a mere housewife
Not your cup of tea
A friend of mine loaned me this book, and I was disappointed-- most of all for her. They don't have a lot of money to buy books, and her husband got this one for her because it comes so highly recommended. She wasn't very impressed with it, either. Nobody tells you until you get inside that the author is biased against the Awakening, against Whitefield (half buffoon?), against Sarah Edward's experiences of God in Jan. 1742 (?)-- she wishes she could erase that whole month from Sarah's life. I was rather angry at the part where she started pulling Sarah's testimony of God's extraordinary dealings with her to pieces, interspersing selective quotes with her own comments (Sarah mentions that she talked earnestly at church, the author interrupts "after this jag of compulsive talking"; Sarah explains how God helped her not to care if he used Mr. Buell rather than her husband--"she was still trying to convince herself of this later on..." etc.) and gave up on the book. She interprets this whole experience as a nervous breakdown.
The very title shows that the author has little understanding for and sympathy with the times and the people she is dealing with. Johnathan Edwards was not a difficult man, by any except modern standards, where men are expected to be not only hands off with regard to their wives' lives, but to not be too moderate or serious in their own. She goes at the whole book from a purely modern standpoint. She doesn't help you to understand Sarah Edwards any better, (though you do understand better why she struggles to grasp Sarah Edwards). She is confused about many of her facts, and doesn't document her sources, so you never know if what she is saying is true or not. She novelizes some things, puts thoughts into Sarah's mind, (when she doesn't understand it...) isn't convinced that Sarah really loved Johnathan, etc. Perhaps Sarah had some psychological need to be so selfless... It's not just the removal of a modern mind from a puritan one, but the removal of a mind that is steeped in psychology, from a mind that is steeped in the reality of things unseen. I would not recommend this book: George Marsden's biography sheds much more light on both Johnathan and Sarah. I read Sarah's own account of her experiences last night, unbutchered and uninterrupted, and -- what could I have to say that would mean anything in the face of her, and of God? I wish I understood it better than I do: but I do understand it well enough to wish...
[Edited on 31-1-2005 by a mere housewife]
The very title shows that the author has little understanding for and sympathy with the times and the people she is dealing with. Johnathan Edwards was not a difficult man, by any except modern standards, where men are expected to be not only hands off with regard to their wives' lives, but to not be too moderate or serious in their own. She goes at the whole book from a purely modern standpoint. She doesn't help you to understand Sarah Edwards any better, (though you do understand better why she struggles to grasp Sarah Edwards). She is confused about many of her facts, and doesn't document her sources, so you never know if what she is saying is true or not. She novelizes some things, puts thoughts into Sarah's mind, (when she doesn't understand it...) isn't convinced that Sarah really loved Johnathan, etc. Perhaps Sarah had some psychological need to be so selfless... It's not just the removal of a modern mind from a puritan one, but the removal of a mind that is steeped in psychology, from a mind that is steeped in the reality of things unseen. I would not recommend this book: George Marsden's biography sheds much more light on both Johnathan and Sarah. I read Sarah's own account of her experiences last night, unbutchered and uninterrupted, and -- what could I have to say that would mean anything in the face of her, and of God? I wish I understood it better than I do: but I do understand it well enough to wish...
[Edited on 31-1-2005 by a mere housewife]
