On "Glitz" by Elmore Leonard ****

Having now read six Leonard novels, I'm coming to see a pattern, which is not unlike most novels in the Western genre, even though Leonard moved over to writing crime fiction. At the center of each book is a superhero, some man is simply so full of incredible insight and ability that he makes everything in his world work out for the right. Most of these men also have a bit of a weakness that gets them into a little bit of trouble, and usually that weakness is a woman--though often a source of their strength is also a woman. I go right back to the main character in 52 Pickup, for example, whose affair is really the start of all that man's troubles, but the blackmailers have picked on the wrong guy, and he's helped along throughout his ordeal by his strong wife. Or think of La Brava, who falls for a not-so-good movie star, but again, she and her cronies have picked on the wrong guy.

In Glitz that man is Vincent Mora, a cop from Miami, who is recovering from an injury in Puerto Rico. (The novel starts off with a great hook--Mora getting shot while being mugged on his way home from the grocery store.) He falls for a twenty-one-year-old prostitute who is simply after a money and the better life it will bring. Mora is her ticket, until something better comes along: an opportunity to work in Atlantic City. Like the girls trapped in Epstein's web, this is not the opportunity it appears, Mora warns her, and sure enough, she ends up dead a few days later, which is what brings Mora up to New Jersey to investigate her death. There are a cache of mob characters Mora investigates on his way toward solving the crime, each of whom doesn't really know what he's up against. Tough guys they are, they are no match for the tougher and smarter Mora, who knows how to turn them against one another for his own gain.

But there's also a serial killer on the loose, one who has it out for Mora, who busted him a decade ago and who is out on an easy sentence and constant good fortune that allows him to stay free. And there's a lounge singer with whom Mora takes up. The lounge singer turns out to the be the strong woman who saves/aids Mora, and the serial killer, Teddy, his arch nemesis, whose main skill is not so much smarts as luck. Leonard does a neat, common trick and brings us back to the novel's start at the end, but with echoes of new meaning and resonance.

There is much to like in this book, but as I noted, there does seem like something of a formula to it--and also, the constant violence wears a bit thin. If shootings and deaths and fights really were this common in everyday America we'd be in sad shape and have no reason ever to venture beyond our homes outside of bare necessities. I'm finally getting around to Leonard at a time in my life when I am less willing to give such things as much of a pass.

On "Rabbi Akiva" by Barry W. Holtz ***

I'm reading two biographies of Rabbi Akiva at the same time and managed to complete this one first,  but as such, I find myself getting somewhat confused between the two, since they share accounts of similar events and statements. The big difference between the two is that this one seems the more topical, the less biographical. That's because of the author's method in writing the work.

You see, the problem with Akiva is that our information about him comes largely from the Talmud. In fact, he's referenced more than one thousand times in the Babylonian Talmud and more than four hundred times in the shorter Jerusalem Talmud (at least as I remember the count both books gave). But those references are contradictory. They don't present any sort of biographical portrait as we would think of it. As such, knowing just who and what Akiva did is difficult--perhaps even impossible--although he was clearly important to rabbinic Judaism's formation.

While the other biography takes a chance on trying to sort truth from error, Holtz doesn't bother. He's more interested, as he says, in what the various portraits of Akiva say about the writers than what they say about Akiva. As such, all the contradictions are presented, but they are less often weighed. More often, Holtz discusses what they mean to the particular audience they are aimed at.
So some of the contractions (again, I may be mixing up books at this point, as both cover similar ground): 

Akiva was born poor but he ended up rich. He was anti-intellectual but ended up the most intellectual of all rabbis. His wife would only marry him if he went to a Jewish academy, or he went to a Jewish academy and abandoned his wife. He grew rich when his father-in-law, who disapproved of him early on, accepted him as a great rabbi and then gave him lots of money. Or he was poor until he remarried--the ex-wife of a Roman governor of Judea, the same one who would put him to death.

I mostly turned to Akiva because I wanted to know a bit more about the Bar Kochba revolt, which he supposedly supported. But Holtz only quotes one passage in that regard, and he's less certain--in fact, he seems rather tepid toward the idea--that Akiva actually contributed to the Jewish rebel cause. Maybe he leaned toward Bar Kochba because of his early experiences, but it doesn't seem like he actually encouraged uprising. When he is put to death, it is unclear whether that is after or before the war or during the war. He is put to death for not giving up the law, for preaching publically, which seems more likely after the war, but there are not any sources outside the Talmud that confirm that this was ever against the law. Was Akiva even put to death? Such are the many mysteries of this man both authors think one of the greatest Jewish thinkers/sages ever.

