⇒ PDF The Confessions of X Suzanne M Wolfe 9780718039615 Books

The Confessions of X Suzanne M Wolfe 9780718039615 Books

Download As PDF : The Confessions of X Suzanne M Wolfe 9780718039615 Books

The Confessions of X Suzanne M Wolfe 9780718039615 Books

For those who don’t need or want a detailed review, here is the executive summary of mine: The Confessions of X is a superb novel in all respects, characters, story, writing, and insight into the human heart. You should not miss it.

For those interested in a bit more detail, let me begin by admitting that I bought The Confessions of X with a great deal of skepticism. I have loved Augustine since I first read an English translation of his Confessions as a teenager, and I studied him seriously as an undergraduate and graduate student. And I love historical fiction when it is well done. So when I read a complimentary discussion of Suzanne Wolfe’s novel online, I decided I couldn’t resist buying it. But the odds of actually enjoying the book seemed rather low. A great deal of historical fiction falls flat for me because it is anachronistic (modern characters with modern concerns pretending to belong to another era) or just poorly written: the author is admirably excited about some historical period or person but can’t actually write fiction. On top of that, Augustine was a towering intellect, and I along ago decided that he was a great human being, but he is very difficult for many people to understand in our (on the face of it) very different time. And a book focused on Augustine’s relationship with the woman (X) he treated terribly, at least by our lights, and whom he doesn’t even dignify by telling us his name – it sounded like a recipe for disaster likely to show a complete lack of sympathy with him and an inability to grasp what he or X might have been like as actual, flesh and blood, intellectual and emotional, human beings. So when the book came I put it on a pile of books and ignored it for a few days.

This past Thursday after I finished work in the evening I decided I might as well find out if The Confessions of X was what I feared. I read the first chapter and put it down, tears running down my face: the problem with the novel, I had learned in less than six pages, was not that Wolfe’s novel was second-rate but that it was altogether too good, too achingly beautiful to continue. Thirty minutes later I realized that not reading something this good would be even worse, and I started chapter two. I don’t recall exactly when I went to bed, but it was the wee hours of the morning, I had finished the book, and I was crying again. In another novel I love, a wise character says at its end “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” The Confessions of X is heart-breaking, but it is not tragic, and its intense realism about the place of pain and sadness in human life is not dispiriting but a realistic and powerful affirmation of what human beings can be and become.

So what exactly is so wonderful about this wonderful book? The writing is part of the answer. Wolfe is master of a simple, subtle, elegant style. She has an eye for physical detail, and her characters speak like human beings, not two-dimensional caricatures. Her pacing is brilliant: The Confessions of X will often flow along smoothly, and then suddenly one is brought up short by an event, or even a single line, that adds complexity, or picks up a resonance from the past, or foreshadows what is to come. I would imagine that Wolfe’s remarkable skills as a writer enable her to write in any number of genres, although I for one want to read more Wolfe novels set in the past!

The characters are another brilliant achievement. X, Augustine, his mother Monica, their friend Nebridius – all are fully developed, entirely believable personalities. Wolfe has a remarkable ability to bring even a minor character to life with a few lines, and she has a deep, humane sympathy that enables her to draw us into the lives, loves and sorrows of the people she portrays, and without sentimentalizing them or turning them into stock characters. I need not have worried: this is the Augustine that his own writings reveal, deeply honest about himself, wonderfully receptive to other persons and to the world. And X is just as she must have been: a person as remarkable as the man who loved her.

As for anachronism, that besetting sin of the historical novel: The Confessions of X takes place in the world of late antiquity, in North Africa and Italy, in a deep and convincing way. I don’t just mean that she knows a lot of facts about the time and place (she does!) or that she doesn’t turn her story into an allegory or morality play about twenty-first century issues (she doesn’t!). In her hands, the world in which X and Augustine lived, long ago, comes alive, and they and all the other characters do as well. Wolfe’s novel meets the high bar that excellent historical fiction must surmount: it makes the past world in which it is set present, in all its alien strangeness, and it enables us to encounter human beings who truly belong to that alien world but are, at the same time, persons we can imagine knowing.

