The Rules of Theology

Two recent and very different books. A scholar one and a YA one:

Theology and the Victorian Novel
J. Russell Perkin
Mc-Gill Queen's University Press
ISBN: 9780773536067
Release date: 2009-11-04

Reclaiming the Victorian novel from presumed secularity.
Religious issues played a prominent role in Victorian England and had a profound influence on the culture of that period. In Theology and the Victorian Novel, J. Russell Perkin shows that even the apparently secular world of the realist novel is shaped by the theological debates of its time.
Beginning with a wide-ranging introduction that explains why a theological reading of Victorian fiction is both rewarding and timely, Perkin also addresses religion's return to prominence in the twenty-first century, confounding earlier predictions of its imminent demise. Chapters on William Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Yonge, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy are followed by a concluding discussion of Mary Ward and Walter Pater that relates Pater's Marius the Epicurean to postmodern theology and shows how it remains a religious classic for our own time.
Informed by extensive knowledge of the religion and culture of the period, Theology and the Victorian Novel significantly alters the way that the Victorian novel should be read.

Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley as a Novel of Religious Controversy is the title of Chapter Two.

Callie's Rules
Written by Naomi Zucker
EgmontUS
August 25, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-60684-027-6

Calliope Jones—who prefers to be called Callie—is discovering that in middle school the rules are different. Some of them don’t make sense to her, so she starts writing some rules of her own.
Callie’s family also has its own way of doing things. Particularly the way they celebrate Halloween. Callie’s mother is a metal sculptor, who every year creates a new, life-size weirdo. This year there will be eighteen of them, which the seven Jones children and their parents will set up in a snaking path to their front door. There Mr. Jones will be handing out Toasty Ghosties, made in his own home-grown pumpkin cauldron.
But when the town council bans Halloween, Callie decides to emulate her heroine, Jane Eyre, and make her stand. When her petition in favor of Halloween fails, and the town even bans the weirdos, Callie knows what she must do.

Pay attention to the cover of the book and you will see a Jane Eyre direct reference.

Categories: Books, References, Scholar