On "La Brava" by Elmore Leonard ****

This one took a bit longer to get into than the previous works I've read of Leonard's. The plot doesn't really get ticking till halfway through. Instead, Leonard spends a good deal of space introducing us to the characters involved. There's Joseph La Brava, the cameraman and ex-government agent. There's his friend Maurice. There's some woman named Jean Shaw, a former actress. And then there's this other plot going on, with Richard Nobles and a guy named Cundo. They're the seeming crooks in this narrative, but it's hard to know exactly what their angle is in terms of what they're plotting other than some small-time bad stuff.

Meanwhile, La Brava finds himself being pulled into Jean Shaw's life--romantically--in part because he was a big fan of hers as a teen, and to be involved with a movie star, even one fifteen or twenty years his senior, is a real turn-on, like being in her movies themselves. But clearly, Maurice, an old friend of hers, has the hots for her too, though she generally just rebuts his advances while taking advantage of his friendship.

About halfway through the book, the plot with the crooks begins to converge, and we learn that things aren't quite what they seem, even as real life begins to converge more and more with Shaw's past films, as the novel becomes almost metafictional. What counts as real? What counts as acting? The book grows hard to put down at that point, until the final, somewhat emotionally unsatisfying close. 

On "Christianity at the Crossroads" by Michael Kruger ****

This is a basic introduction to Christianity in the second century. As such, it's a good summary of the various issues that the second century presents for scholars to explore, written for lay people. I found the early parts a bit basic, retreading much that I've read elsewhere, covering the second-century society and culture, the basic practices and possible government forms, the manner of worship and meeting, and so on.

In chapter 4--about halfway through the book--is where Kruger really starts to get down to an argument that he explores more fully in another book: namely, he discusses how diverse the second century was in terms of belief and practice (as per much modern scholarship, based around Walter Bauer's thesis that there wasn't really any such thing as a unitary Christianity early on). Kruger doesn't believe that, so after exploring the differing non-mainstream Christian groups, he proceeds in chapter 5 to show how there actually was an orthodox Christian faith all the way back in the second century, one that stemmed from the first century. He argues this primarily by discussing "the rule of faith"--that is, the basic tenets that made Christians, in fact, Christians, into which the non-mainstream did not fit: the idea that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, died, and rose the third day; that he was God in the flesh; and so on.

Chapters 6 and 7 are where this book really shine, which is not surprising, given that the chapters cover topics that Kruger specializes in and has written several other works on: namely, the canonization of the scripture and the literary culture of the early church. Kruger goes into more detail on these subjects elsewhere, but these two chapters seem a very good and detailed summary of the issues and are what make this book worth the time spent reading it, even beyond just the basic introduction.

On "Creating the Canon" by Benjamin F. Laird *****

 

This is one of the best books on questions related to the biblical canon that I've read. Laird managed to find new angles and new ways at looking at what is a very well-rehearsed subject. He covers, of course, a lot of the standard territory, but to each subject he brings a degree of fresh thinking and wide-ranging discussion.

How were the New Testament books composed? Were the people credited with them really the authors? Laird brings up, of course, the degree to which authors relied on secretaries. Whether you were literate or not (and most people were not literate at the time), you might well have a person or persons who wrote on your behalf. One of the difficulties, of course, with much of the language in the New Testament is, of course, the fact that sometimes a given author might seem to be writing in a way that he hasn't written in earlier circumstances. This, of course, explains why that is possible. But it wasn't just secretaries who might have an influence on a work. There was the process of “publication.” Before a work was released into the world, it was often, even as it would be today, commented on by numerous others—friends and associates. It might, in other words, have various renditions, privately distributed. Once it was ready for dissemination, the secretary might make more than one copy: there might be a copy to the recipient, and a copy kept by the author. There might also be multiple copies, if multiple recipients, and sometimes these copies might differ according to the recipient. So it's possible, for example, that Paul created a version of a given letter for general reception, one for people specifically in a given city, and one for himself. Thus, we would have multiple versions of a letter floating around (for example, you might end up with Romans with and without chapter 16), but only one that was really intended for general publication. Still, that means there isn't really a single original. Once something was in publication/distribution, however, it was next to impossible to pull it back. It's now public, being copied from one recipient to another. But such intricacies explain both how most of our New Testament writings match so well against surviving manuscripts but also why there might be occasional significant variations—and it does so in a way that doesn't require that some later person has “messed” with the text.

