. Job questions God’s doing so, to which God basically replies “I’m all-powerful, check this shit out:” and listing all the crazy stuff he can do without ever answering Job’s question. There’s also some asshole named Elihu who drops in out of nowhere and rambles on about some banal crap for a dozen pages. I detested the book, finding it cruel without reason. It angered me so much that I took several days off of reading afterwards.

Contrary to Job, I found Psalms somewhat calming to read. Although dry, I can imagine this book being a favorite of practicing Christians and Jews; something they read continuously when feeling particularly pious. The lack of a structured narrative proved a nice break from Job, and I was gobsmacked at the sheer breadth of Psalms that exist. Such a collection must have been compiled over periods of hundreds of years, but I couldn’t find any reliable sourcing information in my extracurricular study. Since I was born a Christian, I am of course familiar with Psalm 23; perhaps the most famous of all the Psalms. Reading it within the context of the entire Bible gave me new appreciation for the beauty of the text—particularly in the King James Version. The drawback of this, however, is that the psalms began to drone since I was receiving no spiritual quality from them. I’m saddened to admit that I skimmed over a great deal of passages and retain little of them; especially in the gigantic books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Although I found the historical books appealing, the psalms, prophets, and proverbs that follow them—although nicely written—did little for me.

As I finished the Old Testament and looked back, I find it most easily describable as “uneven”. I really enjoyed some of the histories, and I found some of the psalms and lamentations to be beautifully written. Some of the more fantastical passages, such as Jonah, were also entertaining on a level near to that of Homer’s The Odyssey. However, so much of it is bloated with instructions of worship, genealogies, and oddly out-of-date moralizing that made it an absolute chore to grind through—sometimes for hundreds of pages at a time. I’ve never grinded through a book the way I forced myself to grind through the Old Testament, and moving onwards towards the Apocrypha and, finally, the New Testament, I was hopeful that I’d find a greater portion of those books fruitful than I had the Old Testament, which I found cobbled together like a Frankenstein’s monster and, in most places, hopelessly archaic.

I moved into the New Testament and was surprised to see a more focused, coherent narrative in nearly all respects. It’s an easier read and feels like a breath of fresh air after completing the gargantuan Old Testament and the books of the Apocrypha, which felt unfocused and scattered. I appreciated the narrow focus on Jesus in the New Testament books. Jesus-the-dude seems to be a pretty chill fellow, but there are still some of his teachings I disagree with. I find Jesus’ empathetic lessons like “do unto others”, charity, and forgiveness to be appealing. But I dislike certain teachings of his, such as one’s marriage to a divorced woman being considered adultery. Since I have these personal disagreements with some of his lessons, I much prefer thinking of Jesus as a regular guy; a teacher whose heart is in the right place, rather than a divine being whose word is law.

(Let me break here and say that I apologize in advance to Christians for what I’m about to say. I know it’s going to rub some people the wrong way. So, I’m sorry about this. Really, I am. But I honestly couldn’t help it.)

As I continued the Gospels I couldn’t help reading between the lines a bit and developing this cynical view of Jesus as a charismatic, inspirational cult leader not unlike a Jim Jones or a Charles Manson. This led to my viewing the New Testament itself as a piece of absurd propaganda created by the leading disciples of such a cult. This notion grew so strong after Matthew and Mark that I could no longer block it out, and most of the rest of my reading of the New Testament became a comical affair. I was no longer able to take it seriously, and it became and stayed ridiculous to me until the end of the Gospels. My lasting thought on the Gospels is thus one of bewilderment and astonishment: How is it that circumstances have allowed such an obscure and seemingly ridiculous, cult-like offshoot of Judaism to grow to such a state that it was able to film the vast power vacuum left after the fall of Rome? It’s amazing to me, and maybe the single most unlikely and astonishing feature of the course of western civilization over the last 2,000 years.

Moving from the Gospels to the Pauline books, I grew to like Paul simply because he seemed so much more human than Jesus, who was such a picture of perfection in these pages that, lacking Christian faith, I was unable to take him seriously. I enjoyed the historical aspect of Acts for this reason, but my cynicism bled through once more, and I couldn’t help but thinking of Paul—a late convert to Christianity, and a man who never knew Jesus—as a cunning opportunist who seized the chance provided by the Jesus movement to make himself its head and promote the dogmatic, organized entity that it became after Rome’s adoption of Christianity as state religion, and after the fall of the Western Empire itself.

