Jane Wells on Hunger Games: ‘Hunger isn’t science fiction!’

November 16, 2013 by

By DAVID CRUMM,
Editor of ReadTheSpirit

WANT to help the most vulnerable in your community? Want to do it by energizing teens and young adults to work with you on goals that most congregations already share? Read on …

THIS WEEK, millions of Americans will buy tickets to Hunger Games: Catching Fire. If you missed it, see our extensive story last week on the huge popularity of this book-and-movie series by Suzanne Collins. That story also includes an interview with author Jane Wells, who wrote the new book Bird on Fire, an inspiring Bible study that shows you how to take the fiction-fueled excitement in your community—especially among young people—and refocus that energy on goals we share: Combatting hunger, homelessness and violence against society’s most vulnerable.

A few days ago, in southeast Michigan (where Jane Wells lives and our ReadTheSpirit home office is based), Jane demonstrated how this kind of outreach can work in any town. She was welcomed by the very active Monroe Family YMCA to host a public forum on three tragic problems facing communities nationwide: Hunger, homelessness and contemporary forms of slavery.

As Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I attended and am reporting, here, on what happened. (All of today’s photos were taken by ReadTheSpirit Publisher John Hile. If you care to share this story with people in your area, you can feel free to share these photos, as well.)

MODERN-DAY SLAVERY

“LOOK BENEATH THE SURFACE: Human Trafficking is Modern-Day Slavery,” was the warning splashed across leaflets and posters distributed by Michigan State Police Trooper Tresa Duffin. She works statewide on campaigns to end forced labor and related forms of abuse enslaving thousands of men, women and children across the U.S. (Worldwide, our earlier story reports, there are millions of slaves.)

“Trafficking” does not refer to transportation, Duffin explained, although victims may find themselves shuttled between cities. The term refers to people bound into labor, often in the form of prostitution. Merriam-Webster defines “human trafficking” as “organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited as by being forced into prostitution or involuntary labor.”

There are slaves in every major metropolitan area, Duffin said, so people in the Midwest should not assume that this isn’t a local issue. “In fact, Michigan is ranked No. 16 in the United States for human trafficking,” she said. Why? “There is a major highway hub in southeast Michigan. There are international borders with Canada. We have a lot of agriculture and that also attracts people trafficking in forced labor.”

There are many ways that individuals, congregations and community groups can get involved in stopping slavery—and in rescuing men, women and children caught in the system now, Duffin explained. In one program, for example, money is raised to buy hotel-sized bars of soap with a toll-free hotline on the wrapper that reaches a national anti-slavery help center. “We distribute these to hotels before big events come to town like a Super Bowl or other major event—times when we know that girls will be sent into hotel rooms. About the only place these girls have privacy is in the bathroom. We’ve had a number of girls call for help—and they’ve been rescued—because of the soap program.”

Wherever our readers may live across the United States, Duffin urges you to learn more at the nationwide anti-trafficking website, based in Washington D.C.

What else can congregations do to combat slavery? Lots! Read our earlier interview with David Batstone, a pioneer in the Not For Sale campaign that draws thousands of volunteers from college campuses and congregations, each year. Want to attract more teen-age and young-adult involvement in the life of your congregation? Get Jane Wells’ Bird on Fire now and organize a discussion group this winter.

FAITH-BASED FEEDING

Jeff Weaver, president of GodWorks! Family Soup Kitchen, told the audience about taking on hunger in Monroe. This is one of Michigan’s oldest small cities with significant blue-collar neighborhoods and also rural areas surrounding the town’s historic downtown. Hunger is a dire problem, even in such a well-established community.

Helping to combat hunger is easier than most people may realize, Weaver said—that is, if people organize their congregational and community-wide efforts in smart ways.

In this process, Job No. 1 is debunking the myth that soup kitchens are needed mainly for older men with chronic problems. “The face of the hungry in our area? It’s a family portrait,” Weaver said. “Now, more than 65 percent of the people who come to our soup kitchens are families. One of our biggest challenges is—we continue to run out of high chairs at some of the places we serve meals. That image right there tells you why you should get involved.”

ENDING HOMELESSNESS
IS A FAMILY ISSUE

Brad Schreiber, who works with programs to help the homeless, stressed the same point. He held up a photo of one homeless man in southeast Michigan—an elderly man with a shaggy gray beard and a baseball cap. “If you think that this is the picture of homelessness, you’re wrong. The picture you should have of homelessness is a 7-year-old girl,” Schreiber said.

He listed alarming statistics about the growing wealth gap in America and the rise in poverty to such an extent that many families find themselves homeless, sometimes quite unexpectedly and even if someone in the family has a job. America’s growing wealth gap and the plight of our “working- poor” families is a topic often covered in the OurValues project, a department within ReadTheSpirit magazine headed by University of Michigan sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker.

Schreiber is now a successful graphic artist, but he shared his own story of finding himself homeless earlier in his life. Through no fault of his own, his income ended and, like millions of Americans, he was living paycheck to paycheck. He suddenly found himself without a place to stay. “This can happen so easily these days,” he said. “People who never expected to be homeless can find themselves in this situation.”

He described four pillar institutions in the Monroe area that shelter various populations of homeless people, each night. Relying on data mainly from those organizations, local leaders in this effort now have calculated that “35,191 nights of shelter were provided in the last two years in this area. Now, that’s a staggering number!”

The evening ended with Jane Wells reminding the audience of ancient calls to help the vulnerable—coming from Isaiah and other passages in the Hebrew scriptures as well as coming from Jesus in the New Testament.

“I hope you will find a way to take action,” she said.

GET INVOLVED THROUGH BIRD ON FIRE

GET STARTED! Get Jane Wells’ Bird on Fire now and organize a discussion group this winter. Her book connects the extremely popular novels and movies with biblical stories. Jane Wells makes it clear to her readers—young and old—that some of the terrible conditions they learn about in the dark, fictional world of the Hunger Games echo real-life experiences, today, for millions. Drawing directly on faith traditions, men and women can tackle these injustices, right now.

If you do use this book to spark renewed energy in your congregation, please email us about it at [email protected] and tell us what you’re doing. We want to share these stories with our readers to inspire others to take action.

This week, as millions enjoy Hunger Games: Catching Fire in movie theaters, remember Jane Wells’ slogan:

“Hunger isn’t science fiction!”

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

The Jane Wells interview on how a Hunger Games Bible study can fire up your congregation—and help others

November 10, 2013 by

Where are The Hunger Games taking Americans?

TO THE MOVIES: On November 22, a tidal wave will overwhelm movie theaters for the second blockbuster in the film series, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. How big is this? In a word: Huge.

  • Ticket pre-sales are massive: Catching Fire tickets are a lion’s share of all tickets people are pre-purchasing this month. Fandango reports the sales pattern is record setting.
  • The first week will be enormous: In its 2012 opening weekend, the first Hunger Games movie zoomed to third place in all-time U.S. rankings of opening-weekend ticket sales.
  • And, this series has staying power: Since 2012, that first Hunger Games movie has shot past Spider-Man, Jurassic Park and the Lord of the Rings and now is No. 14 in all-time total ticket sales in the United States. (The top three on that list are Avatar, Titanic and Avengers.)
  • Millions still are reading: The three novels remain extremely popular. The first volume remained on the New York Times and USA Today best seller lists for two years! With new movies, book sales will rise again.

WHERE else can The Hunger Games take Americans?

TO CHURCH and INTO THE WORLD to help the most vulnerable men women and children among us. That’s if author and columnist Jane Wells succeeds in her new campaign. Today, through this author interview, we’ll tell you how to join in the movement.

In Jane Wells’ new book—a Bible study for congregations, called Bird on Fire—Jane explains why The Hunger Games is such a hit with readers and moviegoers. Themes in this series of novels and movies tap deep into biblical history, including the lives of Esther, Gideon and David. The main symbols in Hunger Games echo powerful images established hundreds of years ago when mainline congregations first were sweeping across the American landscape. Bringing this new Jane Wells Bible-study series into your congregation not only will draw a crowd—but also can energize young and old to pitch in on popular campaigns to help our world, today.

INTERVIEW WITH JANE WELLS
ON HER HUNGER GAMES BIBLE STUDY, CALLED BIRD ON FIRE

DAVID: Who are these millions of fans? I expect that a lot of our readers are going to be very interested in organizing a group to go through your Bird on Fire book, but their first question will be: Who should we invite to get involved?

JANE: The movies and books first were popular with teens—teenage girls specifically—but now they also have crossed over so that a lot of adults have read the books and are planning on seeing all of the movies.

DAVID: The first Hunger Games was classified as Young Adult, or YA, fiction. How can such a genre make the leap to adult fans?

JANE: Here’s the key—YA novels leave out the gratuitous sex and violence, but the best of YA novels still deliver all the depth of character and drama we expect in great novels. So there are huge numbers of adults who love these stories—and welcome a chance to enjoy a series without the more explicit sex and violence. A lot of readers not only don’t miss the gore that we find in a lot of crime and suspense novels today—they actually welcome a chance to avoid it! I love well-written YA books for that reason, and I’m certainly not alone. Now, I do realize that a lot of YA fiction doesn’t live up to the standards set by authors like Suzanne Collins. But, in the best of this genre? It’s terrific reading.

