The New York Public Library's Books of the Century,edited by Elizabeth
Diefendorf (Oxford University Press, 231 pp.; $14.95, hardcover). Reviewed
by John Wilson.
At once irresistible and maddening, this beautifully designed little book
is the companion volume to "Books of the Century," an exhibit that formed
part of the centennial celebration of the New York Public Library in 1995.
The exhibit was designed to showcase books "that helped shape and define
the last hundred years." In response to public demand, a few additional titles
(including a number of children's books) were added to the list for this
volume, which presents more than 170 works altogether, divided into a dozen
categories. (The ground rules specified that no writer could be represented
more than once, so Stephen King fans had to be content with a single title,
Carrie. ) Each title gets a page of its own.
A book such as this is splendid for reading in bed with your spouse—like
all such compilations, it's a game of sorts—but it also has considerable
documentary value as a cross section of Received Opinion. The hand of political
correctness lies heavy on the entire enterprise. Thus we have such absurdities
as the inclusion of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (in the section
titled "Utopias and Dystopias"), neither a good book nor an influential one,
purely a quota-filler (of which there are many). Most interesting, perhaps,
is the treatment of religion, and Christianity in particular.
Among the 12 categories—including "Colonialism and Its Aftermath" and "Women
Rise"—there is none specifically devoted to God or religion. This seems
odd, given the stated aim of the exhibit. After all, religious belief has
certainly been enormously influential in shaping the lives of millions of
people and their societies over the last century, whether or not one approves
of that influence. The librarians who compiled this volume, however, are
apparently not interested. They give us only a section vacuously called "Mind
and Spirit." And what do we find there?
Emile Durkheim's Suicide, Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of
Dreams, Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex, William
James on The Varieties of Religious Experience, Kahlil Gibran's The
Prophet, Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian, Margaret
Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa, Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and
Nothingness, Doctor Spock on baby and child care, the Revised Standard
Version of the Bible, Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be, Ken Kesey's
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Timothy Leary's The Politics of
Ecstasy, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's On Death and Dying, and
Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment.
Strange bedfellows? Not at all, once you're onto the logic of it. Sex, drugs,
and the varieties of religious experience are all about me and what I am
feeling. God? Not in the picture. Where is Dorothy Day, whose book The
Long Loneliness is one of the great spiritual autobiographies of the
twentieth century? Where is Thomas Merton? Simone Weil? (C. S. Lewis is in
the children's section, with Narnia.)
So we have a perfect picture of religion as seen by the Guardians of Culture:
ghettoized, privatized, and (thank you, Stephen Carter) trivialized. Let's
make sure it is not an accurate picture of the way we practice our faith.
Short Notices
Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life J. I. Packer
Shaw, 251 pp.; $14.99, hardcover
In this volume, theologian J. I. Packer expounds the classical evangelical
doctrine of Scripture and outlines the role of the Bible in the Christian
life. Packer, a ct senior editor and professor of theology at Regent College,
writes with his customary clarity and verve (see, for example, his brilliantly
concise unpacking of Psalm 119). A bonus for pastors and seminarians (though
not for them only) is a chapter on preaching, including excerpts from Richard
Baxter's Christian Directory (1673) on "how to hear sermons as the
Word of God" as well as Packer's own practical wisdom on sermon preparation.
Works of Love Are Works of Peace: Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the
Missionaries of Charity: A photographic record by Michael Collopy Ignatius, 224 pp.; $34.95, hardcover This exceptionally well-produced photo-documentary chronicles the work
of Mother Teresa and the order she founded. Avoiding sentimentality, the
photographs show the love Christ in action. The volume also includes a talk
by Mother Teresa, "Whatever You Did unto One of the Least, You Did unto Me,"
and a profoundly moving letter of exhortation, "I Thirst," written for members
of her order in 1993. An appendix contains the prayers from the daily prayer
book of the Missionaries of Charity.