As the Pauline books continued I began to see the roots of what the Catholic Church would eventually become. Put into scripture and doctrine are notions only hinted at or touched upon briefly in the previous books: the subservience of women to men because Adam came before Eve, aggressive bitterness towards the Jews, the bureaucratic, ecclesiastical structure of the church, and the unquestionable divinity of Jesus. I found much of what Paul preached distasteful, and the freshness his books initially brought soon dissipated. This peaks in the book of Philemon, in which Paul writes a friend and urge’s him to take back an escaped slave. Paul magnanimously offers to pay whatever damages the slave has caused, but makes no comment whatsoever on the state of slavery and even passively endorses it. You’d have thought something as obviously evil and contradictory towards Christianity’s claims as slavery would have been commented on, if not attacked, by a member of the Jesus movement such as Paul. No such criticism is made, and Christians would wait another 1,800 years before being pressured by Enlightenment era thinkers to abandon the practice. I began the New Testament ready to accept what it had to teach, with my mind open and eager to hear Jesus’ personal philosophy. But I found myself sadly disagreeing with its morals nearly as fervently as I had the Old Testament’s.

The only book I really enjoyed in the New Testament to the level of which I enjoyed some of the fables and histories of the Old Testament was Revelation—the very last. To put it irreverently: This book is metal as hell. Literally. Seriously though, it’s full of intense, dark, mythological imagery that I found compelling. Rather than reading it literally, I read it metaphorically, and greatly enjoyed it in this manner. I finished it wondering how, indeed, anyone could read such a fantastical book literally; by necessity, the last time this thought would occur to me, though certainly not the first.

As I ended my read, I had the striking notion of just how much popularly understood Christianity does not actually appear in the Bible. Satan, for example, appears only a handful of times in the Old Testament—nearly 1,300 pages of text—and assumptions that he is the serpent which visits Adam and Eve are just interpretation. Further, the word “antichrist” hardly appears in the New Testament—and even then, only in the books of John. It’s surprising just how much of our colloquial understanding of Christianity has been formed by those preaching the religion rather than from its own holy book, or from later, non-canon stories such as Milton’s Paradise Lost. My own knowledge of the religion, which arose mostly from popular culture, was almost wholly unfounded in the actual Bible itself. Thus I’m glad to have confronted my own ignorance with this reading of the King James Version.

The more I look back on the bible, the more the historical books and the fantastical fables stand out in my recollection. I found the lessons of ethics and morals distasteful, and they’re quickly fading from my memory because of this. So I suppose what I deem most valuable about this long, cover-to-cover read is just the history and folklore of both Judaism and Christianity that I’ve learned from it—and this has come mostly from the supplemental reading I’ve done alongside it. And while there are portions of the King James Version that are beautifully, poetically written, there are also many examples of clumsy prose, even in some of the more well-written books. One of my favorite examples of this is from a book I liked: Revelation 14:2 “I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps”. You don’t say? Harpers? Harping!?

So, in conclusion, I’d say that if you want to learn exactly what the bible actually says, instead of just what Christians claim in its name? Read the bible. If you’re interested in the history depicted and/or the questionable historicity governing it, then you should read the Bible.

The Bible is a tome that has been studied for thousands of years. At its worst it’s an archaic list of laws calling for the punishment of their violation by extreme violence. But at its best it features surprisingly kind-hearted blueprints of how best to live your life honestly, generously, and with empathy for others. The problem is that you’ve got to take this good-hearted stuff out of its context in order to apply it to your life. This contradictory nature is deep-seated in this book and thus deep-seated in Christianity itself. It led me to view the entire religion as a Frankenstein’s monster of paradoxes, and the Bible as a book in which everything was included—often to its detriment. The bible isn’t a bad book because it contains bad things; it’s a bad book because it contains everything. It’s so vast and inclusive and written by so many different parties spanning thousands of years of clashing social and religious norms that the philosophies it presents in any one chapter are usually contradictable by various other passages elsewhere in the book, and the stuff that’s actually enjoyable to read (ie. the folklore and the histories) is weighed down by the stuff that’s probably going to mean almost nothing to modern day readers (detailed lists of rules of worship and breaks of several pages as the narrator drones on through genealogical trees). I believe that its most fervent supporters would be as surprised by the bad as its most vitriolic detractors would be shocked by the good. You can find portions of it telling you to mercilessly kill those who break god’s laws, and a thousand pages later, it tells you to turn the other cheek to those who’d smite you, and to do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.