DAVID: Well, we just published an interview with HarperOne’s Mark Tauber, who is expecting to rack up serious sales this winter with C.S. Lewis editions. And, of course, a lot of Lewis books are what we would call YA today, although a lot of the people buying and reading those books are adults.

Given the super popularity of R-rated books like 50 Shades of Grey and thrillers oozing blood and guts, what’s the appeal of books that are only PG-13 at most?

JANE: It’s all about the characters. And that’s why, in my new Bible-study book, I connect readers with similarly strong stories about heroes from the Bible: Esther, Gideon, David and more. Millions of us love The Hunger Games, because we care so much about these characters! When we first meet Katniss Everdeen—the main hero in these stories—we care about her immediately.

DAVID: Suzanne Collins’ fictional world is usually called “dystopian”—the dark opposite of a utopia. For a long time, such stories have been extremely popular—and some of these novels are now literary classics: George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are two great examples. These dystopian tales also are gripping on the big screen. Think of Blade Runner, which still has a vast cult following more than 30 years since its original release. In The Hunger Games, we meet Katniss in the middle of a similarly unjust and terrifying world, right?

JANE: We do. We learn that, when she was only 11, her father died in a mine explosion. After that, her mother sinks into this deep depression. Her family is on the verge of starving to death. Katniss learns to hunt and gather food just to keep her family alive. Then, she winds up having to compete in this life-and-death competition—the “hunger games” that become the series title—in which young people fight to the death for the viewing pleasure of the powerful people who run this terrible world.

DAVID: Once again, Suzanne Collins is borrowing this whole plot from thousands of years of literature. We only have to think back to the ancient tales of Theseus—stories that suddenly are getting a revival this winter thanks to JJ Abrams (see Jane’s Faith Goes Pop news item on Abrams’ new project). In one version of the Theseus myths, the evil King Minos of Crete conquers the Athenians and orders that, every nine years, seven Athenian boys and an equal number of girls must battle the Minotaur—which meant certain death for the king’s viewing pleasure.  Theseus is the hero who agrees to risk life and limb in these deadly games. That’s just one direct parallel to Collins’ tale and there are many more similar tales through the history of world culture.

In fact, Collins has been widely accused of borrowing the plot of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, which was translated from the Japanese into English in 2003—five years before her first book was published. She denies that she borrowed his plot—but, her novels are so similar to events in Battle Royale that the accusations continue to be raised. I noticed that Target stores just started selling DVD sets of the Battle Royale movies, with English subtitles, just in time to cash in on the latest Hunger Games movie craze.

JANE: Yes, these kind of stories have found audiences for thousands of years.

The best thing Suzanne Collins did in writing The Hunger Games was the creation of Katniss Everdeen as her main character. I’ve read a lot of books in this genre and I don’t recall a character quite like her before this. Yes, there have been lots of girls as main characters and even girls as heroes. But, here, it’s almost coincidental that Katniss is a girl. In this kind of novel with a girl as a main character, we usually see the writer paying a lot of attention to the hero’s gender. But, Katniss isn’t “girly” at all. And, Katniss doesn’t use her femininity to “play” anybody. She uses her skills, her mind, her strength. She really doesn’t spend any time thinking about what it means that she’s a girl. She’s a person who simply refuses to put up with the kind of hazardous, scary, unjust world in which she finds herself.

DAVID: There are some distinctive issues concerning her gender, though.

JANE: Yes, one way that she is distinctively female, as a character, is that she is motivated by not wanting to bring her own children, someday, into the world she finds around her. Her gender also shapes her story because the laborers who must work in the mines do appear to be mostly men in Collins’ world. But overall, Katniss is this very strong hero who goes out and risks her life for justice. I think that Katniss—as this bright and heroic and skillful and motivated young woman—is a different kind of character than we’ve seen before.

FROM HUNGER GAMES TO THE BIBLE: KATNISS AND ESTHER

DAVID: Katniss may be unique in contemporary YA fiction. But, as you point out immediately in your book, Bird on Fire, there are ancient heroes who mirror Katniss’ courage and wisdom. One of them was Queen Esther, the starring hero of the Bible’s Book of Esther.

JANE: Yes, as I thought about Hunger Games and my strong response to these stories, I remembered that this is the same basic skeleton of Esther’s story. According to the Book of Esther, a decree goes out in the ancient Persian empire for a high-stakes competition that the king stages to show his power over the people. He calls for beautiful young girls from across his empire to come before him in this competition to find a new wife.

DAVID: Our readers probably know the basic story. For centuries, Esther was a classic subject for painters. Then, Hollywood produced at least four different movies from this story; and, now, there’s even a VeggieTales version for kids. This story also is retold each year in the Jewish festival of Purim.

JANE: In the first part of Esther’s story, she wins this competition. But the story doesn’t end there. She is chosen to be a wife for the king, but then the question becomes: What will this woman do with the power she she got through these experiences? That’s where we find Katniss in this second movie, Catching Fire. In the first book, she won her competition. She survived. She could, then, fade into the background and enjoy everything she has won. That’s the same moral question Esther faces: When she sees great injustice taking place around her, can Esther sit back and remain silent and live in comfort for the rest of her life? In Esther’s case, if she remains silent, her uncle will die and a lot of other innocent people along with her. Katniss faces similar moral choices.

DAVID: There are a lot of reluctant biblical heroes. In  your book, you also compare Katniss to Gideon, among others.

JANE: Yes, you’ll find a lot of Bible references in Bird on Fire. I liked drawing comparisons with Gideon because, like Katniss, he was this young person from this small town who was called to face a challenge. Eventually, he did it—Gideon went out and destroyed some idols in his town—but that wasn’t the end of his story. Like Katniss, he was called on to face bigger challenges after that. I like Gideon’s story, because he answers the question: Can one little person make a difference in a big world? Gideon also reminds us that, just because we win one battle, that doesn’t mean God is done with us.

JOHN WESLEY’S BIRD AND SNAKE LOGO

DAVID: Even the Hunger Games symbol of a bird in a circle resonates down through religious history, right?

JANE: I love this part of the story. When I was writing this book, Bird on Fire, I was remembering the logos on the novels and the pictures associated with the movies, too. The movie images add flames with the bird. And I realized that these symbols are from my own denominational background: the Church of the Nazarene. Our logo shows a bird with a flame behind it. There are lots of similarities in these images. In both Hunger Games and my church, the bird represents freedom. In my church, we say it’s freedom through the Holy Spirit. There are other similarities, too—including the flame that represents purifying fire. I was amazed as I got to thinking about this.

Then, David, you and I got to talking about these themes—while I was still working on this book—and you pointed out that John Wesley used a bird-and-encircling-snake symbol to decorate his beautiful chapel in London. It represents a verse that I don’t think many Christians recall out of Matthew 10, when Jesus tells his followers: “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

I don’t remember seeing any churches that kept the snake symbol that Wesley used, but I think Wesley was right to display it in his chapel. It’s such a wonderful reminder that, as Christians, we are not supposed to turn off our brains. We are given minds to think; it’s a God-given gift. We’re supposed to be analytical and critical of the world around us and to carefully evaluate what we see around us in light of truths we see in the Bible. Very powerful.

GOING INTO THE WORLD:
AS PEACEKEEPER?
OR PEACEMAKER?

DAVID: There are stark moral questions in The Hunger Games. One of them is the question of what it truly means to be bringing peace into the world. Today, we have a great deal of respect for men and women who agree to be what we call “peacekeepers”—folks who put their lives on the line in some of the world’s most combustible hot spots. But in the novels, “peacekeepers” are bad.

JANE: In The Hunger Games, peacekeepers are just tools of the Capitol, the evil force ruling the world. The peacekeepers are concerned with maintaining the status quo, which means keeping people compliant. The peacekeepers keep President Snow in power and, if that means shooting some people to accomplish their mission, then so be it. For these peacekeepers, the classic excuse is: “We’re only following orders.” Their power is absolute and deadly.

I think it’s fascinating to discuss how “peacemakers” can be quite different than the “peacekeeper” model we find in The Hunger Games. I would recommend that readers look at the books by Daniel Buttry, especially his Blessed Are the Peacemakers. Dan does a great job in that book of reporting true stories about people who have taken huge risks to make peace. Some of his stories come from the civil rights era, when people literally were willing to lay down their lives.

I want people to realize: Yes, the civil rights era is now a generation or so removed from our time, but there still are huge gaping holes in society that we need to address today.

DAVID: I’m impressed with the guests you’ve invited to take part in your book launch this week, here in Michigan. (Care to go? See information below for details.)

You could have planned all sorts of things for the book launch, but you’ve deliberately chosen to highlight contemporary slavery and hunger issues, including food insecurity, at your launch event. Our readers know—from our past coverage including our interview with David Batstone of the “Not for Sale” campaign—that many congregations nationwide already are joining in the grassroots movement to end modern slavery.

