Customer Reviews

Loser Letters

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

In an anything-but-apologetic apologia, Mary Eberstadt challenges the many spokesmen (and they are almost all men) for the New Atheism in her satire, The Loser Letters. Reminiscent of Ted Turner's infamous comment that Christianity is a religion for losers, the Loser in this book is God.

The intimidatingly intelligent Eberstadt has established herself as an incisive writer who engages explosive and controversial topics. She critiqued the practice of administering strong drugs to schoolchildren in an effort to promote better school performance in Why Ritalin Rules and extended her treatment of the topic in her book, Home Alone America.

She has exposed the effects of the sexual revolution and has chronicled developments from Anglican acceptance of contraception at the Lambeth Conference in 1930 to the denomination's current warfare over homosexuality. She presents a uniquely perceptive view of pop culture with arresting titles such as Is Food the New Sex? and Eminem Is Right. She makes frequent, and provocative, contributions to the Wall Street Journal, Policy Review, Commentary, and First Things.

The Loser Letters, Eberstadt's first published work of fiction, draws on a long satirical tradition from Juvenal to The Screwtape Letters. Eberstadt's protagonist, a young woman named A. F. Christian (as in, "A Former Christian"), details the journey of her enlightened abandonment of her "cradle Dullness" (namely, her Christian faith) and her adaptation to atheism. Christian writes excited, star-struck letters to the self-described so-called "Brights" of the New Atheism, in which she gushes about the Brights' superiority while candidly evaluating the weaknesses that limit the New Atheism's ability to win new converts. With this device, Eberstadt delivers a gripping story line with a chilling twist at the end and, in the process, administers a smackdown of the New Atheism.

The Loser Letters is a must-read for anyone interested in the current atheism debate, for believing parents, and for readers who enjoy a good black comedy with deep themes. I, for one, cannot wait for the response from the Brights. Bring it on!

I was happy to start reading this book and was hoping for a bit of wry humor... the subtleties of Screwtape Letters are what make it great. But it wasn't to be found here.

The premise is very promising. Atheism could use an intellectual combat in the Screwtape style. And that's what I was hoping for.

Instead, the whole book is little more than a giant joke. The tone is so sarcastic and off-putting, that it really does very little good for Christianity. I couldn't make it past the first few chapters.

Unfortunately, while Eberstadt's letters make some very good points, the "voice" is so annoying that all intellectual nuggets are lost.

For example when talking about how she doesn't like the Judeo-Christian God, she says this:

"Now on the other hand, a deity who would let me smoke and drink as much as I want, drop five pounds without going a-rex again, string up that judge from juvie court... a god who turns bread into iPod minis and water into Grey Goose vodka-- now we're getting somewhere. THAT'S what I'm talking about, if you know what I mean."

This is typical of the entire book... it's very pop-culture littered to the point of just being mush.

Too bad because I had high hopes for this book. If you want teeny bop humor, sure. But if you are looking for something real and useful... skip it.

I read these letters when they were first published on National Review Online. I had never cared for apologetics before this, but for me, this opened up a whole new way of looking at the subject. Every time I describe these letters to someone, they are always shocked and amazed, just like I was. The dark twist in these letters is exquisitely gut-wrenching. I can't imagine why anyone would not love this book.

If you're already a Christian, and enjoy seeing people who aren't Christians being satirized and made into amoral, ridiculous idiots, you will enjoy this book.

However if you are like me, and were hoping for something to challenge your thinking about atheism and faith, save your money. This book will only insult you and offer you nothing new to reflect on. Make no mistake: the "loser" in the title is only superficially referencing god. By the time you close the back cover, you understand that the "loser" can only be A.F. Christian, the execrable character whose letters these are purported to be.

Mary Eberstadt's self-styled atheist is a caricature, a parody of a person who capitalizes the second person pronouns of the exalted atheist minds she reveres, as though she believes them to be deities worthy of that kind of respect. Further, she seems deeply (and strangely) literate on Christian thinking and literature, because she seems to spend the entire book warning said deities that they must not reference so-and-so, because his logic is ironclad! And stay away from mentioning such-and-thus, because we atheists are wrong on that. And if we are to succeed in our mission to destroy the culture--because after all, that's what all atheists want, isn't it--we must not refer to these particular statistics ... and so on. As a final insult, she details the circumstances by which the ersatz protagonist cast off her belief in god because it was somehow inconsistent with her decision to abort her child, in other words, because it was easier to be an atheist than to accept the existence of the Christian god and be saddled with the requisite responsibility and guilt, as if they necessarily go hand in hand at all. (One is not required to believe in any god to believe that abortion is wrong; these two beliefs have virtually nothing to do with each other.) The book's title is plainly intended to reference the writer of the letters rather than the "loser" she refers to in them. She is entirely shallow, stupid, hiding behind a veneer of cutesy, overenthusiastic Gen-Y language and gimmicky puns, like some kind of brainwashed college-age liberal activist, instead of giving an authentic, sincere counterpoint to modern Christianity for the purpose of respectful, rational deconstruction. Her author is either incapable of conceiving of such a thing (the reasonable atheist searching for truth), or just too lazy to imbue her character with any redeemable faculties of reason.