When you read the Bible cover-to-cover, it’s a puzzling mess. It lacks the strong spiritual direction that one might wish to gain from it. It’s a book that is not only vulnerable to selective reading, but almost requires it of the reader in order for them to take any sort of guidance whatsoever from its lessons. After finishing it I can clearly see why many Christians seem to disregard the Old Testament completely in favor of the New Testament, and why they often don’t read their own holy book cover-to-cover, but instead prefer to rely on the spiritual guidance of their priests.

I can’t say I enjoyed my time with the Bible, even if reading the entire thing cover-to-cover provided me with a deeper, more nuanced view on Christianity, Jews, Christians, and their books. And I can’t say that it made me a Christian, either. I still view my best life as one lived without the Bible’s moral guidance. So I can’t call my opinion of the book a positive one, despite certain portions of it remaining an entertaining and/or enlightening read.

Perhaps the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I’ll never read it again.

Most-liked books: Judges, Esther, Tobit, Judith, Revelation

Least-liked books: Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Chronicles, Job

Progress diary:

October 25, 2018 – Started Reading

October 27, 2018 – 

page 34

 

 1.88% "Very much not a fan of Genesis."

November 3, 2018 – 

page 51

 

 2.82%

December 3, 2018 – 

page 74

 

 4.1% "Finally grinded through Genesis, and it only took me 2 months! Only 1,725 pages to go!"

December 21, 2018 – 

page 106

 

 5.87% "It will be a hell of a day when this one is finally cleared from my "Currently Reading" shelf. Uh, no pun intended."

January 24, 2019 – 

page 118

 

 6.53% "I am not enjoying myself. Hopefully it's just the old testament, but I have a feeling it's not.

Genesis and Exodus in the bag, Leviticus up next.

I'm looking forward to never having to read this again, but I'll give it as fair a review as I can."

January 25, 2019 – 

page 263

 

 14.56% "Books of Moses are now in the rearview, thank god (heh).

Since I decided to read and review this, I decided also to write my review alongside my read since the Bible is so long. I'm already at 7 pages and nearly 3,000 words, but only 15% done. Whoops.

Not sure what Goodreads' review character limit is, but this will probably be pushing up against it at best."

February 1, 2019 – 

page 294

 

 16.28% "Joshua, in general, was probably the easiest read I've had since the beginning of Genesis or the beginning of Exodus. I was coming near to enjoying myself until it devolved once again into an lengthy list, this time of the lands conquered by Joshua. If we could get past this type of cataloging I think I'd be enjoying this read much more than I am. These names and lands mean almost nothing to me."

February 1, 2019 – 

page 330

 

 18.27% "Book of Judges done. A more structured read when compared to previous books.

I find the idea of a book about the Israelites defending their newly gained territory with the appointment of military "Judges" (warlords?) compelling.

Samson and Heracles similarities.

The Israelites swaying from the disciplines required by their covenant with god seems to be a notable recurring theme.

No long, monotonous lists!"

February 4, 2019 – 

page 371

 

 20.54% "Ruth: Small book. Alright.

1 Samuel: I liked this one. We're moving further away from the Pentateuch's tendency to instruct worship over telling a story.

One noteworthy occurrence is God getting angry with Saul for his refusal to commit genocide against the Amalekites.

Hey, I've heard of David. In fact I've seen a few statues of the fella.

RIP Jonathan. (That's my name too.)"

February 5, 2019 – 

page 406

 

 22.48% "2 Samuel: The ambiguity of David and Jonathan's deep, mutual affection provides the potential for a homosexual relationship between the two. Quite the interesting possibility that adds depth to David's backstory.

I enjoyed David's humanity and fallibility in this section. I find myself disregarding God's direct intervention and instead viewing David's misfortunes as typical political machinations common to monarchy."

February 6, 2019 – 

page 446

 

 24.7% "1 Kings: Solomon's got 700 wives and concubines. Seems reasonable.

This book sees depiction of civil war and religious schism among Israel and Judah. The more human civilization changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. Makes you wonder if we'll ever get past this kind of thing that's been happening now for 3,000+ years."