JANE: The message is simple and powerful: If you’re a fan of The Hunger Games, you should realize that these problems exist in our world, today. Millions of American children face hunger every day. Millions live in “food insecure” households, meaning that these families struggle to put enough food on the table and don’t always have enough to provide meals.

A large portion of children across the country now are signed up for free or reduced-price school meals. Think about the heartbreaking situations in homes each summer or over holiday periods when these kids don’t have those school meals and may be making do with one meal-a-day at home—or less. It kills me as a mother myself to think about my own kids. How can we stand by and know that there are so many kids out there living in homes where parents can’t provide food?

The demand on food pantries and feeding programs is growing. We all need to ask: How can we help out? Yes, we can donate bags of food occasionally. But there may be other ways we can help. This isn’t a novel. It’s real life today for too many families.

Hunger isn’t science fiction.

DAVID: I love that line and I think it could make a terrific handbill or poster for a small group planning to discuss your new book. Take a color picture of your book cover, put it on the handbill, then headline the page: “HUNGER ISN’T SCIENCE FICTION.” Then, invite people to the discussion series. Or, you could make up handbills with the other theme: “SLAVERY ISN’T SCIENCE FICTION.” That’s also something you’re urging people to discuss.

JANE: Slavery isn’t directly in the title of Suzanne Collins’ series, as “hunger” is, but forms of slavery also run through her novels. And, as a lot of congregations already know, slavery is still a problem in our world today.

DAVID: According to Wikipedia’s overview of “contemporary slavery“—the United Nations estimates that there are 27 to 30 million slaves in today’s world.

JANE: When I began looking into this problem, I was shocked me to discover that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before in history.

DAVID: The sheer numbers are enormous and the forms of slavery are many. There are child slaves, sex slaves, huge mining and industrial operations in many parts of the world that are run entirely with slave labor—the list goes on and on.

JANE: Most slaves today are laborers and, by the nature of their work, they’re not tied up in closets or locked away in secret places. They’re often working in plain sight. I live in a farming area of Michigan and, even in our state, there are questions about how migrant farm laborers may be used or abused. In some cases, farm laborers can find themselves financially bonded in such a way that they’re powerless. They can become slaves, even in the middle of America. That’s why I invited a Michigan State Police officer to speak at my launch event, a woman who works on new laws and regulations to help combat human trafficking.

When you finish reading The Hunger Games—or when the movie is over—I want you to ask yourself: What am I called to do in our world right now?

MORE PERSPECTIVES ON THE HUNGER GAMES

We welcome many perspectives on The Hunger Games. In coming weeks, we will be establishing a Resource Page to help our readers find a wide array of thought-provoking materials on this theme. One of the first additions is a sermon by the Rev. Bob Roth, a peace activist and campus minister, titled Redemptive Violence? An Alternative Perspective.

MEET JANE WELLS …
LET HER HELP YOU TO FIRE UP YOUR COMMUNITY

FIRST, please support Jane’s work by buying her book. Learn more and find easy links to purchase the book in our ReadTheSpirit Bookstore.

DO YOU LIVE NEAR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN? Jane is devoting her book launch to helping fans see the connection between Hunger Games and dire needs in our communities today. She is pulling together the YMCA—as well as advocates of combating both contemporary slavery and hunger. From 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, November 14, Jane Wells will appear at her local YMCA along with one of Michigan’s leading investigators into patterns of modern slavery—and a regional leader in interfaith feeding programs. The event is free and open to the public at The Monroe Family YMCA, 1111 West Elm Avenue, Monroe, MI.

AROUND THE WORLD: We know that, since we began ReadTheSpirit in 2007, our active readers circle the globe. You live in communities from Australia to Panama, from New England to Los Angeles. If you purchase Jane’s book and organize a local discussion group, please email us at [email protected] and tell us what you’re doing. We’d like to share your news with the rest of our worldwide readership. AND, if you’d like to arrange to bring Jane to your corner of the world—email us and we’ll be happy to put you in touch with this author. Please note: Her schedule fills quickly, so plan ahead!

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

C.S. Lewis interview with HarperOne Publisher Mark Tauber

October 28, 2013 by

C.S. Lewis.

The name stands alone.

Even half a century after his death, no other Christian author—except St. Paul himself—has sold more books, decade after decade.

No one expected this in 1963. At that point, Lewis was a global figure with a huge output of inspirational books as well as works of serious literary scholarship, speculative science fiction, fanciful children’s novels—and countless radio broadcasts, as well.

But his death went almost unnoticed because he passed on November 22, 1963, the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the world-renowned author Aldous Huxley died. As you will read in our interview with HarperOne’s Mark Tauber, publishers never imagined that Lewis’s body of work would attract generation after generation of loyal fans.

Given his enormous audience—and unprecedented sales—Lewis’s many books remain tightly controlled by the Lewis estate. For a good many years after his death, the books fell into a tangle of publishing arrangements circling the globe. Slowly but surely, HarperOne has been consolidating that book list and, nearly every year, produces attractive new editions.

TODAY’S C.S. LEWIS NEWS IN A NUTSHELL:
Just in time for Christmas 2013 …
and, for the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s passing …
and, as the UK honors Lewis with a special memorial at Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner  …
and, as a new Lewis-Narnia movie based on The Silver Chair is freshly in the news …
for all of those reasons—HarperOne is excited about its array of C.S. Lewis editions.

ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm interviewed Senior Vice President and Publisher of HarperOne Mark Tauber about all of this news—and C.S. Lewis’s enduring popularity.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH HARPER ONE’S MARK TAUBER
ON THE LATEST NEWS FOR C.S. LEWIS FANS

DAVID CRUMM: It’s absolutely stunning—in a world where the biggest stars are sexy singers or Hollywood heroes—to find a bespectacled Oxford professor with such a vast worldwide audience. He’s been dead half a century. He never even heard of YouTube.

MARK TAUBER: Yes, it is amazing.

DAVID: And, Lewis still is making news! To demonstrate this for our readers, let me list just a few of the magazines and newspapers with fresh Lewis stories on the day we’re doing this interview. On just one random day—there are headlines in: BBC News, Investor’s Business Daily, Tulsa World, Augusta Chronicle, National Review, Central Kentucky News and I’ll stop there but I could go on and on. The one that sticks out for me is Investor’s Business Daily. They’ve got a fresh profile of Lewis as a figure business people should know about.

MARK: (laughing) I’m laughing because, for a while, I had “C.S. Lewis” set up as a daily Google News alert—and I had to disable it because I was getting way too much stuff every day. And let’s leave the issue of the new movie aside for a moment. Even without the movie news, Lewis just keeps generating headlines.

DAVID: Why?

MARK: There are many reasons, but here’s a very important one: He was a guy who avoided what we think of today as tribalism. We publish these books and we watch closely who is buying and reading them. There is no one else I can think of who is so widely read in mainline Protestant churches, Catholic parishes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of course the evangelical community. He cuts across the entire Christian spectrum.

And that’s not all. There are all these other audiences he reaches: There’s the whole fantasy fan crowd for the Chronicles series. There are science fiction fans of his work in that genre. And, there still are scholars who seek out Lewis for his scholarly work. It’s not surprising that some of the best-known, most-followed Christian leaders today—people like Rick Warren and so many others—keep pointing to C.S. Lewis. Because of who he was and how he approached his work—Lewis cuts across all these lines. He didn’t dive into the the type of culture war that is so common today. He unites people.

DAVID: What would Lewis think of his ongoing success 50 years after he left the planet? Any guess?

MARK: Well, I’m not sure what he would make of it. I’m not sure how he would feel about people from very different perspectives using his stuff and claiming him as theirs. But he still is probably the most influential Christian voice of the day, certainly one of the most influential. I don’t think anyone would debate that.

DAVID: He lived in an era of “big tent” Christianity, we might say. Today we’ve got all these civil-war-style trenches dug between various Christian groups. In Lewis’s heyday—in the heyday of all the Inklings we can say, I think—Christianity was more of a single voice against secularism and various dark forces. Both Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were deeply affected by World War I and World War II. Their voices were raised, not in political partisan causes within Christianity, but on behalf of what they saw as a planet-wide wrestling between faith and forces that would destroy faith.

MARK: Here’s a good example. Mere Christianity began as a series of BBC talks between 1942 and 1944. The question everyone was asking, then, was: How do we sort out this big mess we’re in—in the middle of World War II—so his series of talks fit right into mainstream news. He was on the cover of TIME Magazine right after the war. Yes, he was speaking and writing for a big tent.

DAVID: We could keep listing examples of this. Here’s another one: In 2008, the prestigious UK newspaper, The Times, ranked all of the greatest British writers since the end of WWII and Lewis—among all writers in all genres—ranked 11th. The special honors he will receive at Westminster aren’t given lightly. Many people to this day credit Lewis as a key figure in their conversion stories.

MARK: My own story begins with growing up as an evangelical. I went to a big southern California megachurch. Now, I see a lot of the old dividing lines falling away. But I can say that Lewis was—and is—a huge source for my faith.

