Eve's Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body

Rating:
Summary: The Provocative Body
Review: Extremely provocative and honest, Barger's book encourages refreshing dialogue that supplants the idea that the human body is a free platform without spiritual implications. Well-written, and well-researched, Eve's Revenge is a direct response to today's culture wars- a very good read.

Rating:
Summary: Looking differently at the world
Review: Since reading this book, I notice comments and assumptions everywhere around me -- especially in business publications I love -- in a new light. This alone demonstrates to me the immediate relevance of this book.

Everywhere in daily life we are presented with unexamined (or commercially driven) assumptions about technology (and what it's for), relationships and community (and where they can be found), and the body (and how it can and should be reconfigured at will to reflect an inner self). Both men and women are also subject to a lot of ridiculous cultural expectations according to their gender. It is nice to see someone drag all of this out into daylight and say, "Not only is all of this here, we're going to go past it and see if we can come to a better understanding."

It's not self help, male bashing, or utopian visions. It isn't ten steps to a more embodied life and doesn't give you a form letter to send to Congress. Most of it is trying to understand a larger picture, with some anecdotal evidence thrown in of what different people think or do that seems to help or hinder. The author is trying to enlarge the overall human playing field and question some assumptions that have limited it, not just talk about equal pay or wearing less makeup.

She covers a lot of ground. The writing contains some rather abrupt transitions - one reviewer calls the book "unpredictable" and it is that. It is beautifully -- at times, floridly -- written. It may not thoroughly please a reader who loves detailed technical definitions of all terms with comprehensive support for every statement. The book is a readable length and style without all that, and the main ideas and points are clear enough.

I think the book breaks new ground for understanding what it means to live in one's own body -- not ignoring it, not forcing it to be something it's not, and not succumbing to its every whim. It is also pretty significant to say that what my body IS has a lot to say about who I am.

A refreshing book. I am challenged by it and very glad I read it. Would read more books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: A splendid book
Review: The main idea of this book (or one of the main ideas at least) is that the body is not bad. There's a huge (and unfortunate) tradition of thinking that the body is basically bad and the mind or the spirit basically good. Barger reviews the history of this and tells us that it's not really that way. That's just not the way a Christian should think: God made the human body good.

My favorite part was a section in Chapter Two about how we have gone from a general literary description of the beautiful beloved to a concrete image of big-breasted skinny blondes as being our ideal of beauty. That ideal is 99% unattainable, and isn't really any more beautiful than a merely "slender," average-breasted, raven-tressed girl with sparkling eyes and a sublime demeanor that proves that transcendence meets frail finitude in a woman (some of the words at the beginning of this paragraph were quoted almost word-for-word from what Barger said when I heard her talk about her book).

Eve's Revenge was a darn good book, though I don't recommend it for someone who doesn't read much. If you do read much and have any interest in the topic, I recommend it very highly. For example, if you are one of the people who's read some Elisabeth Elliot or John Eldredge and thus has some background in reading about the differences between men and women, this book could be very helpful.

Rating:
Summary: A splendid book
Review: The main idea of this book (or one of the main ideas at least) is that the body is not bad. There's a huge (and unfortunate) tradition of thinking that the body is basically bad and the mind or the spirit basically good. Barger reviews the history of this and tells us that it's not really that way. That's just not the way a Christian should think: God made the human body good.

My favorite part was a section in Chapter Two about how we have gone from a general literary description of the beautiful beloved to a concrete image of big-breasted skinny blondes as being our ideal of beauty. That ideal is 99% unattainable, and isn't really any more beautiful than a merely "slender," average-breasted, raven-tressed girl with sparkling eyes and a sublime demeanor that proves that transcendence meets frail finitude in a woman (some of the words at the beginning of this paragraph were quoted almost word-for-word from what Barger said when I heard her talk about her book).

Eve's Revenge was a darn good book, though I don't recommend it for someone who doesn't read much. If you do read much and have any interest in the topic, I recommend it very highly. For example, if you are one of the people who's read some Elisabeth Elliot or John Eldredge and thus has some background in reading about the differences between men and women, this book could be very helpful.