February 6, 2019 – 

page 485

 

 26.85% "2 Kings: Prophets magicking things. Queen Jezebel sleeps with the fishes. Er, dogs. Those blasted Assyrians roll on through Israel. Then those blasted Babylonians roll on through Judah, once against dispersing our heroic (?) Israelites into the wind. And God is pretty mad at everyone throughout because they do evil by not listening to him."

February 6, 2019 – 

page 522

 

 28.9% "1 Chronicles: True to its name, it's a chronicle the various genealogies of the Israelites who came out of Egypt. The driest, most monotonous mess of nonsense I've encountered in the Bible thus far--beating out even the Pentateuch.

It has almost no relevance to modern day readers and, at best, serves only to catalog events already described. Worthless for my reading purposes.

I'm going to need a break pretty soon."

February 7, 2019 – 

page 566

 

 31.34% "2 Chronicles: The first named appearance of Satan (that I can recall, anyway) as a servant of God who commands the taking of numbers.

I don't recall him mentioned specifically by name in any of the prior books. Interesting just how strong a presence he has to modern Christians considering his lack of screen time in the actual freaking Bible.

I wonder if Milton anticipated his impact on the religion. Doubtful."

February 8, 2019 – 

page 597

 

 33.06% "Ezra: I discovered during extra reading (which I do for each book) the blueprint of the temple here is physically impossible.

Some more genealogy and dry religious law in this one, too. Yuck.

Nehemiah: The capable Israelite helping to run a wider empire (Moses, and now Ezra/Nehemiah) is emerging as a common theme in these books.

The Israelites' reluctance to intermingle with other societies is interesting."

February 8, 2019 – 

page 607

 

 33.61% "Esther: A short book, but far more enjoyable read than the previous two chapters. No mention of gods or religious rules, no genealogies. Some politicking, a memorable heroine, and lots of drama.

Notable is the whole "every man should bear rule in his own house" crap that still hamstrings us even today. Funny how Christians who take this as gospel are actually living (probably unknowingly) an ancient Persian custom."

February 8, 2019 – 

page 640

 

 35.44% "Job: A beautiful but appalling book in which Job is mercilessly punished for no reason, further displaying the cruelty of the Old Testament's God.

I find the entire thing detestable, I reject the idea that pointless suffering is praiseworthy so long as it's done in the name of God.

Made more interesting by Satan's appearance, as I still find him intriguing. Hurt by Elihu's banal, curiously out-of-place droning."

February 15, 2019 – 

page 692

 

 38.32% "Psalms: This is the longest book I've seen thus far, and I didn't get as much time to read this week. Thoughts to come next week upon finishing."

February 19, 2019 – 

page 723

 

 40.03% "Psalms: I'm ashamed to admit I zoned out for most of this entire book. It's incredibly long and most of it is just recorded verse celebrating religious statutes. It really did nothing for me, though I can see why it'd be an oft reread portion by worshipers."

February 20, 2019 – 

page 751

 

 41.58% "Proverbs: Pretty much what you'd expect given the title, a set of Christian-inspired proverbs and moralistic stories."

February 20, 2019 – 

page 765

 

 42.36% "Ecclesiastes: An odd book. Seems to want to be focused on living in the moment and enjoying life, but constantly contradicts such a notion with orthodox thoughts lifted from prior books.

Song of Solomon: Alright, I was completely unprepared for this one. To summarize; they're talkin' about fuckin'."

February 27, 2019 – 

page 827

 

 45.79% "Isaiah: Very long book. Portions of it were difficult to read but it did include some nice poetic passages.

The bible is such an odd "book". Messy, weird pacing, retreading events already covered at seemingly arbitrary places. I pity whomever had the actual task of organizing all of these books.

Jeremiah is next but I'm traveling to Southeast Asia for the next couple of weeks, so don't expect another update soon."

March 18, 2019 – 

page 897

 

 49.67% "Jeremiah: The story of a prophet whose warnings of destruction are ignored is a very compelling story. There remains a tone of hopefulness throughout but, as usual, this being a religious text renders most of its potential storytelling impact dry and unengaging to me—a non-Christian."

March 21, 2019 – 

page 903

 

 50.0% "Lamentations: A short poetic book centered on Jeremiah's sadness at the fall of Jerusalem. At face value, Jerusalem is destroyed—its people raped and tortured—all because of their failure in their covenant with their god. However, when looking at the book as a cry of misery after a sacking, it takes a significantly different shape from that which is present on paper."

