PositiveThe New York Times Book Review[A] long, detailed and scrupulously researched book ... as corporeal creatures, she argues, we must somehow reincarnate this arcane deity, see him as our ancestors did and bring him down to earth. She then proceeds, in 21 chapters packed with knowledge and insight, to \'anatomize\' the divinity from head to toe ... Yahweh, she complains, was transformed by Jewish philosophers such as Maimonides into a timeless, changeless, immaterial deity, wholly unlike anything in the earthly realm ... Instead, she believes, we should return to the ancient Israelite mythology. But this is not how religion works. At its best, it demands that, as circumstances change, we respond creatively and innovatively to the present ... It is probably because most Western Christians have not been instructed in this exercise that the Trinity remains as obscure to them as it does to Stavrakopoulou, who longs for a divine face or hand to which she can turn.
John Loughery
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe authors render their subject in precise and meticulous detail, generating a vivid account of her political and religious development. They also include perceptive portraits of her colleagues, lovers and friends ... Day, they suggest....wanted to experience the entire Catholic package, warts and all. But while reading their respectful account, I began to wonder if Day’s religious conservatism might also, perhaps unconsciously, have been politically subversive ... In her wholehearted embrace of the Catholic faith, was Day also attempting an \'othering,\' tacitly and subversively suggesting that there were different ways of being a loyal citizen and devout Christian—that the radicalism of a St. Francis, indeed, of Jesus himself, spoke imperatively to the American dilemma?
Marilynne Robinson
MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewRobinson’s heroic lamentation is magnificent. Yet for me something crucial was missing: There is no sustained discussion of America’s relationship with other nations.