Now, as a publisher, I find it just crazy that Lewis’s sales have not dropped after so many years. Of course, I know that his sales always rise in a movie year. And, there’s news of a movie that’s coming—The Silver Chair—but Lewis’s sales do well with or without a movie.

Here’s a smaller example—a new one. Bible Gateway has millions of unique visitors each month and they do a series of free newsletters people can sign up to receive. We proposed a C.S. Lewis quote of the day—and they announced it in August in a blog post. In two weeks, they got 26,000 people to sign up for a daily quote from Lewis.

DAVID: Yeah. That doesn’t surprise me at all. The Twitter feed of C.S. Lewis Daily is heading toward 1 million followers.

MARK: It shows the hunger out there for Lewis. Look at the Facebook pages on Lewis. We’re seeing a big number of Likes—and the actual sharing in Facebook is in the thousands every day.

THE GREAT DIVORCE: FROM WWII TO TODAY

DAVID: Let’s talk about some of the individual books. And let’s start with one of my all-time favorites: The Great Divorce. And I’m not alone. We keep seeing news items pop up about people trying to produce stage or film productions.

The book is short. There are a number of editions floating around, these days, including a nice-looking paperback edition in that big boxed set (see top image today). But I prefer the lovely hardback edition you’re selling. I like the soft feel of the dust cover and the little bus that’s just creeping onto the front cover—understated, I would call it.

Of course, fans of this book know that’s the bus to heaven on the cover. The question in the book is: Do we even want to get on that bus? It’s a dark, fictional-fanciful book in which a lot of people who are living in this very gray world simply aren’t interested in getting on that bus. The bus is right there, available to them, but they have all these excuses for remaining in their dreary homes.

This is another end-of-WWII book for Lewis. He published it first as a series in The Guardian starting in 1944. Then, it became this book.

MARK: I think of The Great Divorce as the quintessential post-war Lewis book. The world is so dark and gray, still half in rubble, still rationing in Europe.

This may surprise you, but The Great Divorce is the third-best-selling book of all the Lewis books. The first is Mere Christianity and that is closely following by Screwtape and, then, a little further away—but better than The Four Loves and often better than The Lion, the Witch in some years—is The Great Divorce.

CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: FOLLOWING ASLAN

DAVID: Let’s talk about Aslan and The Chronicles of Narnia. I want to point out a book that I’ve enjoyed myself: A Year with Aslan, which is 365 short daily readings from The Chronicles.

I’m guessing that 2014 will be a very good year for you with Narnia books—now that a new Silver Chair movie is in the news. On the day we’re talking, I checked Google News and there are 73 current news stories about that film production getting underway.

Here’s a bit of what the LA Times said about the film news: The beloved Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis sat on bookshelves for more than half a century before it found a home on the big screen. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, its famous first installment, came out in 2005, followed in 2008 by Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010. And then—nothing. Now, it has been announced that a fourth Narnia film is on the way. The deal between C.S. Lewis Co. and Mark Gordon Co. will make the next film in the series, The Silver Chair.

MARK: They’ve been working on The Silver Chair project for a long time and they’ve finally landed that. The one that I keep hearing about is a Screwtape film. Three times over the last 10 years, we thought we were going to have a Screwtape movie—then, we keep hearing that it’s all about the scripts. I’ve heard that they just can’t settle on the right script.

DAVID: I imagine there will be some new Narnia editions coming in 2014—or whenever the movie is finished, right?

MARK: I’m sure our children’s group will be extremely involved when the film does open. Every time a new movie comes out, they do a new wave. The movies do lift all boats.

DAVID: We’ll stay tuned in 2014. For now, we’ll be recommending A Year with Aslan to readers for this holiday-shopping season.

SCREWTAPE: NOW WITH NOTES!

DAVID: OK, finally, let’s talk about The Screwtape Letters and this annotated edition that you released about a year ago. I think it’s a terrific holiday gift for that Lewis fan on readers’ lists. We’ve already discussed the popularity of the basic Screwtape book, year after year. I’ve still got my own father’s well-worn copy from the late 1950s, when the added section, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, was first bound into a single volume with the original text. I treasure that little book with Dad’s name jotted in the front and 1959, the year he bought it, in ball-point pen.

Since then, I can’t imagine how many copies I’ve bought, owned, given away—must be a couple dozen overall. So, why get a new Screwtape Letters? My argument is this: I love the feel and look of this annotated edition. Yes, I’ve got every kind of e-reader you can imagine and I read books, all the time, on everything from Kindle and iPad to my iPhone. But, there’s something about a well-made book.

I love the addition of red ink inside this book for the notes. There are a couple of hundred helpful annotations that first-time and veteran readers will find intriguing. I just think it would be a great gift to open on Christmas morning.

MARK: I agree with you that this book looks good and feels good. We chose special paper for this; and we carefully chose the red ink for the annotations in the margins. We’re also discussing an annotated Mere Christianity, so that may come down the pike later. But I am nervous about this edition. Some years ago, we published a classic-art edition of Narnia and it just didn’t work well. It sold fine, but our other editions way outsold it. I’m hoping that this annotated book does catch on.

DAVID: Well, we’re pushing it today and I agree with you: I hope it does catch some holiday-shopping buzz. I know people who already own the book and, still, I’d put this on a holiday shopping list for them.

So, before we close, what else should we say about Lewis?

MARK: I would add that we just don’t have very many public intellectuals like Lewis, anymore, and certainly not many Christian public intellectuals.

DAVID: To put that conclusion into someone else’s mouth, there’s evangelical scholar Mark Noll’s line: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there’s not much of an evangelical mind.” For years now, Noll and others have been campaigning to change that.

MARK: There are some authors out there today who claim to be public intellectuals, but Lewis filled that role in a way we just don’t see today. He was able to speak in public ways—and in public places—in clear and thought-through ways. And, he found large audiences willing to listen and to buy his books. One of the projects we’ve just approved—and it’ll come out in the next couple of years—is a book that we’ll call How to Read by C.S. Lewis. This book will pull material from the whole corpus of his work, including his letters. He was a giant, not just as a  Christian writer, but as a teacher. He had a lot to say that helps people read and write English. We see this upcoming book as a bold move to emphasize Lewis’s ongoing place in the shaping of modern media.

DAVID: Well, we wish you well with all of that. And—to our readers—stay tuned to ReadTheSpirit for more on Lewis in 2014.

WANT MORE ON C.S. LEWIS?

Buy the books! Click on any of the covers with today’s column to jump to the Amazon pages for those books. They include:

C. S. Lewis Signature Classics: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, A Grief Observed, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and The Great Divorce (Boxed Set)

The Great Divorce (Hardback Edition)

A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia

Screwtape Letters: The Annotated Edition

WANT MORE INSPIRING GIFT IDEAS?

If you’re holiday shopping: Please, be sure to check out our ReadTheSpirit bookstore as well!

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

King, the March, the Dream: PBS debuts must-see ‘March’ (and more)

August 24, 2013 by

THE PBS NETWORK is offering terrific opportunities to reflect on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the 1963 March on Washington and the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

FIRST—BE SURE TO TUNE IN: PBS provides this interactive web page to help viewers sort out local listings. Remember that PBS showtimes may vary widely. Focus on the evening of Tuesday, August 27, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Most PBS stations will air an hour-long White House Concert featuring Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, John Mellencamp, Smokey Robinson, Seal, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Howard University Choir. The crescendo of that evening on most PBS stations is a new hour-long documentary—The March.

REVIEW of The March
by Read The Spirit Editor David Crumm

The March, narrated by Denzel Washington, includes powerful scenes: Certainly, King himself, plus a wide array of men and women involved in the March. Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando and Diahann Carroll were among the famous media figures who took part on that summer day in 1963. So, there are many celebrities who help to tell this dramatic story.

Having reviewed The March before its broadcast, ReadTheSpirit can highly recommend the documentary. Producers of the film include such top names as Robert Redford and Harry Belafonte’s daughter Gina Belafonte. With such steady hands behind the film, The March does not make the mistake of turning this 1963 milestone into a nostalgic snapshot of pop stars. Viewers who know their civil rights history will be pleased to see A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979)—”universally recognized as the dean of the civil rights movement”—introduced as a part of this epic story. We also meet Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) as a key—and, as it turned out, a controversial—figure in this phase of the civil rights movement. As the story unfolds, we also are reminded of the strong challenge to the Kennedy administration that this march represented.

In other words, the story is accurately—and movingly—told.

King first appears in the film’s opening sequence—as we see footage of various buses and other vehicles on the move toward Washington. We sense the excitement of the people who dared to gather. In these opening moments, King appears on screen explaining how difficult it was to tell his daughter that she could not go to play in an amusement park that she heard other children were planning to visit. “To attempt to explain a system like the unjust and evil system of segregation to a 6 year old child is a very difficult thing,” King says.

Of course, that is the human level on which millions of Americans began to truly understand the evils of segregation. Americans saw bigots attacking innocent men, women and young people with clubs, dogs and fire hoses. The nightly TV news broadcast in millions of American living rooms showed these horrific scenes, as veteran TV correspondent Roger Mudd explains in The March. Watching violence unleashed on men, women and even on children helped to turn the tide toward civil rights.