April 1, 2019 – 

page 968

 

 53.6% "Ezekiel: Quite the scatterbrained book. A bit abstract; I found it difficult to keep track of the actual narrative. Humorously, they read like the ramblings of a mad prophet more than anything concrete or meaningful to non-believers.

I was unable to locate the famous quotation Jules makes in Tarantino's famous film Pulp Fiction, but I did find several Ezekiel passages which clearly inspired Tarantino's pen."

April 2, 2019 – 

page 987

 

 54.65% "Daniel: Jewish resistance to foreign tyranny. Egyptians and Babylonians mostly, seems a recurring them, one which again appears in Daniel. Interestingly, the bible inspires much of Western culture—itself including an innate anathema and fierce resistance to the encroachment of the tyranny of foreign powers.

I'm happy to see the emergence of history I'm familiar with; namely, Alexander of Macedon's conquest."

April 2, 2019 – 

page 996

 

 55.15% "Hosea: Angry tones discussing literal and symbolic adultery, YHWH's unhappy relationship with his worshipers, who continually seem to turn to other deities."

April 3, 2019 – 

page 1006

 

 55.7% "Joel: Short book in which the infamous plague of locusts appears that everyone always talks about, continuing the narrative of YHWH's wrath with his Israelites.

Amos: Another short book containing ruminations on the destruction of Israel. Odd that these prophets were supposedly all active in the same era, yet were unaware of the others. Was there no Prophets' Club where they all hung out at the Temple?"

April 3, 2019 – 

page 1016

 

 56.26% "Obadiah: Shortest book thus far. More of the same; this time a vision specifically regarding the fall of Edom, one of the smaller Jewish states in the area.

Jonah: I like the more narrative-driven books and enjoyed the fantastical nature of Jonah, which reads more like a Christian version of the Odyssey despite its brevity. Oh, and god is still kind of a dick.

Micah: Short book. Added detail of the fall Jerusalem."

April 3, 2019 – 

page 1024

 

 56.7% "Nahum: My Egyptian history is pretty fuzzy so it's always nice to have the opportunity to learn more about it, even from religious texts. Nahum discusses the fall of the great Egyptian city of Thebes to the Assyrians.

Habakkuk: Short book mostly focused on the prophet Habakkuk's faith, including a psalm towards the end.

Zephaniah: Another short book discussing the broken covenant and god's wrath."

April 3, 2019 – 

page 1039

 

 57.53% "Haggai: Another short book concerning the building of the second temple of Jerusalem, later destroyed by the Romans under Titus during their sack of Jerusalem in the 1st century AD.

Zechariah: Concerning the return of the Jews to Judah, signalling the end of the Babylonian captivity.

Malachi: Endcap to the Old Testament focused on the Israelites once again making commitment to follow god's laws post-exile."

April 3, 2019 – 

page 1039

 

 57.53% "**END OF OLD TESTAMENT**

Well, that was a grind. I've never grinded through so much sheer text as I did with the Old Testament—1,000+ pages! Some of it (histories, psalms, fantastical passages) was enjoyable; much of it (genealogies, endless minor rules of worship) was not. I'm glad to have it in the rearview.

Apocrypha (248 pages) up next, followed by the New Testament (319 pages). Then I can move on with my life."

April 3, 2019 – 

page 1062

 

 58.8% "**APOCRYPHA**

1 Esdras: I felt like this book was retreading some of the ground already covered, and on doing some quick googling it turns out Esdras is actually just an older, Greek language version of the Book of Ezra, covering the end of the Babylonia Captivity and the conquest of Babylon by the Persians.

I didn't find much use for this 1 Esdras, but I suppose I can see why it's valued by biblical scholars."

April 4, 2019 – 

page 1097

 

 60.74% "2 Esdras: Like 1 Esdras, this book arrives from translation; this time Latin, from Jerome's late 4th Century Vulgate. Interesting note in the beginning—what I assume to be Christian alterations or earlier work: God rejects the Jews and alludes to the Son of God.

I've begun to grow affectionate of the Bible's Frankensteinish composition, and the game of trying to guess what was added by later writers and translators."

April 5, 2019 – 

page 1108

 

 61.35% "Tobit: I can't imagine a lamer way to be blinded than by having a bird accidentally poop in your eye. Regardless, this fantastical story is a great example of how entertaining the Bible can be when it's telling stories rather than vociferously moralizing, or describing the endless draconian minutiae that are the rules of worship as dictated to the Israelites. I liked it, aside from the lengthy "son of" portions."

