Christians and Literature – 10 Questions for Sheila Kurian

Previously, Mark Nenadov, Michael Plato, Olga Lukmanova, Ian Clary, Vincent Cancilla, Heather Weir, and Bob Walton’s answers on the topic of literature have been featured. Here are Sheila Kurian’s answers.

1. Can you give a brief summary of where you live, your educational background, what you do for a living, what church you attend, and the religious tradition you stand in?

I am a native Torontonian with a master’s degree in Classics.  Currently, I am a book-keeper part-time and pursuing a masters degree in religion at the UFT.  I attend two churches: St. Paul’s Anglican on Bloor Street regularly and St. Thomas’ Syrian Orthodox Church monthly.  First and foremost I am a Christian; my theology is most informed by the Orthodox church (I was raised Syrian Orthodox) but I love the evangelical practice of St. Paul’s – hence the two churches.

2. How has your early upbringing shaped your view and use of literature now?

Some of my earliest memories involve books; I remember being read to and learning to read.  Every night, our family would gather at a fixed hour, read the Bible together and pray. My parents both love to read and took us to the library every Saturday morning from the time I was three.   We had a wonderful librarian in our local library; when I had finished the ‘kid’ section, I asked her what I should read next.  She took me to the classics and said that I should start from there; anything that I didn’t like, I should put back on the shelf and try again a year or two later as I probably wasn’t ready for it yet.  This has saved many books for me e.g. I first tried Anne of Green Gables in grade 2, but didn’t like it.  I followed our librarian’s advice and tried it again a year later and loved it.

I continue to read for pleasure – all types of books: ‘classics’, sci-fi, biographies, poetry, history. Books also provide a means of exploring other cultures, times, ideas.  The only genre which I will not read is modern horror [I have read Dracula and Frankenstein]  because I get nightmares.

3. Are there any people who, in your adult life, have encouraged you to encounter literature in a deeper or more passionate way. If so, who? (they can people you know personally or not)

C. S. Lewis has been a long time influence for my childhood and in my adult life.  Thanks to his essay An Experiment in Criticism, for example, I had an early defence for rereading books.  Also, because he and Tolkien read fairy tales and children’s stories, even as adults [I can't remember the essay which speaks of this - Tolkien wrote it' there is also something in Lewis' Fern Seeds and Elephants collection], I never had to go through a stage of being ashamed that I read the Narnia books and the Tolkien books every spring.  My parents both continue to influence my reading habits; we recommend books to each other (one of the delights of growing up!). A classics professor, Hugh Parry, one of the gentlest and best-read people I know, encouraged all of his students to read broadly; he said that if we just stuck to primary and secondary texts we would shrink as persons.  Really, all of my professors have had an impact, because each has introduced me to books and ideas which I had never encountered.  Madeline L’Engle is another author who stretched my boundaries, particularly as a teen, introducing me to Elie Wiesel and poets like Herbert, Vaughan, and Donne. Then there are my friends.  Both here in Toronto and friends from Chicago have always been great at sharing books and their responses to them.  Whole vistas have opened up for me, particularly in Chicago, when my friends and I formed a reading circle.  We met every Saturday night, rotating houses.  We were not allowed to talk shop (all of us were in grad. school).  After dinner, one of us would read aloud from a book which we had all chosen.

Good books were/are meant to be heard, not just read silently.  This is especially true of the Bible [I love the collect which encourages us to hear the word, as well as read, mark, learn..."Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. Amen"]

There is so much more: book reviews in the Guardian, on NPR, and the CBC.  The books on the Geller list and those which win the Booker Prize. Recommendations from book store clerks and fellow students.  But I have to stop!

4. What authors/works would you re-read if you had a month-long sabbatical to dedicate to reading?

The Bible.  The Iliad and Odyssey.  The Oresteia.  Elie Wiesel’s Messengers of God.  The Hobbit.  Books 2, 4, and 6 of the Aeneid.  Sayer’s The Man who would be King.  Lewis’ The Last Battle.  Roberta Bondi’s To Pray and To Love.  Milton’s Paradise Lost.  Lewis’ The Great Divorce.  Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed.  Sermons by Andrew Lancelot. Aquinas’ Imitation of Christ.  King Lear.  St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul.  Banville’s biography of Copernicus.  And some PG Wodehouse or Gerald Durrell (probably My Family and Other Animals).

I usually have several books on the go as you might guess from the length of the list.

5. Who are your favorite authors or characters portrayed in literature? (if any of them have substantially changed you, list how briefly)

[No answer provided]

6. Should Christians read more literature? What are the benefits to that? What are some cautions you would share?

Yes, absolutely.  All of us are shaped by books, directly or indirectly.  Paul, for example, was shaped by Euripides and Plato; it is reflected in his writings.  Luke by historians like Thucydides and Livy (see Luke’s lining up of his evidence and compare it to Thuc. Book 1 chapter 22, for example).   Genres, ideas shape people – consciously or unconsciously.  If you don’t know much about the schools of the Stoics and the Epicureans you will miss a lot of the humour in 1st Corinthians.   If we don’t read, we won’t know what shaped the authors that we “have” to read and what is continuing to shape our culture even today – e.g. Hobbes or Locke or Descartes.  I heard someone mangling Adam Smith (the ‘invisible hand’) the other night when attempting to justify his position on why the government should not impose regulations on banks (this was in the States).

Or look at the way people abuse poor Robert Frost’s phrase “good fences make good neighbours”.  Knowing the context of these quotations helps us to true understanding; we may not agree, but at least we see the argument properly.

But also, and perhaps more importantly, God gave us imaginations; he gave us the ability to respond to beauty.  Tragedy really can lift you out of yourself – think of the domestic tragedy of the Medea or the conflict between public and private in the Antigone.  The Narnia books gave me an means to think about theology before I knew what the word meant.  Fairy tales give us monsters and heroes. Myths have echoes of eternal story in them (think of the number of dying and resurrected gods there are in the Greek tales, for example; God was implanting his plan in all peoples so that when we were introduced to the Real God-Man, Jesus, who died and rose again, we would recognise him.).  Biographies tell of challenges – of success and failures.  They dare us to stretch beyond what we think our boundaries are.  History – well, if we don’t know our history, we fail to understand the political, social, economic, and religious forces at work in our society.

7. To what degree is reading communal for you? (ie. Are you more solitary? Do you share in any way with your friends? Are you in reading groups?)

I read every night and have since I first learned how to read; in that sense, I am a solitary reader.  However, I loved the reading group that I was a part of in Chicago and would love to be part of such a group again, if possible.  All of us are still in touch (we live all over the world) and share book recommendations and thoughts on books by e-mail and telephone.   Also, I exchange books with friends and family.

8. What are some methods or principles you use to decide what you will and won’t read?

9. What literary works or authors could be of the greatest value to the church if they were read more? Why?

10. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?