As the film unfolds—yes, we do get to see clips of Joan Baez’s stirring songs, both solo and with Bob Dylan. Yes, we do see Harry Belafonte working his organizational magic among celebrities. We see Burt Lancaster dramatically unfurl a long and billowing petition for change in America.

But, we also see the complex and suspenseful behind-the-scenes challenges. We learn that U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the last living speaker who took the stage at the March, almost derailed the whole event that day in 1963. Some lines in an advance copy of Lewis’s talk were considered so explosive that several key speakers threatened to bolt in the middle of that historic event. Of course, all of us know what happened—the March ran its course until finally King could unleash his Dream. Even Oprah Winfrey shows up to help narrate the drama of that now-so-famous speech.

“It was the first time that most Americans had ever heard a complete King speech,” the film’s narrator tells us. And, what a speech it was! Even if you can rattle off the words by heart, don’t miss this documentary that tells the story of how it all happened—and how America changed, as a result.

ALSO—CHECK OUT THE WEB-BASED SERIES:
PBS The MARCH@50

The highly respected young filmmaker Shukree Tilghman developed this Web-based series for PBS. In an online landing page for The March@50, PBS describes the Web-based project this way:

“Fifty years after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, has America delivered on the marchers’ demands for Jobs, Freedom, Equal Education and Voting Rights? In the documentary Web series The March@50, filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman explores this question with a critical eye. Each short episode in the series examines a theme of the 1963 March on Washington through a contemporary lens. These short documentaries look at how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go to address the major issues of the Civil Rights Era all these decades later.”

NOTE ON PHOTOS: Many photos from the civil rights era are held in private collections and archives. In covering the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in 1963, ReadTheSpirit has chosen to publish primarily photographs from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which is “our own” national archive of materials for public use.

CARE TO READ MORE?

EXPLORE THE HISTORIC MILESTONE: Stephanie Fenton’s Holidays & Festivals column reports on major religious holidays and cultural milestones—including this in-depth look at the way Americans are remembering the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

READ THE COMIC BOOK: There’s no kidding in this comic book! As our story explains, it’s the true story of the civil rights movement—leading to the March on Washington—as told by U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the last remaining speaker who addressed the crowd on the Mall 50 years ago.

(This film review and coverage of PBS broadcasts was originally published at readthespirit.com, an online journal covering religion, spirituality and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

The Dracula interview with magic expert Jim Steinmeyer

August 18, 2013 by

PITY BRAM STOKER. He was one of the lucky authors who managed to create a character more mysterious and more interesting than he was. …

Late in his career, he wrote a thick novel called Dracula, which garnered surprised reactions from his business acquaintances and mild praise from the critics. Stoker may have suspected that it was his best book. He had no way of calculating that it would become a phenomenon. …

To those who have never read the novel, who feel that they must know Bram Stoker’s remarkable creation because they’ve seen the movie or heard most of the details—the wolves, the bats, the stake through the heart—Dracula is full of surprises. … For over a century since its publication in 1897, Dracula has tempted audiences with the hint of something more, something darker, something concealed. …

A simple explanation is that Stoker’s novel is so interesting because it was compiled at a fascinating time in his life, when he was surrounded by amazing people. It calls for very little speculation to see Stoker’s inspirations, from the people and events that surrounded him in Victorian London, and the colorful characters who befriended him in America. I believe that the most important elements of Dracula were inspired by four people: poet Walt Whitman’s bold carnality; author Oscar Wilde’s corrupting immorality; actor Henry Irving’s haunted characters; and murderer Jack the Ripper’s mysterious horrors.

The real surprise is that Stoker knew these men—maybe even the mysterious Jack! They played important roles in his professional life. They weighed heavily on his personal life. For decades, scholars and critics have speculated whether these personalities had elbowed their way into the world’s greatest vampire novel. It would have been remarkable if they hadn’t.

HOOKED YET? These opening lines come from magic expert and biographer Jim Steinmeyer’s newest book, Who Was Dracula? Bram Stoker’s Trail of Blood in which he invites us on a wild ride through the life of theater manager and writer Abraham “Bram” Stoker. Steinmeyer focuses, in particular, on his acquaintances, including Whitman, Wilde and the actor Henry Irving, who at the time was so famous that we might compare his popularity with that of Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino today. On top of that world-class crew, Steinmeyer argues that Stoker may very well have dined with the real Jack the Ripper.

You may be wondering: Who is Jim Steinmeyer? Where have I heard that name? The answer: Steinmeyer is more famous for magic and his books about magicians. He received a great deal of media attention for his 2011 book, The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards. That’s another fascinating book that Read The Spirit recommended earlier. Why was this magazine so interested in that book? Answer: The life of Erik Weisz—aka Harry Houdini—is deeply entwined with American immigration and diversity, with the Jewish search for freedom and independence and with the birth of American movies and comic books. We also can highly recommend Steinmeyer’s 2004 book, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear.

Doing early holiday shopping? Psst! Here’s a tip. If your shopping list includes a fan of history, magic and the colorful realms of fantasy, that person may love a big, lavish, full-color book by Taschen—which Steinmeyer co-wrote—called simply: Magic. 1400s-1950s. This is truly a coffee table book that you’ll want to leaf through on a table. The book itself weighs in at 12 pounds! Better yet, order your loved one both of Steinmeyer’s recent books: Magic and Dracula. As Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I prepared for my interview with Steinmeyer by reading both books in parallel. The coffee-table book helps to summon the vivid, exotic world in which Stoker lived and worked.

Wondering about the connection between vampires and religious life? Well, check out Jane Wells’ new column, headlined: Invite a Vampire to Church This Weekend.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
ON BRAM STOKER AND DRACULA
WITH JIM STEINMEYER

DAVID CRUMM: Jim, this exotic world of theatrical production—especially the huge spectaculars that Stoker often produced with Henry Irving—is really your own world, right? In addition to all of your writing and historical research, you’re a designer of magic for famous performers and for Broadway-class shows.

JIM: That’s right. I am a writer and historian. But principally I’ve worked in the world of magic, developing projects for magicians and I’ve done special effects for stage productions, including Disney shows. I worked on Beauty and the Beast and Mary Poppins for the stage. I’ve worked with Doug Henning, including both a television special and a Broadway show with Doug. I’ve worked with David Copperfield and Siegfried & Roy.

I’ve always been interested in the historical aspects of magic and I’ve used that knowledge in developing new projects for the stage. A lot of magicians aren’t interested in the past or think that this history is only an academic exercise. But, I have a much better understanding of what we can do today in magic, because I know what’s been done before and I have so much respect for all the people who have developed these things in the past. So, in addition to working in the field of stage magic, years ago I started writing and giving lectures about the history of magicians.

DAVID: For example, the last time we included your name in Read The Spirit, we were recommending your earlier book, The Last Greatest Magician in the World.

JIM: I’m glad you’re mentioning that book. American magician Howard Thurston is pretty much forgotten, although he was considered Houdini’s rival in his day. Thurston had a truly amazing career.

DAVID: Let’s step back to the era when Bram Stoker was manager of London’s Lyceum Theatre and was the collaborator on productions with the famous actor Henry Irving. We know from your book that Irving loved spectacular, haunting roles and Stoker was responsible for huge casts of extras and special effects. How different was that theatrical world in the late 1800s and the theatrical world in which you work today?

JIM: First, it’s completely different in terms of the technology. The way Stoker had to meet the challenges of creating effects on stage was more of a sledgehammer approach than what we are able to do today. Back then, they would put seemingly endless numbers of people and untold hours of work into creating special effects. One way they impressed crowds was to hire hundreds of extras in full costume to appear on stage with the actors. Of course, that was an era when Stoker could hire whole armies of people to do this work and pay them next to nothing. This was the era before unions. But, in terms of special effects, some of the techniques they developed are still in use today—like trap doors.

THE VAMPIRE TRAP AND THE ORIGINS OF DRACULA

DAVID: Tell us more about that example, which you describe in the book. You explain that vampire productions became so popular that theaters built these mechanical devices known as Vampire Traps.

JIM: These were very fast-operating trap doors in which someone would appear, to the audience, as having been swallowed up in the earth. They would accomplish this either by diving head-first through the Vampire Trap or disappearing down into it. Unlike other trap doors in a stage, these were covered with rubber flaps, or with loops of fabric; sometimes they used whale bone or spring wire. The opening wasn’t visible to the audience, but an actor could pass through it very quickly with the opening barely wide enough for the person’s body to pass through it. And the flaps would close around them, so the hole wasn’t visible.

In the book, I explain that by the time Stoker published his Dracula in 1897 after years of working on it—audiences were familiar with various vampire stories. The idea of a vampire was popularly associated with the theater.

DAVID: They were crowd-pleasers. You say in the book that theater managers knew that a sure-fire way to increase revenue was to toss in a creepy vampire production. So, it’s quite natural that a smart theater manager like Stoker would want to create the ultimate vampire tale. These were money makers.

