Two books that I didn’t finish for different reasons.

Midaq Alley is by Naguib Mahfouz, the next in my series of Nobel Prize winners for Literature who were not white men (a list that has recently increased by one). The second paragraph of its third chapter (in the original Arabic formatting) is:

واحسرتاه كيف تدعين القمل يرعى هذا الشعر الجميل!

“What a pity! Imagine letting lice live in such lovely hair!”

I gave it 100 pages, but I was rather repelled by how horrible the characters were and by the toxic masculinity of the authorial voice, so I’m afraid I gave up.

You can get Midaq Alley here. Next on my Nobel laureates list is July’s People, by Nadine Gordimer.

The third chapter of Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion and American Culture, eds. Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, is “Classtic Star Trek and the Death of God: A Case Study of ‘Who Mourns for Adonais'” by Robert Asa. Its second paragraph is:

Star Trek certainly was “far out” for the times, both literally and figuratively. Not only did the events of the show take place in outer space, strange creatures appeared who taxed the credulity of the average television viewer. While Americans were anticipating a manned landing on the moon by the end of the decade, only the visionaries dreamed of actually exploring other worlds. Science fiction television and films were largely confined to the B-movie category, known for their bad scripts, bad set, and bad acting. Children and teenagers might be entertained by it, but no one with mental images of the theatrical Buck Rogers or the televised Lost in Space could begin to take science fiction seriously as commentary on anything except the prevalence of mindless bad taste.

Again, I gave this 1999 collection of academic essays 100 pages before coming to the conclusion that I do not really know or care enough about Star Trek, or about popular religion in America, to get much out of it. You can get Star Trek and Sacred Ground here.

This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest on my shelves (an Eastercon 2023 purchase). Next on that pile is Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, by Paula Fredriksen.