C.S. Lewis claimed he did not enjoy writing The Screwtape Letters, because (one presumes) it was difficult for him to think like a minion of the devil, to see the world through evil eyes. Eberstadt does not even attempt to see the world through the eyes of one whose faith is broken. She instead makes a contemptuous clown of her character. There is nothing in her writing to offer any understanding of the real challenges facing people who struggle to comprehend the difficulties of faith, Christian culture, its bewildering dogma and its inconsistent values & practices. Writing as someone who wanted this book to give me new insights and ideas to consider, I instead got a Juvenalian hit piece aimed not at respecting my confusion, or trying to engage it and help me through it, but satirizing it and making sure I knew that some Christians really don't care whether I believe or not, they just think I'm an idiot ... a loser.

Mary Eberstadt, if your goal was to entertain Christians, preaching to the choir so to speak, your book is a success. But if you wanted to reach people whose faith is uncertain and try to invite them to Christianity ... you're not helping, you're giving them the middle finger.

of the intellectual masquerade of militant, evangelical, dogmatic atheism.

All of the letters are good, and build nicely, with more subtlety and insight than are likely to be grasped on a single reading. But be sure to read number nine most carefully. It is the best of a very fine lot.

Satire is hard to pull off (if you want to do it well). I'm convinced that religious satire must be nearly impossible to write any way but badly. There's a reason so many works of Catholic or Evangelical fiction are compared with the works of C.S. Lewis, especially when they aspire to humor; since Lewis, there haven't been many religious novels that have found the blend of humor, vivid characterization, coherent plot points and theological insights that make "The Screwtape Letters" and the under-appreciated "The Great Divorce" such wonderful books. I think Mary Eberstadt has performed a nearly impossible feat by writing a book that is reminiscent of Lewis for all the right reasons, yet entirely its own.

The protagonist/narrator of "The Loser Letters" is a twenty-something girl who uses the pseudonym A.F. (for "A Former) Christian. She has experienced a conversion from Christianity to atheism (a word which she capitalizes throughout her letters, since "Atheist" is both her new identity and a de facto religion to her). In the first seven letters she lays out some real problems militant atheists have in promoting an anti-religion worldview, including the 20th century examples we have of secular utopian societies (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.).

Eberstadt makes some excellent points, including her assertion that arguments against faith often make the case for it instead. One of my favorite points--to which A.F. devotes an entire letter--is the question of the evolutionary advantage of guilt (there isn't any, as evidenced by the lack of cheetahs in carnivore support groups). Eberstadt makes a compelling argument for guilt as a proof that we are more than just an evolutionary by-product.

Eberstadt drops some hints about where her protagonist is writing from; A.F. thinks it's some sort of rehab center, but she isn't really sure. Halfway through the book I thought I knew how things would end, and I inwardly rolled my eyes a little. By the time I actually got to the end, I was surprised and pleased to find that I'd missed some other clues along the way. Eberstadt's arguments are compelling, but she also presents a flawed, wounded character in A.F. Christian who I found I really cared about. Because of that, the question of where she's writing from--and what comes next for her--is important, and the end is both fitting and satisfying.

This is a great book for an atheist or agnostic who is willing to expand his or her worldview, for friends and family of people who have rejected faith in God, and for any Christian who wants to be encouraged, challenged, and entertained.

This funny and savage book skewers the "new atheist" movement handily. "A.F. Christian's" helpful notes to the Big Guys in atheism point out the inconsistencies and just plain stupidities in their arguments in a highly entertaining way. Her story is a bit melodramatic, but it comes at the end so if you don't like melodrama you won't get too much of it, and it certainly follows the author's premise. The first letter, available online at Ignatius Press, is IMHO the least persuasive and the least funny, so if you enjoy it you will definitely enjoy the rest of the book. While it has a young protagonist, it might best be enjoyed by older readers. My 16-year-old daughter did not like it, she thought the protagonist's story was not believable. I think it's best for a more mature reader, college age or older, who has actually encountered the atheist arguments and wondered if they are valid, and who has a little more experience with life and death so that the "melodrama" at the end is more understandable. I gave it as a gift to several high school graduates.

