Potatoes : Half-Baked but Warming Up

Leslie comments:

James, it was hard for me... I REALLY, REALLY wanted to like this book 100% w/o reservations. Everyone I asked about it.. everything I read. Miller's writing is excellent. One chapter almost brought me to tears while I was reading it in the hospital cafeteria.... It's his personal beliefs that I have a problem with... politically I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum than him. His beliefs really come through in his writing (which they should... in this type of writing). It's a pretty transparent book for him.

Is this a better than my "half baked potato" comment? (ie... sometimes warm in places and in other places just cold hard raw potato)

The additional description helps, certainly. i will say that it's rare that an author's politics get in the way of my enjoyment of his or her work. i may not agree with cerain points made, but i can let that stuff roll.

It's the same way with actors and musicians and the like. i know some folks who can't listen to, say, Barbara Streisand, because of her political beliefs. That stuff doesn't bug me. i say, if you still like her voice, then what's the problem?

More Food for Thought

Leslie comments:

you need to read the book... i'll loan it to you.... i half liked it.... sorta like a half baked potato.

In keeping with the "food" motif, Leslie mentions a half-baked potato as her description of Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz, which certainly doesn't give me a burning desire to read the book. As a writer who longs one day to author books and such as a way of making a living, i would consider it more devastating to her someone describe my work as "like a half-baked potato" than to hear someone say they hated it passionately.

Despite the less-than-ringing endorsement, i might still read the book as i am currently between reading selections.

And perhaps now that i have seen one quote out of context, including Jon's comment opposing that out-of-context quote, at Barlow Farms, i should read the book. My curiousity is piqued, i'll say that much.

Food For Thought

Upon visiting Barlow farms i found some comments from Jon regarding Christianity and Culture, specifically as it related to teaching a class in which the discussion focused on Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz.

i have not read the book, so i am only responding to Jon's quick posting on it. As a parenthetical at the end of Jon's post he wrote this:

(In the current climate, just to head off any misunderstandings, I need to emphasize that I'm not saying that I deny the existence of a personal Satan, I'm just saying that his teeth are broken, his arms are tied behind his back, and even when he does prowl around like a lion looking for prey, he is on a leash being dragged in the general direction of impotence with every year that passes.)

Apparently he takes issue with Miller's statement that we live in a world run by the Devil.

Both Miller's statement and Jon's parenthetical are interesting to me; i am not sure what i think of the two statements.

Any thoughts, readers?