April 5, 2019 – 

page 1127

 

 62.4% "Judith: I'm familiar with this story through Caravaggio's famous painting. Judith's badassery inspired many, despite this book being relegated to the Apocrypha, at least in the KJV I'm reading. This is the second story I found greatly entertaining in the Apocrypha (Tobit, too). Hopefully this a sign of things to come."

April 5, 2019 – 

page 1151

 

 63.73% ""The rest of Esther": Apparently some additions in Greek that are not present in the original Hebrew text. I liked this book originally, but restarting the narrative again from here was completely jarring and I barely followed it.

Wisdom of Solomon: Solomon pontificating and moralizing to other rulers on how best to rule. Not much to say. I don't care for the Wisdom books and didn't like this one much either."

April 8, 2019 – 

page 1201

 

 66.5% "Ecclesiasticus: Another long-ish wisdom book. Not my favorite, but I suppose it's better than a lengthy discussion of genealogy or a detailed description on how best to construct a temple or the ark.

As a non-Christian reader I never have much to say about books of wisdom, other than I greatly prefer histories and moralistic narratives for obvious reasons.

I do like the mention of medicine over prayer in this book."

April 8, 2019 – 

page 1210

 

 67.0% "Baruch: Another prophet book. Supplemental reading proved interesting: Turns out this book was not included in the Vulgate by Jerome, but later added around the 9th century. Sometimes the historical context of these books (apocryphal books in particular) is as interesting as the contents themselves."

April 8, 2019 – 

page 1219

 

 67.5% "Song of the Three Children: A lyrical excerpt taken from the end of Daniel. Meh.

The History of Susanna: Another excerpt of Daniel. From my understanding this is only Apocryphal to Protestants. It is canon to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. Daniel saves Susanna from a false accusation of promiscuity.

Bel and the Dragon: Another fantastical excerpt of Daniel's book.

The Prayer of Manasses: A short prayer."

April 9, 2019 – 

page 1290

 

 71.43% "1 and 2 Maccabees: Possibly the most interesting clash of historicity so far. From what I understand, these books survive to us as separate Greek translation of the original Hebrew, which is lost to us. The two disagree in several aspects with one another.

In addition to this, the books recount the narrative of the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucids and the reestablishment of Jewish Israel. A compelling read."

April 11, 2019 – 

page 1290

 

 71.43% "**APOCRYPHA FINISHED**

With that, I'll likely take a break from this one until next week. New Testament is up next. Just about 300 more pages to go!"

April 12, 2019 – 

page 1331

 

 73.7% "**NEW TESTAMENT**

Matthew: What a refreshing breath of air to leave the Old Testament's colossal, archaic, sprawling, genealogy-polluted, dogmatic books in the rear view for the more brief, focused narratives of the new testament books.

Matthew was a far easier, quicker read, and I hope other New Testament books are similar. Noteworthy: Matthew's apparent distaste for the Jews is made clear in 23-27."

April 15, 2019 – 

page 1357

 

 75.14% "Mark: I'm not sure I'm educated enough in Christian theology to comment on the comparison between these gospels that depict similar narratives. Mark includes a bit more detail and seems to view Jesus as a more obscure teacher than Matthew.

Reading these, I can't help my cynical view of regarding Jesus as a cultlike, charismatic, inspirational figure. Forgive me blasphemy, please, Christians. I can't help it."

April 17, 2019 – 

page 1401

 

 77.57% "Luke: A relatively striking turn from the glum, pessimistic book of Mark if the more literary and rhetorical book of Luke. I enjoyed it quite a bit more. It was meatier in its narrative and characterized Jesus more as an innocent, kind teacher than the brainwashing cultmaster he seemed in Mark's book. I found it similar to Matthew, but better written and more filled-out. Not bad."

April 17, 2019 – 

page 1434

 

 79.4% "John: Features some of the best dialogue of the entire book, along with some of the most direct and harshest criticism of the Jews. Supposedly this book did a lot to shape medieval opinion of the Jews throughout Christendom. I can see why. But it's also loaded with some of the most well-known stories of the bible. I'm guessing it's one of the most famous, and one of the most read among Christians."

