let's pretend it's still Wednesday

What I finished:

+ Wild Faith:How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America by Talia Lavin. Here's my GoodReads review:

Exvangelicals are so lucky to have Talia Lavin on our side.

No "outsider" takes the Christian right as seriously as Lavin does. She's the only writer I can think of who didn't come from a Christian right background who actually sees that this is an internally consistent worldview held by people who believe it down to their bones. She doesn't dismiss or condescend or jeer--she takes Christian nationalists just as seriously as they take themselves. And because of that, she sees just how dangerous it all is. And she's determined to do whatever she can to make everyone else see it too.

I don't think there was really anything in this that I, personally, didn't already know (mostly from living it), but it's an excellent introduction to the topic for people who didn't grow up in this world. And there's also something really validating about having an outsider tell the story of your screwed-up subculture and go, "Wow, isn't that screwed up?" Yes, it is screwed up! I'm glad you noticed!

In my opinion, the last few chapters on children (child-rearing, education, corporal punishment, etc.) are by far the strongest and most important chapters. I honestly wish she'd just written an entire book focused on this so that she could do more of what she does so well here: a) bearing compassionate witness to the immense pain that those of us who were raised in this kind of authoritarian Christianity carry around and b) linking it to authoritarianism and violence in the public sphere. I'm glad that she and others like D.L. and Krispin Mayfield are sounding the alarm about these links because I think they are the biggest part of the political puzzle that others have been ignoring. I don't think you can understand anything about our culture if you don't understand how the conservative Christian obsession with punishment, control, obedience, authority, and the "redemptive" power of violence touch every single thing about our culture and politics.

That isn't to say that the rest of the book wasn't good--of course it was. Lavin is an excellent writer of prose and an excellent researcher. Every time I would think, "Isn't it time for her to mention [Josh Harris/Leonard Leo/Francis Schaeffer/Stormie Omartin/the Danvers Statement]?" she would then mention exactly that. She knows her stuff, she did her homework. She also has a beautiful compassion for and righteous protectiveness towards people who have been hurt, and that's what sets this book apart from all the (many) "please please please take the Christian right seriously, they really do want a Christian nation, they really may get it" books that have been published over the past few years.

I appreciate Talia Lavin more than I can say. Thanks for being our megaphone, Talia.

[Also, I'm waiting for someone to write the magnum opus about the Dobson legacy. Did any single figure in the US in the last half of the twentieth century do more harm to more people?]

+ The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho. Never has a book had such an inappropriate name. Like, I actively hate this name and how little it has to do with the book. This was not a fluffy romcom as the name and cover implies, though it also wasn't grittily realistic either. What it was was the story of two people reconnecting after misunderstanding and both confronting family issues that cross with politics. And also about how the baggage from your home country follows you even when you immigrate and start a new life far away.

I like Cho's writing style, liked the characters, I thought the themes of ambition and its limits, the messiness of family, and the search for justice in an unjust world were well drawn. I don't know why I didn't love this book--maybe it's just my usual disinterest in contemporary non-speculative fiction? At any rate, I did enjoy it much more than other contemporary romances. If you like contemporary novels more than I do, then you should definitely check this one out.

+ The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. What a surprise this book was! I was not prepared for how much I would love it!

I used to watch some Vlogbrothers videos back in the day, and I've read The Fault in Our Stars and been generally aware of the Green brothers' internet presence. If you'd asked me, I would have said that John Green seems like a very nice guy who writes books that are not to my tastes. I would have said that I appreciated the way he and his brother try to bring humane content to the internet and that as much as I love Tumblr, I still haven't forgiven it for what it did to him.

I would never have expected that he could write something that moved me so much, that delighted me so much. I was aware of the book, that it had sold well and lots of people really liked it, but honestly I probably would never have picked it up if chestnut_pod hadn't recommended it. Our tastes overlap enough that I decided to give the audiobook a chance, and I'm so glad I did.

As I've mentioned before, I do not in general enjoy audiobooks, but I'm glad I listened to Green read his own work instead of reading it. I'm also very, very picky about essay collections and memoirs--those don't tend to be my thing either. And this was kind of a combination of essay collection and memoir--maybe an episodic memoir? I would not have thought I would like that, but I loved it.

I love the conceit of reviewing the Anthropocene, which is both a clever idea and really well executed. I love how it's a kind of struggle with what it means to be human in our current moment. (Most of it was written around the time of the pandemic, and that hangs over a lot of the essays and lends them a poignancy that I didn't expect.) I love the range of things reviewed--sunsets, scratch-and-sniff stickers, Diet Dr. Pepper, velociraptors, Canada geese, the ginkgo tree, humanity's capacity for wonder, the Indy 500, etc. etc. etc.

I developed very protective, tender feelings for John Green of the kind I always develop when I hear about people's struggles with anxiety and depression. (This is a book about mental health and grief of different kinds, even in the essays where that is not explicit.) I came out of this book just liking and appreciating him so much as a person.

I would have listened to a million more hours of this book. I laughed, I cried (multiple times), I learned stuff. This book made me want to live harder. And what more can you ask of a book than that?

I really really hope that Green will do more of this kind of writing. I will lap it up.

I don't tend to give star ratings to art anymore since that violates my ~philosophy of art~, but what the heck: I give The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green four and a half stars.

What I'm currently reading:

+ Dipping in and out of Eden Undoneby Abbot Kahler. I kind of don't know why I'm reading this since I have read another book about this exact same thing and seen a documentary about it! (I cannot for the moment remember the name of the book, but the documentary was The Galapagos Affair.) I guess I am just helpless against the kind of situation where a few very disparate personalities are forced into close proximity to each other and conflict develops.

Also: Ecuador. I think I'm one of the few people who is reading this book hunting for hints about the political and social situation of the country at the time. (Which is not wise, because that is so not what this book is about. But there are so few popular histories of Ecuador! I guess I need to dig into the university library and pull up some academic texts.) I did learn that in the 20s/30s, a bunch of Americans conspired to pool their money and buy the Galapagos Islands for the United States and the Ecuadorian people were so pissed off at this idea that they were like, "We'll lease them to another country before we do that!"

Thankfully, that did not happen.