Mark Goodacre
discusses the variance between Matthew's and Luke's Christmas accounts. This is always a very instructive exercise. For those of us who are subjected to annual Christmas Nativities and Pageants, we are quite used to the harmonized accounts of angels+star; magi+shepherds; song of Mary+flight to Egypt, etc. Never has this harmonization of the Gospels been so effectively critiqued than in
A Prayer for Owen Meany; well worth a re-read this Christmas season. John Irving at his best.
Also, my wife and daughter are both reading Barbara Robinson's
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Junior fiction, really funny, great writing.
What are some other holiday-related fictions that should be on my list of pleasure reading? Favorites?
-anthony
^ Is this the book on which the movie "Simon Birch" was based?
ReplyDeleteThe answer is no and yes... and much more no than yes. Simon Birch was bad... like Mussolini bad. Moreover, it is like they took everything that was worthwhile in the book and burned it to a crisp, then they stirred that charred mess together with hummus and Jim Carey and called it "based on the novel by John Irving"... the perplexing thing about it is that Irving signed off on the final product. Top five worst films of all time.
Delete-anthony