This book is basically a long, rambling, angry diatribe against atheism. The author, who is middle-aged and then some, tries to write in a youthful style to appeal to the Facebook generation (hence the sex-and-the-city-like book cover), but it just sounds like an old person trying to be cool.

The story is a fictional account written from the perspective of a young woman who turned atheist and had an abortion, then overdosed on drugs and died. She thinks she's alive and in detox/rehab, but she is really awaiting judgment on her eternal fate, and the series of heavy-handed letters she writes form the basis on which she is judged. In the end, she rejects atheism and is saved.

This book is Eberstadt's answer to Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation". While most people disagree with Harris's general line of thought, he at least builds his case logically by citing facts and quoting sources. Eberstadt uses the guise of a fictional story to dispense with facts and the difficult work of making a well-reasoned argument. Hers is an emotional appeal, primarily made up of outlandish accusations and a tear-jerker story that falls flat. Her tactic is simply to blame atheists for everything bad in the world. Atheists, for example, were behind the sexual revolution of the 60's. Abortion? Atheists again. Divorce, broken homes, alcoholism, drug abuse? Yup, those darn atheists. Atheists, it turns out, are even responsible for bad art.

Predictably, Eberstadt blames atheists for the Holocaust as well. Never mind that Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that his Catholic faith brought him to his beliefs about Jews. Never mind that the SS wore belt buckles that said "God is with us", or the fact that virtually all non-Jews in Germany were Christians at the time. Nope, it was atheists that caused the Holocaust. I guess if you're going to tar someone, you might as well use the biggest brush you can find. And she can't let go of that German/atheist connection: German is the only language spoken in her version of hell.

Eberstadt teaches us other interesting facts about atheists. It seems most of them are young men texting girls from their basements trying to get sex. And they haven't created any great art or peformed any notable humanitarian deeds (here she omits the billions given away by the atheist Warren Buffet and the agnostic Bill Gates and the $1M donated by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to Haiti). She also says that 99.9999999% of the people in the world believe in God. It all adds up in her mind: the non-believing 0.0000001% of the population have been too busy texting girls and fostering abortions, drug abuse, sex, and holocausts to devote any time to art and good deeds.

If you're a big fan of Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck, you might actually enjoy this book. But if you're an average Christian, you'll be embarrassed at what a stupid, airheaded image of Christians she presents and how incompetently she makes the case for religion. Keep this book away from your kids; they'll just roll their eyes and turn atheist on you.

I really enjoyed this book. The author "writes" letters to the New Atheists suggesting improvements of their arguments to make them more forceful and appealing to improve conversions. She, like C.S. Lewis, arrives at some very interesting insights through very clear logic. She asks some very excellent questions on the Christian-Atheist debate. It caused me to stop and think about some of them after slapping my forehead and asking "Why didn't I think of that?" That has been my response to much of what I have read in Lewis, which is why I included his name in the review. They both lay out cogent arguments that lead to very obvious conclusions. Her points and questions won't appeal to all and will appeal to some with differing significance, but it is a book worth reading on both sides of the debate. She demonstrates that not all of the sloppy thinking is on the Christian side and critiques the arguments of the new atheism extensively.

Her writing style is not as elegant as Lewis (in my opinion). I struggled with some of her prose and had to re-read some passages a couple of times to make sure I got her point. She also writes from a subtly Catholic perspective which confused me a little bit since I'm Protestant. Some of the symbols and metaphors she used didn't communicate clearly, but it didn't distract. I finally caught on in the last chapter.

She is a good writer and her logic is sharp. She's done her homework and has helped me a lot.

An absolutely astounding piece of literature narrating the interaction of one A.F. (A Former) Christian and the "new Atheist" team (Dawkins, Hitches, Harris, etc). Mary Eberstadt knocks the godless back a few pegs by entering their own territory by remarking about sociological, philosophical, and psychological consequences of atheism/secularism and religious belief. Her satirical sarcasm will award her readers quite a few chuckles around sound and clear logic promoting atheism while simultaneously defending Christianity and religion. I recommend this book to anyone interested in Christian apologetics, now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to read it again.