April 18, 2019 – 

page 1476

 

 81.73% "Acts: The break from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is a bit overdue, as those books began to wear me down about halfway through.

Paul is a far more interesting figure to follow than Jesus, as he seems more human and less Mary Sue. His writing is tinged with pride and irritability, and just due to that he's more interesting to read about than Jesus was, in all of his smugness and haughtiness."

April 24, 2019 – 

page 1493

 

 82.67% "Romans: I find Paul fascinating. An egotist, a man who never knew Jesus but swears by him as his lord and savior. I find myself viewing Paul in a cynical light; as a man who seized the opportunity provided by the Jesus movement, and set it on the path to the strictly structured, dogmatic entity it is in the modern day. I'd kill to see his reaction to how gargantuan and influential the church has been on Western civ."

April 25, 2019 – 

page 1520

 

 84.16% "1 and 2 Corinthians: Paul seems more introspective in this letter. I particularly enjoyed his comparisons of the Jewish reliance on "law", or "the letter"; versus the Christian practice of worshiping on faith and reading their holy books allegorically.

Noteworthy: What I assume is the first usage of the phrase "through a glass, darkly"—Which I did not know originated from the bible. I love finding stuff like this."

May 6, 2019 – 

page 1531

 

 84.77% "Galatians: Paul seems more insecure in this letter, defending his apostleship and retierating the unnecessary act of circumcision among gentiles joining the Jesus movement.

Ephesians: Beginning oddly with an enormous single sentence, this book stresses the otherworldliness of Jesus and lays out some dogmatic principles stressing the holy justification of the church, rather than allowing it to remain a manmade entity"

May 6, 2019 – 

page 1539

 

 85.22% "Philippians: Interesting how quickly the charismatic, non-threatening, cult-leader-like Christ has disappeared after the Gospels to be replaced by the divine one in this book. The aggression shown towards potential heretics is equally striking.

Colossians: Doesn't differ much from prior Pauline books. Supplemental reading indicates it is now believed this and Ephesians were not actually written by Paul. Interesting."

May 7, 2019 – 

page 1552

 

 85.94% "1 & 2 Thessalonians: The books are growing shorter as I continue. Most notable are some of the most direct attacks on the Jews in the New Testament so far are found here.

1 & 2 Timothy: Did you know the Bible forbids women from teaching or holding authority positions over men? You do now. This book is chock full of discussion on ecclesiastical organization and rhetoric damaging to gender equality."

May 7, 2019 – 

page 1555

 

 86.1% "Titus: Echoing Timothy in its distaste for the Jews (although Cretans are included, which I found humorous), and its stressing the coming bureaucracy of the new church.

Philemon: A single page but a vastly important book to me. Inside which Paul discusses an escaped slave of a friend, and urges the friend to take the slave back. No commentary whatsoever is made on slavery being inherently evil and wrong. Laughable."

May 7, 2019 – 

page 1567

 

 86.77% "Hebrews: What stuck with me most from this book was the grasping at straws to relate Jesus-as-divinity to the oldest books of the Hebrew bible. Great effort seems to be made to tie continuity to the New Testament here."

May 8, 2019 – 

page 1579

 

 87.43% "James: A book that reads like the wisdoms and seems to disagree with those Pauline books preceding it in terms of redemption via faith vs. good works.

1 & 2 Peter: Supplemental reading casts doubt that these were actually written by Peter, as the Greek is fluent and the prose poetic even though Peter was an Aramaic-speaking Jewish fisherman. The second book is particularly aggressive in its criticisms of the lapsed."

May 8, 2019 – 

page 1585

 

 87.76% "1, 2, & 3 John: Ugh. These books are representative of the chaos of early Christianity, launching into tirade against heretical teachings while at the same time featuring striking contradictions within its own texts (example: man will always be a sinner and must repent / man is born of god and thus cannot sin).

It's indicative of the growth of Christianity and the need for a more organized, bureaucratic orthodoxy."

May 8, 2019 – 

page 1606

 

 88.93% "Jude: A short book in which Jude continues John's rants against what were seen as movements heretical to Christianity.

Revelation: The closing book of the Bible, and an important one. Apocalyptic, complex. Surprisingly, I rather enjoyed it. I read it metaphorically, and I can see how troublesome and damaging it could be to read it literally. Yikes, Christians.

Also—finally, "666" appears. yay!

Review forthcoming."

May 9, 2019 – Finished Reading

⭐⭐