The Pilgrim's Progress (Penguin Classics)

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Summary: Pilgrim's Progress stands with the world's best literature.
Review: I read The Pilgrim's Progress as a child and recently reread it in order to do a comparative essay on allegorical journeys for my english class. The other book I read for the assignment was Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, and I found that Bunyan's novel equaled or exceeded Conrad's in every way. While Conrad used far more symbolism and allusions, I felt that Bunyan still did a better job of making the reader identify with his character's journey. The Pilgrim's Progress is a wonderfully written story that inspires hope and confidence in God to help his people though their own journeys.

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Summary: Bunyan vs. The World
Review: John Bunyan confronts the world head on in his allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. Using the journey, conversations, actions, and interactions of his main character, Christian, Bunyan draws contrasts between true Christianity and the vast array of opposing philosophies and opinions offered by the rest of the world. Each contrast demonstrates the superiority of Christianity to the perspectives and beliefs of the fallen world.

The story is told through the use of a narrative device. That devise is that of the narrator himself recounting his dream in which Christian makes his way to the Celestial City. The device serves to put the action of the story in context as well as a way break up the story into manageable segments. A key phrase often used in service of this device is: "then I saw in my dream". The narrator's dream begins in the City of Destruction; which is Christian's homeland. As Christian Journeys to the celestial city, he encounters many people and trials. Each one is representative of various worldly, or otherworldly philosophies or beliefs.

Bunyan has in all these encounters faced the problem of the truth of Christianity. If Christianity is true, how come there are all these alternative ideas in the world. Bunyan successfully exposes the weaknesses of the alternative ideas by refuting them one by one in the context of his pilgrimage allegory. Through his characters, Bunyan agrees with the apostle Paul. His argument is that our best weapon as Christians (once we have accepted Christ as our Savior and realized that only his grace is sufficient to save us) is to keep our eyes on God and the things of heaven (Colossians 3:2). All the arguments presented by the characters contrary to Christianity in this book add up to meaningless noise compared to the word of God and the truth expressed therein.

Bunyan takes great care to steer clear of the idea that Christians are somehow intrinsically better than other people. He is careful to express that only God's grace working within them makes them capable of withstanding the trials of life. He demonstrates time and again that Christian suffers from the same weaknesses as normal people and is therefore prone to failure. It is only the love and assistance of God that allow Christian to reach his destination.

God's grace and God's grace alone are sufficient to save Christian from the perils he encounters in his journey. Any time Christian attempts to do something of his own accord, his plans go horribly wrong and God must rescue him.

The second part is about the travels and trials of Christian's wife: Christiana. It too is very instructive and entertaining.

Pilgrim's Progress is insightful as an allegory. It is instructive and would be useful reading for anyone currently alive and making there way through our current sojourn or "pilgrimage" here on earth. Anyone going to the real Celestial City would profit from taking a glance at this book as they walk along the narrow path. I recommend it.

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Summary: Journey's End.
Review: My Grandmother proferred this book to me at a very early and immature age in my lifetime. I struggled and persevered with it, using a dictionary to decipher most words longer than 6 letters! Eventually I came to the end with with a strong determination to face up to my life with the same courage as Christian! Unfortunately, like Christian, I lost my way,more than once in my later years, lingering in unseemly places,falling into pools of Despondancy,and loosing Hope at one stage. I cant really remember the entire ending to Christian's journey,but as a man of some years now, and finding life a lot less turbulent and more meaningful,then I graciously look forward to the final part of my journey. Praise be to God. Like the book of JOB,John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is impossible to rate with a few stars! I would suggest that such books should be purchased 'mainly' unabridged but nevertheless, intelligible to the reader.

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Summary: An Important Religious Work written by a Puritan.
Review: Pilgrim's Progress is an important religious work, and should be read for that reason alone. It can be heavy going at times because of the moralizing and preaching that goes on throughout, but in spite of that there is a pretty good story here. Bunyan does preach and moralize, but he tells a darn good story too. This book is a product of the Protestant Reformation (published in 1684) just after the release of the King James Version of The Bible. The book is a religious and political allegory that symbolizes particular qualities and actions that should form the cornerstone of a Christian's life. It is a book about the hero Christian's flight from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. He meets all kinds of strange and wonderful sights and people along the way and Bunyan does a masterful job of characterization throughout the book.

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Summary: Journey's End.
Review: This is a Christian classic that is my favorite of all Christian works, bar none (except the bible of course). Possibly the second most published work outside the bible, it has been highly regarded by many, and was once widely taught in the schools.

I wish my school had taught it. I first read this book a year ago, and I feel as if I've been deprived all my life.

Pilgrim's Progress is written by a mature Christian, with insights that you will not get from anyone other than a mature Christian. Few people are capable of writing such a book.

And the book shines with great quotes. Two of my favorites are:

What means this? The Interpreter answered, 'This is Christ, who continually with the oil of grace maintains the work already begun in the heart, by the means of which, notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. AND IN THAT THOU sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, this is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.

And this: Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech. 'What a fool', quoth he, 'am I , thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty. I have a key in my bosom, called promise, that will (I am persuaded) open any lock in Doubting-Castle.'

A key called promise.. great thoughts.

There are many editions to Pilgrim's Progress, and I haven't found one I am happy with yet. Try to get one with the original wording, and the references to passages in the bible. Many versions delete the references to passages in the bible, which are, of course, the most useful to Christians and of least use to the world.

ISBN 0140430040 appears to be true to the original wording of the classic. On the other hand, it lacks the biblical passage references, chapter divisions, and is a paperback with (quite frankly) an ugly cover.