JIM: That’s right. And the Vampire Trap was originated for the 1851 production of The Vampire by the Irish actor and writer Dion Boucicault.

DAVID: You vividly describe his production with vampires, at one point, surprising the crowd by coming to life from what appear to be paintings, on stage. Boucicault himself played a vampire with a thick Irish brogue. And, as you point out, Stoker knew him.

JIM: Stoker was Irish and grew up in Dublin. He was a man of the theater and, yes, he met Boucicault. By the time he was working on his novel, Stoker would have known that vampire projects were successful moneymakers. He would have known about the other vampire stories and productions. He certainly knew about Carmilla, a tale that featured a female vampire and was published in 1872 by the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu. Before that, there was John Polidori’s 1819 The Vampyre, which had been another early sensation using this idea of vampires.

DAVID:  And, here we’re connecting with Frankenstein. Polidori was Shelley’s physician and friend.

JIM: Polidori’s story came out of the same meeting in 1816 at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva where there was the famous gathering of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Polidori and others. Frankenstein also came out of that summer together.

Stoker was such a practical man of the theater that he knew what kind of writing made money. In fact, his other novels were churned out very quickly, designed to sell. When his original notes were found from his work on Dracula, historians realized that he had taken seven years to compose that book. This was not the way he usually worked. He wanted to be sure that every detail in that novel was just right. It’s his best book, of course.

DAVID: So, he certainly didn’t invent the vampire. But a lot of these earlier vampires weren’t much like what we all seem to know about vampires today. Bram Stoker essentially wrote The Book about vampires.

JIM: In Dracula, Stoker standardized the vampire for us. Before Dracula, the rules we all think we know about vampires today, were easily changing in various stories and stage productions. The whole business about killing a vampire with a stake through the heart? And all the details about how you avoid and kill a vampire? All of that comes from Stoker’s book. He gave us the “official rules” for vampires. He tells us that vampires are created from other vampires—that it’s a growing pestilence. A vampire infects others by taking their blood. His expert, in the novel, is this doctor, Van Helsing, who knows all about vampires. It’s Stoker through Van Helsing who tells us things like: You’re under a spell while the vampire is taking blood from you.

DAVID: And these rules changed over time. Stoker labored over this for years! The storyline in your new book, really, looks at all the influences that shaped his thinking and his final novel during those years.

JIM: For example, we know from Stoker’s notes that he originally planned to set part of his novel in Styria, because that’s where Carmilla was set. But, during his research and writing, he picks up Transylvania. We know from Stoker’s extensive notes that he was familiar with Arminius Vámbéry, the Hungarian travel writer. We know that Stoker and Irving had dinner with Vámbéry, while he was was visiting London, then we know Stoker had dinner with Vámbéry again a couple of years later.

DAVID: But this is very important, as you explain in your book: Stoker never went to Transylvania.

JIM: He did read about the region and it became the perfect setting for his novel, but he never visited. In fact, he got some key details about the region—wrong. For example, he describes one area as rocky, craggy peaks, when that area really is rolling mountain meadows and is much more farm like than what he describes. But, then, he’d never visited the place.

DAVID: You also put to rest the popular notion that Stoker borrowed his Dracula from Vlad the Impaler.

JIM: We now know that Stoker was aware of that name, but he only knew the slightest bit about Vlad. He didn’t know what historians know today.

DRACULA AS AN ANCIENT HORROR
CRASHING INTO A MODERN WORLD

DAVID: Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding about Stoker’s novel is its setting. Most of it is not set in Transylvania. In fact, most of the action is in England.

JIM: One of the most important aspects of Stoker’s story is that his vampire comes crashing into the modern age by coming to England. That’s why this is a new kind of horror story, a template by which we can tell these stories in new ways after Stoker. When you read the novel today, this claim may be a little hard to understand, because the whole story seems dated. But this is a modern novel. It’s written in the form of journals and letters. And Stoker intentionally includes the very latest Victorian innovations.

DAVID: I had not remembered until I re-read it recently that, when Dracula is looking for property to purchase in England, he is told that Kodak photos have been taken of some of the prospective locations. I guess, today, that would be like bringing your iPad into one of the world’s remote ancient cultures for the first time.

JIM: Part of the journal in the novel is written on a typewriter—another recent invention. Edison’s phonograph also makes an appearance in another scene—as a way to record notes on a cylinder. This all is part of Stoker’s careful attention to shaping this drama as the figure of Dracula crashing into modern life. Remember that Dracula seems to have been doing just fine in Transylvania. It’s only when he aspires to come to a big city, buy property and set himself up for business in England that we see the horrific reaction and people wind up chasing him back to Transylvania.

DAVID: Other literary scholars have written about this point—the clash with the modern world in Stoker’s novel. But this idea is an important part of your own approach to Stoker and his novel. You set out to find what other “modern” influences shaped the tale. And you argue that Whitman, Wilde, the actor Irving and also the true-crime horrors of Jack the Ripper all played their parts.

JIM: We know that Dracula is not based on Vlad the Impaler, or what we might call the historical Dracula. I am arguing that Stoker’s Dracula is a character he built as an amalgam of people he knew very well and dealt with in his everyday life. I am drawing on the existing literature about Stoker and his novel. I’m also using Stoker’s own extensive notes and other historical sources. I’m saying that there were four important real-life people in the creation of the character we know today as Dracula. Stoker worked for years with Irving. We know that Whitman and Stoker knew each other and corresponded. There are a few speeches in Stoker’s novel in which his Dracula speaks about death much as Whitman did. And, there are other echoes of Whitman in Stoker’s novel.

Another important influence was Wilde, a childhood friend of Stoker’s since their days in Dublin. They didn’t work together in the theater, but they worked in similar circles and, while the novel Dracula was being composed, their mutual friends were reacting to the famous trial of Wilde. One of the points I make about this vampire story is that it’s really about sex, without talking about sex. For people who aren’t supposed to talk about sex, you can read vampire stories. This certainly was true in the 1800s. There are influences of the whole case involving Wilde in the novel. Then, I also look at Jack the Ripper. Stoker himself acknowledged that this horrific case influenced his writing. We also know that Stoker had dinner with one of the leading suspects in the Ripper case.

I am telling readers: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to argue that these people were important influences on the novel and on the figure of Dracula.

DRACULA & VAMPIRES: TODAY & TOMORROW

DAVID: We can’t close this interview without my asking: What movie version do you prefer? There are hundreds of Dracula-and-vampire movies!

JIM: Well, first, it’s amazing how this character keeps getting reinvented over and over. Can you think of another figure who has this much life and potential for reinvention?

DAVID: Perhaps Tarzan or contemporary super heroes: Batman maybe? I guess we might say Santa Claus, who also is an Energizer Bunny for reinvention. But, you’re right. Dracula is an absolutely magnetic force force for creating new books and films—and comic books and TV series as well, we should say. So, what’s on your short list of essential Dracula movies?

JIM: I would suggest that people go back and find a good version of the silent film Nosferatu.

DAVID: I agree. I love that 1922 version and have watched it a number of times throughout my life. Decades ago, only fragmented, scratchy old prints of the film were circulating. Now, Kino has produced a terrific DVD version, sold via Amazon under the name: Nosferatu (The Two-Disc Edition).

JIM: If you’ve never seen Nosferatu, you owe it to yourself to see the 1922 film. It feels very foreign and odd and other worldly. There’s something about the German designs for that silent film that are just so fitting. That movie follows the original novel in some ways, but it also departs from it. Nosferatu is set in Germany; the vampire never makes it to England.

DAVID: How about Francis Ford Coppola’s version that’s pointedly called Bram Stoker’s Dracula?

JIM: Hollywood, for years, chopped out more and more parts of the original novel. Coppola went back and restored elements from the novel. But he also was indulgent and it was a very expensive, over-done film in which everything is dressed up in this very high style. For my taste in Dracula films, I think some of the cheaper productions feel closer to the original intent.

DAVID: And the whole Twilight phenomenon in novels and movies?

JIM: We may think it’s an irony to see Dracula recast as a teenager today, but think about this: Dracula is one of the ultimate disenfranchised characters. He’s a character out of time. Alone. Misunderstood. Then, think about the common ways teenagers view themselves. In that light, Dracula becomes this perfect kind of character for teens. In creating Twilight, Stephenie Meyer extensively used the mythology of the vampire and she went right back to Bram Stoker. Of course, she also added some of her own rules about vampires to enhance her characters.

Overall, Twilight is evidence of Dracula’s staying power. I’m sure we will see this character reinvented again and again.

WANT MORE?

GET THE BOOKS!
We provide links to Steinmeyer’s Amazon book pages, above—but for easy navigation, here they are in one concise list:

  • Who Was Dracula? This is the focus of our interview today; it’s Steinmeyer’s new book on Bram Stoker and the world in which Dracula was born.
  • The Last Greatest Magician in the World You probably haven’t heard of Howard Thurston, but everyone has heard the name of the other major figure in this joint biography: “Houdini.”
  • Hiding the Elephant Explore a fascinating early era in the history of American pop-culture.
  • Magic. 1400s-1950s A big, lavish coffee table book perfect for gift giving.

