The Blood of the Lamb: Library Edition

Rating:
Summary: A Book That Takes One's Breath Away
Review: Like all of De Vries work, this is a very funny book devoted to a very serious subject. The serious subject is loss of faith, in this case elicited by the serious illness and eventual death of a young child. Based apparently on events within De Vries' own family, Blood of the Lamb has all the hallmarks of De Vries best work; superb humor, exceptionally witty word play, and great emotional power. The conclusion is remarkably moving. I have recommended this book to physicians in training to convey the incredible suffering experienced by families with ill children.

Rating:
Summary: Moving and Funny
Review: Like all of De Vries work, this is a very funny book devoted to a very serious subject. The serious subject is loss of faith, in this case elicited by the serious illness and eventual death of a young child. Based apparently on events within De Vries' own family, Blood of the Lamb has all the hallmarks of De Vries best work; superb humor, exceptionally witty word play, and great emotional power. The conclusion is remarkably moving. I have recommended this book to physicians in training to convey the incredible suffering experienced by families with ill children.

Rating:
Summary: A Book That Takes One's Breath Away
Review: Peter De Vries's *Blood of the Lamb* is a novel of singular depth and humanity. De Vries was America's greatest humorist in the fifties and sixties, but in this work, he deals, from autobiographical experience, with his young daughter's struggle against leukemia. Overflowing with love, wit, fury, energy, and human grace, this book goes to the core of things. It ranks with the greatest works of 20th-century American literature, and it will surprise you. De Vries is best known for his great work for *The New Yorker* and for comedic novels (many made into films) rich in puns, the anatomy of absurdity, and the depredations and joys of libido....but *Blood of the Lamb* is his transcendent work. It's out of print now, and used copies are often hard to come by. It's an exceptional and humanizing experience. It is a moving sublimation of irredeemable tragedy.

Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable read
Review: Peter DeVries was a very popular writer who contributed many stories to the New Yorker in the fifties and sixties and who wrote several very funny novels. This autobiographical novel describes the growth to maturity of Don Wanderhope, member of a strickly Calvinist Dutch Reform family, whose brother becomes a heretic, whose father becomes addicted to drink and goes insane, and whose wife commits suicide after giving him a child whom he loves deeply. At age eleven, his daughter contracts leukemia, initially does quite well, but then succumbs to a staph infection in the hospital.
Wanderhope - I suspect the name is no accidental choice - in grief stricken anger rails against God and man. "I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration. Not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is. It was shortly after the evening in question that I had a taste of that truth on a scale that enabled me to put my finger on it." The happiest moment of his life comes when the doctor lets him know that his daughter will be all right - a mistake as it turns out. "The fairy would not become a gnome. We could break bread in peace again, my child and I. The greatest experience open to man then, is the recovery of the commonplace."
The book has many humorous moments and profound insights, as Wanderhope struggles with religion as he tries to deal with the death of his only child.
"I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which his own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race. Philosophy really can give us nothing permanent to believe in either. It is too rich in answers; each canceling out the rest.. The quest for meaning is foredoomed. Human life means nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy arabesque mean, or a rainbow, or a rose? A man delights in all of these knowing himself to be no more. A wisp of music and haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on his own human trinity to see him through: reason, courage and grace and the first plus the second equals the third."

Rating:
Summary: A little known gem of a book.
Review: The book is moving, witty, involving, and wise. It is hard to believe that this was published way back in 1961. This book sits now on my most beloved shelf. There is wit and sex and social commentary here, but the book rises above that. It is ultimately a book with a message, about stoic courage and grace, although not everyone is ready for the wisdom here. The book's ultimate message is that we should appreciate the moment and cherish those whom we love while we can. That, as Marcus Aurelius said, life is just loaned to us and, we ought to be ready, at any time, to gratefully say, "Here, I return that which has been loaned to me."

Rating:
Summary: A little known gem of a book.
Review: The book is moving, witty, involving, and wise. It is hard to believe that this was published way back in 1961. This book sits now on my most beloved shelf. There is wit and sex and social commentary here, but the book rises above that. It is ultimately a book with a message, about stoic courage and grace, although not everyone is ready for the wisdom here. The book's ultimate message is that we should appreciate the moment and cherish those whom we love while we can. That, as Marcus Aurelius said, life is just loaned to us and, we ought to be ready, at any time, to gratefully say, "Here, I return that which has been loaned to me."