At the public library this week I came across a book by Philip Yancey, another favorite author, that I somehow had missed. Its title is Reaching for the Invisible God and in it Yancey quotes a letter from C.S. Lewis to Father John Calabria that Yancey, as a writer, found extremely relevant.
Lewis at the time was turning 50, had experienced fame and success as an author, and had new book projects on the go. But due to chaos in his household (caring for his infirm mother as well as that of a friend, among other things) couldn't get to them. He felt his writerly powers slipping away. After asking Calabria for prayer, Lewis writes the following: "If it please God that I write more books, blessed be He. If it shall not please Him, again, blessed be He. Perhaps it will be the most wholesome thing for the soul that I lose both fame and skill lest I were to fall into that evil disease, vainglory."
This quote illustrates the reality that Christian writers do, or should, regard their writing careers in a unique light--a theme I explored in an earlier post.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
An author entranced, at first, by his iPhone
In the New York Times, 37-year-old novelist Gary Shteyngart writes how buying his first iPhone caused him to start looking at the world in a new way. Later he decided that was not a good thing. He piled Russian novels into his car and headed out of the city to reconnect with who he was before the iPhone.
Shteyngart is one more (articulate) writer struggling to understand his relationship to the new media.
I came across him, by the way, while listening to an interview on CBC radio. Shteyngart's an unusual guy. At age 10 he emigrated to the USA from the old Soviet Union and is still deeply connected to his Russian roots. He speaks Russian fluently and has warm regard for his more "cultured" early childhood while disapproving of the lack of freedom in Russia then and now. (He's also a funny guy.)
The irony, perhaps, is that I was able to learn about Shteyngart and quickly tell you about him because of new media (media that has emerged in the last 20 years). I didn't have to go to the library and look up his name in a reference book. I also, thanks to new media, by the way, have been perusing a favorite, classic book online. I'd loaned my paper copy of it to someone about eight years ago and never got it back. The question of what is good and what is not so good about new media continues to be complicated.
Shteyngart is one more (articulate) writer struggling to understand his relationship to the new media.
I came across him, by the way, while listening to an interview on CBC radio. Shteyngart's an unusual guy. At age 10 he emigrated to the USA from the old Soviet Union and is still deeply connected to his Russian roots. He speaks Russian fluently and has warm regard for his more "cultured" early childhood while disapproving of the lack of freedom in Russia then and now. (He's also a funny guy.)
The irony, perhaps, is that I was able to learn about Shteyngart and quickly tell you about him because of new media (media that has emerged in the last 20 years). I didn't have to go to the library and look up his name in a reference book. I also, thanks to new media, by the way, have been perusing a favorite, classic book online. I'd loaned my paper copy of it to someone about eight years ago and never got it back. The question of what is good and what is not so good about new media continues to be complicated.
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