WANT TO EXPLORE MORE EXOTIC CORNERS OF POP-CULTURE?
Jim Steinmeyer’s publisher, Tarcher/Penguin, specializes in bringing contemporary audiences new editions of classic spiritual books—as well as new books exploring the lesser-known streams of American spirituality. Our last interview with a Tarcher author explored the amazing world of Ray Palmer, a pioneer in science fiction and in bringing American readers stories from Asian religious traditions.

INVITE A VAMPIRE TO CHURCH

Author Jane Wells also is an expert on vampires (and zombies) in pop-culture. You may enjoy Jane’s Glitter in the Sun, a Bible-study book for small groups, drawing on themes from the Twilight saga. Jane also has written a new column, headlined: Invite a Vampire to Church This Weekend

SHARE THIS WITH FRIENDS

Please, share this column with friends by clicking on the blue-”f” Facebook icon or the envelope-shaped email icon. You also can email us at [email protected] with questions.

PBS debuts BBC landmark film on ‘Life of Muhammad’

August 17, 2013 by

Reporting and Review By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit online magazine

When the British television network, BBC Two, unveiled its three-hour series, The Life of Muhammad, in 2011, British journalists and top Muslim leaders were invited to a special preview screening. They were met by network executives crowing about this historic event: They called it the first full history of Muhammad’s life produced for “Western TV.”

However, their claim was debatable. Millions of Americans already were familiar with the PBS network’s 2002 documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet. That two-hour PBS documentary has subsequently been shown in countless schools, congregations and small groups nationwide—and around the world. The BBC officials were claiming that their three hours were so exclusively focused on Muhammad’s life that their film was a Western-media “first.” In truth? The BBC was splitting hairs in making its claim.

That’s one reason American media coverage of the August 20 PBS debut of that BBC series is muted, compared with the debut in the UK. Most American viewers assume that public television already has covered the Prophet’s life.

In fact, there are a lot of similarities between the productions. For example, Karen Armstrong appears as one of the main “talking heads” in both productions. Also, both the BBC and PBS networks bowed to Islamic requirements that only Muslims are allowed to visit the sacred cities where most of Muhammad’s life unfolded. In the case of PBS, the American convert to Islam Michael Wolfe was the chief correspondent and, as an observant Muslim, was allowed to film in the sacred cities. In the UK, BBC executives tapped Director Faris Kermani and chief on-screen correspondent Rageh Omaar. Both are Muslim. Curiously, as PBS promotes its debut of the British series, press releases emphasize only that Rageh Omaar has worked as a journalist for the BBC and for ITV News. In fact, in the British press, he was better known in 2011 as a correspondent for Al Jazeera’s English-language network.

On balance? Both documentaries were produced with an obvious awareness that these films could do more harm than good. There is a painstaking balance to both films that occasionally makes them slow going for casual viewers. Contrast these films with the much more provocative documentaries about Jesus and various eras of Christian history—some of which wind up on American cable TV channels each year—and you will feel the weight that PBS and BBC officials clearly feel on their shoulders.

How do these two productions differ? As its title indicates, the PBS series really is about Muhammad’s legacy and focuses quite a bit on the millions of diverse Muslim families in the U.S. The BBC series stays for all three hours with the Prophet’s life, spanning the 6th and 7th centuries. Overall, the BBC series is heavily weighted toward British experts and media personalities.

‘LIFE OF MUHAMMAD’—WHAT WE THINK:

Our Read The Spirit viewpoint: If you care about world religions and the growing religious diversity in the United States, this is “must see” television. You may even want to purchase the entire ‘Life of Muhammad‘ series on DVD, via Amazon. As Editor of Read The Spirit, I watched all three hours and can highly recommend the film. In tackling one potentially controversial issue after another, Omaar carefully presents various points of view and, in the course of the series, paints the kind of balanced portrait of Islam that fans of Karen Armstrong’s books will be comfortable watching on their TV screens.

The BBC deliberately costumed Omaar in this series as a humble journalistic traveler. Wherever he appears around the globe, he always is wearing a simple navy-blue or sometimes charcoal shirt, no tie, comfortable khaki slacks and sturdy hiking boots. Over his shoulder is a simple brown tote bag from which he occasionally pulls a book or some notes. We often see Omaar’s “talking head” popping up in dramatic settings to explain what we are seeing. The other experts he interviews usually are sitting in comfortable scholarly offices or libraries. At one point, Omaar does remove his traveler’s uniform to demonstrate for viewers how Muslim pilgrims to Mecca change into simple white garments. The production design of this series tells us loud and clear: These are all reasonable people talking wisely and compassionately about one of the world’s great faiths.

In other words, it’s a series you’d expect to watch in a class on world religions. Presumably, that’s where most of the DVDs for sale on Amazon are headed.

‘LIFE OF MUHAMMAD’—WHAT OTHER JOURNALISTS SAY:

In the UK, the conservative-leaning newspaper The Telegraph assigned two journalists to cover the BBC Two debut. The newspaper’s TV writer Chris Harvey called The Life of Muhammad “an excellent primer, tracing Muhammad’s journey from orphaned son to prophet of a new religion. … I enjoyed it.”

However, the Telegraph’s religion writer Christopher Howse was less impressed. He criticized the great lengths to which BBC Two went to please Muslims with the series, including bowing to Muslim requirements that only Muslims are allowed inside the sacred cities. The BBC would not have been so deferential in reporting on Judaism or Christianity, Howse argued. And, he has a point. On the other hand, the PBS network made the same choice by tapping Michael Wolfe for its film.

The more liberal-leaning newspaper The Guardian assigned Riazat Butt, a veteran religion writer with long experience in covering Islam, to cover the British roll-out of the series. In general, her columns on the documentary reported positive reactions. Her main criticism was that the filmmakers seemed bent on checking off an inventory of “typical” elements in Muslim culture.

Riazat Butt wrote, in part: “Even though we didn’t see the Prophet, we did see shots of praying (tick!), veiled women (tick!), jihadi references such as the planes flying into the twin towers … and veiled women praying (double tick!). There were also shots of camels. My score card is full. The opening episode deals with the circumstances and society that Muhammad was born into. It charts his childhood and early years—being orphaned, being taken in by his uncle—and the narrative is interspersed, interrupted I’d say, with shots of Rageh praying, Rageh brooding, Rageh climbing over rocks in a manful and foreign correspondent-like way.”

Want to see the series? Be sure to check local TV listings in your region as public television show times vary widely.

AND: Consider ordering the earlier PBS documentary from Amazon: Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet

SHARE THIS WITH FRIENDS

Please, share this column with friends by clicking on the blue-”f” Facebook icon or the envelope-shaped email icon. You also can email us at [email protected] with questions.

The Jim Wallis Interview: What Abe Lincoln, C.S. Lewis, Narnia and Puddleglum can teach us about the Common Good

May 19, 2013 by

THE COMMON GOOD. When is the last time you heard that phrase? Perhaps it came from a memorable high school teacher, a beloved mentor in your profession, or a wise aunt who taught you a lot about life. Now, best-selling author and social-justice activist Jim Wallis is barnstorming the country trying to rescue that phrase from the cob webs of nostalgia.

This idea is so powerful, Wallis argues, that it may hold the key to finally resolving the political and cultural wars that have brought America and the rest of the world to a standstill.

In today’s interview with ReadThespirit Editor David Crumm (below), Jim Wallis talks about how this idea suddenly resurfaced in his own life—during a retreat in a remote forest where he says he could almost feel the great Lion Aslan from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia novels walking at his side. This is part of the inspiring story that Wallis tells in his new book: On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned about Serving the Common Good.

All this week in the OurValues column, sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker will explore the practical implications of the Common Good in today’s political, cultural and global crises. If you order a copy of Jim’s book (click the book cover, above, to visit its Amazon page), you will find that this interview and Baker’s OurValues series cover the book’s two major parts: Part 1, Inspiring the Common Good, and Part 2, Practices for the Common Good.

Here is David Crumm’s interview with Jim Wallis …

OUR INTERVIEW WITH JIM WALLIS ABOUT
‘ON GOD’S SIDE’ & REDISCOVERING THE COMMON GOOD

DAVID: Your book makes an eloquent Christian case for rediscovering the Common Good; you show how this concept flows upwards to us from the roots of Christianity in Jesus’s teachings. You explain how C.S. Lewis’s Aslan the Lion reminds you of this truth. However, before you introduce readers to Aslan, you introduce Abraham Lincoln. You quote, at length, from his Second Inaugural. The Common Good is a deeply religious idea, you argue—but, first, you point out that it’s also an American civic ideal as articulated by Lincoln and enshrined in Washington DC. Why did you decide to start with Lincoln?