ISBN 0785242228 is a modern spelling version. However comparing it to the original shows that a lot more than just the spelling has been changed, and it doesn't read nearly as well. This is a nicely bound hardback with quality paper and chapter divisions, and some (but not all) the references to the bible. Character names are annoyingly abbrievated throughout book.

ISBN 1557480990 is a children's version of Pilgrim's Progress. While a children's book, it remains true to the original and is worth getting. The illustrations are great.

There are also many etext versions of Pilgrim's Progress that include the original text and all the references the text makes to passages in the bible.

I recommend you take your time reading the book, and reflect on what is being said. Also, if you have a full version of this book, with the references to passages in the bible, you could use it as part of a bible study.

BTW: the phrase 'vanity fair' comes from this book.

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Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: A Trustworthy Text
Review: This is intended as a review of the Penguin Classics edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress," edited by Roger Sharrock, which, as of this writing, is still in the Penguin catalogue, and presumably will continue to be available. [July note: Penguin is again listing it as current.] Most of my comments are specific to this edition, and a few other closely related text editions.

Back in, I think, the early 1970s, I was taking a course in seventeenth century English literature, and encountered a library copy of Roger Sharrock's 1960 Oxford English Texts edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come," an immensely impressive editorial treatment of the famous allegory of the Christian life, but fairly expensive, and, I think, out of print. (There was a revised printing in 1975; it seems to be out of print for now.) Sharrock's edition was intended as a revision of a 1928 edition by J.B. Wharey, but it broke new ground in Bunyan studies. It returned for its base text for Part One to the first edition of 1678, drawing on the second (also 1678) and third (1679) editions only for Bunyan's additions to the text. (For Part Two, published in 1684, only its first printing has any claim to authority.)

This decision was based on the recognition that printing house practices had rather quickly denatured Bunyan's highly personal, colloquial, and even regional (Bedfordshire) English, turning it into what typesetters thought of as acceptably genteel, beginning as early as the second printing. The progress of textual corruption had continued through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, despite several attempts to provide scholarly editions. Close study of Bunyan's other, rather extensive, and generally less frequently printed, writings, helped to establish a clearer idea of his use of English, as against that of the printers. For the first time in centuries, Bunyan's most famous book was available in (almost) exactly his own words, as nearly as possible as he had set it on paper. Since Bunyan's vocabulary and style of punctuation reflected the speaking voice of an accomplished preacher (the "crime" for which he was imprisoned for twelve years), this almost amounted to restoring the correct meter to a poem long printed with incorrect versification.

Fortunately, or so it seemed, Roger Sharrock had also edited a very slightly modernized text, without the full critical apparatus and notes, for the Penguin English Library (1965). It was not readily available at the campus bookstore, and the student-oriented stores in the area were already being replaced by chains, but there was a religious --- excuse me, a *Christian* -- bookstore in the neighborhood, which had a good selection, and generally well-informed and helpful clerks. I was bemused to find an unfamiliar member of the staff, who was quite enthusiastic about the King James Bible, in what is in fact Elizabethan English, but dubious about an unmodernized version of "Pilgrim's Progress." The book's language is almost a century closer to us in time, and it claims only to be the work of a "Tinker and a Poor Man" (as the title of American editions of Christopher Hill's biography reminds us), not divine revelation. Still, she assured me, an original-spelling edition of it would be just "too hard to understand." Surely I would be better off with one of the many nice adaptations or retellings? See the children's' section. (I had a sudden image of a special angel assigned to each and every copy of the King James Version, to supply linguistic information to its readers, lest they go astray over the unfamiliar words and grammar, but decided not to confide this to the clerk, who was trying to be helpful.)

In the end, it turned out the Penguin English Library edition was unavailable; I eventually found a used copy, years too late for the course, but worth having. I don't find Bunyan an edifying guide to the religious life (see below), but he is in many ways an appealing human being, and a remarkable writer, the author of the last great medieval allegories in English, which are at the same time among the first modern novels.

In 1986, however, Penguin reissued Sharrock's popular edition in the Penguin Classics series, and even gave it a revised edition in 1987, as well as a splendid new cover (from William Blake's illustration of a scene in the book). In the meantime, the Oxford text as such formed the basis of a World's Classics edition, edited by H.N. Keeble, with a new introduction, helpful notes, and a chronology of Bunyan's life based on the latest research (1984). That edition went through a number of printings, and was reissued in slightly larger format when the World's Classics line was revamped as the Oxford World's Classics. Keeble's edition has just been replaced by a new version by W.R. Owens, likewise following Sharrock's critical edition, but restoring a few more (specified) first edition readings which, in Owens' view, make sense as they stand; I have reviewed this last separately.

It should be made clear that I have written this review as a reader with an interest in seventeenth century English literature and history, and a concern with the combination of realism of style and incident with a narrative of marvels and adventures. As far as what John Bunyan considered most important about his work, I am probably a less than ideal reader. Although coming from a secularized Jewish background instead of an Orthodox one, I tend to agree with David Daiches that the Pilgrim, Christian, seems to spend far too much time worrying "What must I do to be saved?" in the World to Come, and too little asking "What ought I to do?" in this world. Still, I find Bunyan's sincerity, and willingness to work out the implications of his theology, impressive in their own right.

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Summary: Excellent
Review: This is not a children's book. This book is relevant to everyone who is a christian and should be read by those who seek a better knowledge of what it is to live a christian life. It is just as true and applicable as it was in the 1600s. Everyone should read this book and learn.

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Summary: These Naxos Audiobooks are in a League of Their Own
Review: This is so refreshing and rings true. I see the truths of the Holy Bible as I read. I sense the Holy Spirit teaching me His truths as I read. This book will challenge you and allow you to relate to life's journey. God is eternally Faithful and worthy of all of our devotion. May this book encourage you to stay on the straight and narrow path on your journey to Him. To God be the glory!