Laird looks at also when canonization could have happened, per various other people's claims, denoting how no single council really determined the canon. Very interestingly, he posits that Marcion may not have “shortened” the Bible (rejecting certain letters of Paul) but may have only had access to a ten-letter version of Paul's writings. This idea seems a bit dubious to me, given when Marcion was writing (namely, at at a point when the fuller collection and other New Testament writings should have been available) and the conclusions Laird later reaches, but nevertheless it's an interesting thought.

After reviewing early citations to the books of the New Testament, Laird discusses how the New Testament likely circulated—namely, not as a single book but as a collection of distinct collections. Bookmaking just wasn't of the sort that you could it all twenty-seven works into a single volume. So generally, there were collections of various sorts, the most popular being the Gospels, Paul's letters (in ten, thirteen, and fourteen letter versions), Acts (sometimes with the General Epistles), the General Epistles, and Revelation. With regard to Paul's letters, the initial ten may have been published first, then later the others were added—thus, you have versions with and without the pastoral letters and with and without Hebrews. This doesn't require someone else write said books in Paul's name. It may be that Paul, or an associate, republished the collection with the additions (though of course such multiple publications leave open the possibility that someone wrote in Paul's name and added those works; Laird notes that no early writers doubted the authenticity of the pastorals). Nevertheless, what Laird shows is that rather than there being twenty-seven books circulating separately and gradually gaining status as canon, there were discrete collections that came to be considered canon.

A final section looks at the importance of authorship with regard to what was to be considered canonical. Laird looks at various theories regarding how the canon could come to be and could come to be (mostly) fixed (he acknowledges that actually the canon does differ across Christianity). He shows the shortcomings of arguments that dismiss the centrality of authorship—that the canon is just somehow evident, that the church decided it, that God inspired it, and so on. In the end, the early church believed these were the works written by the apostles and their associates and that's why they became canon. Authorship mattered, even if the works were inspired or the church decided; other “inspired” writings didn't make it. The point was that these were the witnesses God sent forth; that is what the church believed, and that is how the canon became fixed.

On “For Something to Do” by Elmore Leonard (4943 words) ***

Here's a short story that seems somewhat typical of Leonard's work: the violence, the tough guy focus, the criminal element. Even the fact that this is set in rural Michigan might be seen as emblematic of Leonard's work—bringing together a common setting (Michigan) and the western elements of his early work. Evan has married his sweetheart. The two are expecting guests, but they hope, strangely, that the guests won't show: in fact, they'd be okay with the guests getting in an accident or something else dreadful. The reason soon becomes clear why. Cal (a relative) and Ray (a former boyfriend) are tough guys here to spend time with Evan's wife and not too keen on seeing her poor horse farmer husband. Leonard's work probably works better over a larger page count, where the plots can unfurl in unpredictable complexity. Here, as seems inevitable in so much Leonard fiction, a fight ensues, and we see the parties come to a head, the situation “resolved,” though the degree to which that resolution is permanent, I have to wonder, would be questionable outside the tidy resolution of the story. You can read it here at Harper's Magazine.

On "City Primeval" by Elmore Leonard ****

The subtitle of this work is "High Noon in Detroit," which essentially sums up this cop versus robber (or really, killer) novel. Raymond Cruz works in the homocide division of the Detroit Police Department. Clement robs the occasional person and shoots the occasional person for fun.

Clement currently is setting up a scam with an Albanian, but he's interrupted by a lousy driver. His reaction: Shoot the dumb driver--and his passenger. The driver turns out to be a judge. Only, the judge was crooked and not well liked. So you figure maybe folks wouldn't care too much, maybe? But the police go after the killer like any other.

In a whodunit, we'd be wondering, well, who done it? In this work, we know who's done it from the first chapter. In many another book, we might know who done it, but we'd be walking with the police as they figure that out. Neither is true here. The police know pretty quickly the killer. The issue is that the killer is good at snaking out of any charge that is given to him, so the book is mostly about gathering evidence and also about setting Clement up so that he can't slink away.

And that's where Raymond comes in. In a central scene in the novel, the two protagonists square off, and they talk about how if this were the Old West, they'd have a duel. And that's really what this becomes: the wits of one man against another until only one is left. (Without giving much away, I'll say that in a way, the book ends twice. I prefer the first ending, but I think Leonard felt a need to bring it back to that faceoff, so we get a tag that seems unnecessary and less fitting to the circumstances.)