JIM: Readers actually meet Lincoln right on the book’s cover. That cover is a lovely photo of the Lincoln Memorial at night. It’s my favorite of all the monuments in Washington—and I love the Second Inaugural. When I was tutoring inner-city kids and trying to help them learn to read, I sometimes would take them to the Lincoln Memorial and ask them to sound out word-for-word the Second Inaugural, especially: “With malice toward none, with charity for all …” In his final years, Lincoln was working so hard to bring the nation back together that he was no longer interested in simply identifying who was right and who was wrong.

There is so much in the Second Inaugural that we should study today. He actually talks about how Americans on both sides of the Civil War “read the same Bible and pray to the same God.” Then, he points out that “the prayers of both could not be answered.” What Lincoln is describing here is conflict resolution. In the real world, we do resolve most of our human conflicts without resorting to violence. We resolve conflicts—large and small—in a peaceful way every day. War really is a failure, Lincoln is saying.

THE COMMON GOOD: AN OLD IDEA FORGOTTEN TODAY

DAVID: This is a good point to ask a practical question on behalf of our regular readers: If we already own some of your other books—why buy this one? And I think you’ve just touched on that unique, central theme of this new book. Right after quoting Lincoln in the book, you argue: “Lincoln had it right. The biggest problem with religion is that people, groups, institutions, nations, and all of our human sides sometimes try to bring God onto our side. When people and groups are sure they are right, they want to confidently say that God agrees with them. … The much harder task, and the more important one, is to ask how to be on God’s side, as Lincoln is suggesting.”

JIM: This is really the first time I’ve focused a book on the common good, which is such an old idea and yet is almost forgotten today. In our various traditions, the common good really is a powerful notion that we are all accountable for each other. If we can restore that sense of the common good, we can move forward. In the book’s subtitle I say that politicians don’t learn about serving the common good anymore. Now that I am touring the country and talking about this book with readers, I actually wish I could go back and make that subtitle even stronger: Now, I’d say “Politics is the Enemy of the Common Good.”

DAVID: In the new book, you’re also saying something quite provocative about the nature of your own Christian faith. You’re saying that Christianity is not about each person grabbing a ticket to heaven. More than that, you argue that the purpose of religion is not to prove that we’re right and then to impose our slate of pre-determined values on others. You write that Jesus’s “better way of life wasn’t meant to benefit just Christians, but everybody else, too.” Am I fairly summarizing this?

JIM: Yes, you’re doing well in explaining it. We are called for the sake of other people, not just ourselves. That’s the point of the whole thing. We live in a  pluralistic society—religiously and politically—so I’m asking: How do we evoke our faith in a context that is democratic? The whole idea is that we cannot lead by control, by imposing our control on others. But we can lead others by example, by lifting up the values we can all hold for our common good. This is a servant posture, not a posture of campaigning to impose our will on everyone. Dr. Martin Luther King never said: I get to win because I’m a Christian. He never said that. He said: We have to win the debate about the common good. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were not just good for blacks or for Baptists. These laws were a part of restoring and protecting the common good. King understood that.

THE COMMON GOOD IN CHRISTIANITY AND NARNIA

DAVID: In the second chapter of your book, you shift from Lincoln and your critique of the sorry state of American politics to the heart of your own faith—Christianity. You put it bluntly: Christians disagree about the main message of Christianity. You write: “If Jesus is mostly a private figure for our individual lives, our faith will be primarily personal and not much engaged in the societies in which we live. If Jesus just provides us a pathway to heaven, we won’t be much concerned with what happens on this earth. Or if we create a Jesus mostly in our own image, he won’t be very useful to ‘others’ who are unlike us.” Then, you add a crucial “But”!

You continue: “But if Jesus came because ‘God so loved the world,’ he will be a different Jesus for us. … If Jesus came to create a new community and not just save people, then that community’s collective life in the world will be of crucial importance. And if we as individuals are so drawn to Jesus that we want to learn the ways he would have us live, he becomes the Living Teacher who walks among us. All of which brings me to a lion.”

That’s how you introduce the section on Aslan. So, Jim, tell us about your encounter with Aslan the Lion.

JIM: I devote a whole chapter to that story. I began the sabbatical I took to write this new book by taking a retreat with a monastic community overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I’ve always loved Lewis’s stuff; I own all of his books. I’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia to our boys. We’ve seen the movie versions. I’ve been very familiar with the stories for years. But, there in this isolated retreat, I found some old copies of the Narnia novels in a little library they had organized for guests. I pulled out The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first Narnia novel, and decided I would re-read just that one.

DAVID: In describing this dramatic new encounter with Narnia, you write: “Sometimes I felt like Aslan was walking beside me, up and down the coastal hills to the sea, teaching me again what it means to be a Narnian. The lion helped inspire my hope to write a biblical and theological defense of the common good, something that has been almost lost in an age of selfishness.”

JIM: As you know, I didn’t stop with the first novel. In my retreat, I wound up going through all the novels. Aslan struck me as the archtypical leader for the common good in Narnia, particularly for the most vulnerable creatures. What is so very important is the ongoing personal relationship that Aslan has with many of Lewis’s main characters—the children who travel to Narnia and also some of the creatures from Narnia. They could walk along side him. They could reflect with Aslan about their own decisions and challenges and choices.

Sometimes, walking among the redwoods and along the ocean on that retreat, I did feel that Aslan was walking along side me. This really got me thinking about the image of Jesus as the loving teacher who walks among us in an ongoing way—rather than Jesus as a remote Savior who many traditionalists like to describe as having gone off to Heaven to prepare a place for us. I don’t want to sound overly judgmental in describing two extreme images of Jesus like this. What I’m trying to explain is how important I think it is to realize that Jesus is a living teacher who walks among us, reminding us of the common good we need to restore and protect in this world.

THE HOPE OF C.S. LEWIS’S PUDDLEGLUM
AND ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU

DAVID: That’s Aslan’s message and purpose in Narnia. Yes, I think Narnia fans will understand your point here, right away. But you go an important step further—because the truth is that we can’t all go off on intense retreats all the time and feel Aslan walking with us in a paradise landscape. You point to one of my own favorite characters in Narnia—the “marsh-wiggle” known as Puddleglum who appears in The Silver Chair. When I was growing up in the early 1960s, my father’s hardback copy of The Silver Chair was the first Narnia novel I ever read—and I loved this strange half-amphibian-half-human sort of figure. He lives in the marshes and can easily blend into the green landscape.

You actually quote nearly as much of Puddleglum in your new book as you do of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.

JIM: Yes, the real question is: When we return from these intense periods, like the one I experienced on the retreat, how you keep believing in things even on days you don’t feel it? How do we keep the vision of the common good in front of us?

DAVID: For readers who don’t know Narnia—or have forgotten Puddleglum—the young heroes of the Narnian stories encounter him way out in a remote part of the C.S. Lewis landscape. Then, in the Narnia novel called The Silver Chair, they wind up trapped in a deadly underworld kingdom where they are completely locked away from real life up on the surface of the world. The deadly temptation is to forget about Narnia, to doubt that Narnia even exists and to turn away from Aslan’s vision for Narnia. But, in the midst of this terrible darkness and temptation, Puddleglum does something absolutely heroic, right?

JIM: I quote Puddleglum on the first page of that chapter and then again in the heart of the chapter. My question is: How do we keep believing in things, even on days when we don’t feel like it? Or on days when our belief may be fading? Well, Puddlegum is a great model for us. He courageously declares: “I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”

I have to say: Thank you for asking me about this portion of the book. In all the interviews I’ve done so far about the new book, the interviewers just ask about politics, Washington, Barack Obama and the common good. Reporters seem to have a very narrow political focus on this book. But the truth is that writing the chapter on Lewis, the Lion and Puddleglum was the one I enjoyed the most. You know, the only real piece of art in my house is of a South African lion. It’s a beautiful piece of art I got years ago and this big lion has eyes that seem to be watching you wherever you stand—much as I imagine Aslan looking into our souls.

DAVID: As a reader, I found this book inspiring and full of fresh perspectives. Did you intend this book to be hopeful? Do you feel hopeful?

JIM: One of my mentors, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, helped me to see the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is about how you look at things today, your mood at the moment and your assessment of the latest news. Optimism is about your immediate response to how things are going and your personality plays a big part in that. But, hope is not a feeling or a mood. Hope is a decision that you make because of a thing called faith, whatever faith may mean to you. Hope is really a decision that people like Arcbhishop Tutu make that shaped his whole life and the world, as well. Many years ago, he decided that there was going to be a free South Africa—long before anyone could imagine how that could happen. He made his decision to hope for a free South Africa—and he bet his life on it. Am I hopeful about our future? Yes, I am, and I’m betting my life on that hope, too.

Care to read more about Jim Wallis,
‘On God’s Side’ and the Common Good?

VISIT OUR VALUES FOR MORE: This interview focuses mainly on Part 1 of Jim Wallis’s new On God’s Side, called Inspiring the Common Good. In this week’s OurValues series, sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker looks at the book’s Part 2, Practices for the Common Good.

OTHER LINCOLN LINKS: 2013 is packed with 150th-anniversary milestones from Lincoln’s life. Here is a convenient Index to many of our most popular Lincoln-themed stories this year.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, interfaith news and cross-cultural issues.)