Ever since the Enlightenment, Christianity has been exposed to rigorous examination that has contributed to the decline of organised faith. Though Christian teaching is at the heart of the Western academic tradition, atheism has long been the new gospel for many intellectuals. Some authors have tried to subject it to the same scrutiny that religion has received. But, as polytheistic Romans found in the fourth century, challenging rampant orthodoxies can be tough.
Alister McGrath’s “The Twilight of Atheism” and Nick Spencer’s “Atheists: The Origin of the Species” are excellent critiques; but both writers are Christians, so they have been relatively easy for unbelievers to dismiss. It has taken a prophet seated firmly in an atheist pew to publicise the creed’s contradictions more widely. That prophet is John Gray, a retired professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics. In several books published over 15 years, Mr Gray has reasserted his belief that there is no God, while also attacking the liberal humanism that has emerged in God’s stead—which, he thinks, is as flaky as the religion it has replaced.
Smith’s quartet, so far, is not only an inventive articulation of the forces that have collided to make the present, but also a meditation on—and experiment with—time. By structuring her books around the changing seasons in an epoch when the seasons themselves are unpredictable, even in question (“November again. It’s more winter than autumn”; “It will be a bit uncanny still to be thinking about winter in April”), she urges us to ask whether we can still save our planet, as well as future generations’ lives. It’s hard to imagine what Spring and Summer* might bring—perhaps a complete halt, or inversion, of time awaits us—but the first two novels of the quartet are so free with form, as well as so morally conscious, that they come close to being an antidote to these times.
But by refusing to hope for the impossible, Franzen, improbably, manages to produce a volume that feels, if not hopeful, then at least not hopeless. There’s nothing he can do – there’s probably nothing any of us can do – to avert or even alleviate the coming catastrophe. But for now, he’s here and he’s alive, and over the course of these essays he offers us a series of partial, tentative answers to the question he poses himself at the beginning: “How do we find meaning in our actions when the world seems to be coming to an end?”
In coming-of-age stories, the journey to self-discovery almost always involves leaving home. But for children for whom “home” means the family unit rather than a particular location, leaving is not necessarily marked by physical movement. Like most daughters of African parents (this reviewer included), Msimang was taught to be brave but never defiant, particularly when it comes to family. She eventually moves to South Africa — the object of her parents’ dreams and life’s work. She marries, becomes a mother and, eventually, a journalist. She, too, is invested in her country’s future, but on her own terms. “South Africa doesn’t need heroes,” she writes. “She needs the best type of friends — those who bear witness.”
The story of the Alexandrian fire still speaks loudly to the power of written words and their effect on the fate of humanity. Fast-forward nearly two millennia to April 29, 1986, the date of the destruction by fire of the Los Angeles Public Library (henceforth LAPL) main branch in the heart of downtown. The fire, the cause of which is still inconclusive, destroyed half a million books and damaged another 700,000 more.
Susan Orlean’s The Library Book is ostensibly an investigative report on this catastrophic event and its cultural context. In its essence, however, the book is a treatise on the value of our public libraries, the most democratic spaces in our country. It is a call to protect these sacred places of collective memory.
What 1871 and 2016 have in common is a mood of revolutionary change. Willa becomes fascinated by Treat, her era and how frightening Darwin’s work seemed to many: “A great shift was dawning, with the human masters’ place in the kingdom much reduced from its former glory.” In the present, Willa and her family must learn to make new lives in a world of warming seas and melting ice. “We can’t afford to stop doing the shit that’s screwing up the weather, and can’t afford to pick up the pieces after we do our shit,” she reflects.
If that sounds gloomy, “Unsheltered” never is. We got through this once before, Ms Kingsolver’s echoes seem to say; we’ll get through it again, somehow.
At times, especially in the depths of these nightmarish sequences, I admired Riker’s audacity more than I enjoyed following his logic to its gruesome endpoints. The book is ingenious, but unsparing in its vision of a country populated almost entirely by selfish people in thrall to their vices and, more often than not, well on their way to being killed in automobile accidents. Maybe what I’m saying is that the truth hurts.
The extremely human anxiety Brottman seems to be grappling with is one many of us may consider at one time or another: If we went missing, would anyone look for us? Rey Rivera, she believes, was a good man, a loving husband, smart and hardworking. But, mostly, he was noticeable — and even long after death, he remains so.
In “Building Reuse,” Merlino makes a diligent case for preserving older buildings rather than tearing them down, one that encompasses more than the buildings’ historical character or architectural merit. Merlino contends that “the greenest building is the one already built” — and cites some startling facts and figures to prove it.