One Month Down

I have been following two New Years' resolutions. One was to read one book per week this year- while some books will take months (Ulysses, Infinite Jest and Moby Dick, all of which I hope to read in 2010), there are other books I'll blast through in one sitting. The goal is to have it all balance out to at least 52 books when 2011 rolls around.

The other goal is to track the books I read and the movies I watch this year. I have two pieces of paper taped to the wall above my desk, one listing books read and one listing movies watched. January was a good media month, with 18 movies watched and 8 books read.

Books read in January (with brief reviews):

Dubliners by James Joyce - may end up being the best story collection I read all year

Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor - no one does sentimental satire like GK

Sanctuary by William Faulkner - his language is masterful, but I'm not sure he speaks to me

Emma's War by Deborah Scroggins - one heavy, masterfully written true story. See the previous post for my thoughts

The Best of Roald Dahl - while clever and funny, Dahl's mean-spirited shorts got on my nerves pretty quickly

Light in August by William Faulkner - this is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but Faulkner's storytelling can distract me from the story sometimes

A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton - I was shocked by how rich, relatable, and well-paced this novel was

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers - i found this book far more focused and affecting than her more famous The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. McCullers is becoming a favorite. I hope to read the rest of her novels in next few months.

Movies watched in January (with brief reviews):

Merrill's Marauders - I can see why director Sam Fuller was ticked about the final cut of this movie, but there were enough signature Fuller moments to make it worth the watch.

Dancing to New Orleans - There wasn't anything special about the way this doc was put together, but I love NO and its music scene so much, I didn't care. It was great to see musicians talk about the scene, and to see them perform.

The Stunt Man - One of my mentors loaned me this film, saying it was "kinetic filmmaking at its finest." It's a b-movie masterpiece, with terrible acting adding to its odd, delightful impact.

The Orphanage - The farther away from America a horror movie is made, the better it is. This film was great as drama and as horror. I found it creepy, rich, and touching.

Elizabeth - Brilliant Eastern take on European history. One of the most visually rich movies I've seen in ages.

Zombieland - The gory, super dark humor in this movie worked for me, despite a few boilerplate romantic moments. I like actor Jesse Eisenberg more every time I see him.

Too Late for Tears - This classic Noir film has some great twists, but I had a hard time getting past the dated acting style

Elizabeth: The Golden Age - While it was just as visually stunning as its predecessor, I found this sequel less nuanced than the first Elizabeth, although my wife thought it was the better of the two.

Casino Royale - A hilarious send-up of all things James Bond. Admittedly, this movie was weird, but it worked for me.

Where the Wild Things Are - I was told that this movie was a confused, depressing mess. I disagree. I found it to be wholly original, culturally fascinating, and beautifully directed.

Zatoichi 1: The Tale of Zatoichi - I knew that an old Japanese movie about a blind swordsman was gonna be good, but I had no idea how complex and tormented the main character would be, nor how masterfully the cinematography would engage me in his story.

Synechdoche, New York - Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman proved that he can direct his own bizarre metanarratives just as well as the directors who helmed his other screenplays. SNY is funny, insightful, and unnerving in the best possible way.

Zatoichi 2: The Tale of Zatoichi Continues - Anyone involved in making a series of movies needs to study Zatoichi. The sequels manage to keep getting better as they delve deeper into this fascinating character.

Zatoichi 3: New Tale of Zatoichi - See last review.

Zatoichi 4: The Fugitive - See last review, but imagine an even better film than the preceding three.

Chop Shop - Joined the ranks of City of God and Gomorrah as one of my favorite hyper-realistic, beautifully composed expose films about people living in the slums.

Ichi - Although I'm a huge fan of the Zatoichi franchise, this melodramatic, exploitative spinoff was disappointing. The female lead was less compelling than the original actor, the voice-over narration was annoying, and pretty much everything was overdone.

That sums up my media consumption for January. I'm going to try to do these monthly recaps as we go along to a) keep me accountable for my resolutions and b) draw traffic and comments to this side-project blog of mine.

To What End?

I first heard of Emma McCune while cruising the internet for African music. A Sudanese rapper named Emmanuel Jal credits her with his rescue, and his song "Emma" is a moving tribute to her compassion and to the fruits of her work.

When I searched for Emma online, I learned that not everyone shares Jal's adoration for her.

To learn more about this controversial crusader, I ordered a copy of Emma's War, by Atlanta-dwelling writer Deborah Scroggins. This thorough, beautifully-written book chronicles not only Emma's life, but the long history of Western involvement in Sudan.

A low-level aid worker, Emma worked building schools for children in the war-torn south of Sudan, among the warring Dinka and Nuer tribes (among others). She was one of hundreds of Western expats caught up in a movement to bring relief to the suffering in Africa.

In her travels, she met a charismatic rebel leader, fell in love, and married him. She fell into bad repute when her husband, a ranking official in the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), rebelled against his commander, starting a bloody war that multiplied already alarming levels of famine and violence in southern Sudan. Soon Emma was acting as a press secretary and political advocate for her husband, clearly taking a side in the conflict and apparently turning a blind eye to some of the most offensive atrocities in the history of a long and atrocious war.

Scroggins uses Emma's story to exemplify what she sees as an often well-intentioned, but misguided, delusional, costly, and ultimately ineffective effort to bring our type of peace to Sudan. At first, I thought that this might be an unfair way to use a woman's life, especially in light of the impact it had on Jal, one of my favorite musicians.

However, the book gives voice to those who felt that Emma had done good work. Scroggins acknowledges the high regard with which the Nuer people viewed Emma, and she recounts how Emmanuel Jal was smuggled out of Sudan to Kenya.

I felt depressed all day yesterday after reading the book. It mounted a significant attack on my ideas about helping the poor, and displayed tragic consequences to some of the most well-intentioned, well-planned aid efforts. Scroggins seems content to lament the tragedy, and she offers little hope for improved models and positive results for Western aid efforts.

In the world of cross-cultural ministry, we can rarely foresee the results of our work. We can plan carefully, step cautiously, and respect boundaries, but sooner or later, to do any good, we must act, and we can't always know what will happen as a result. It may sometimes be better not to act at all- Emma's story, at least Scroggin's telling of it, seems to imply this.

But who knows? The bloodshed probably would have happened with or without Emma there, and even if one disregards all her other relief efforts, the saved life of Emmanuel Jal and his subsequent impact on his home country seem worth the venture.

This is where I have to place my mind if I am to continue this kind of work. The poor will always be with us. I can't even solve one kid's problems, much less those of a whole community. I am responsible to plan as well as I can, but in the end I am acting in good faith- faith that love, tempered with as much wisdom as is available to me at this point- will bear good fruit.

If Emma McCune, with all her missteps and her moments of blindness and romantic delusion, was able to influence one Nuer kid to turn his life around and reach back to his own people, then I have to believe that something good can come of our work here.