Anyone reading this review will have guessed by now that I think Wolfe has overcome the modern penchant for misunderstanding Augustine. Wolfe has a profound grasp of the historical Augustine’s most basic intellectual, ethical and emotional commitments. It is one of her master-strokes of imagination that X becomes the person with whom Augustine learns what those commitments are. Far from the cold and inhuman caricature that modernity projects on him, Wolfe’s Augustine is the flawed but passionate man, in love with his world and with his people, that his writings reveal. The Confessions of X paints the portrait, and tells the story, of the woman who must have been his equal.


Tags : The Confessions of X [Suzanne M. Wolfe] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <p style= text-align: center; ><strong>Winner of the <em>Christianity Today</em> 2017 Book Award!</strong> Before he became a father of the Christian Church,Suzanne M. Wolfe,The Confessions of X,Thomas Nelson,0718039610,Historical,Augustine,Christian saints,Christian saints;Fiction.,Love stories.,Romance fiction,American Historical Fiction,American Light Romantic Fiction,Christian - Historical,FICTION Christian Historical,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Romance Historical Ancient World,Fiction,Fiction & related items,Fiction - Romance,Fiction : Christian - Historical,FictionChristian - Historical,FictionHistorical - General,Historical - General,Romance - Historical - Ancient World,Romance: Historical,TOPICAL Christian Interest,TOPICAL Women's Interest

The Confessions of X Suzanne M Wolfe 9780718039615 Books Reviews

I had no expectations about this story other than hoping I liked it. I was so completely drawn into this story that I read it in two days. I could not put it down. I even found myself emotional in a few spots which is highly unusual. Suzanne Wolfe so completely imagined such a beautiful story and gave the characters such dignity, that I was amazed at her version of the story of St. Augustine. I loved it! Reading this story made me want to read the Confessions by Augustine. (There is a free kindle version on that I just ordered!)
I have to say ditto and kudos to another reviewer (Todd C Truffin) who used words that so exactly described what I thought after reading this book as well. “Wolfe did a masterful job of luring the reader in without any defenses up so that when the hard hitting decisions and circumstances arrive, the reader is left devastated on the floor. Even though I knew enough of Augustine's life to know that certain aspects of X's life couldn't end well, the friendly narrator drew me in and carried me along to such a degree that I was still caught by surprise. This is not to say that X comes off as a simple or naive character. Quite the opposite. Walking with her through challenging life decisions and theological debates reveals a partner worthy of Augustine.”
Suzanne Wolfe’s tremendous skill in making this story seem effortless as if flows along and takes you with, is truly a gift.
It's midnight and I find myself trying to muffle my crying and carefully wiping my tears so not to wake my sleeping husband. The tears I blame on the book I just finished.

The Confessions of X is a historical Christian fiction account of St Augustine's concubine. Wolfe gives her lost name a story based on St Augustine's writing called Confession.

Wolfe's writing is very much of a poetic style giving vivid imagery and details of X's emotions as she tells her story of love as St Augustine's concubine. X's love for him is exhibited in actions that brought on the tears I am now crying. Though, she herself wasn't Christian, it was she who revealed to Augustine what Christ's love is like. It was her sacrifice that ultimately help Augustine understand how Christ loves us. I don't agree with Augustine's actions regarding his concubine in his latter years when he becomes the bishop of Hippo. But I guess if he was truly doing what God called him to do, then it stands to reason that God had a purpose for X to be in his life regardless of the heartache she experienced.

I'm very much a fan of historical fiction, especially when I've gained knowledge through a fictional story because the author writes with such reverence to the historical facts. Wolfe gives an account of her research in her book after the ending. Learning about the roles of concubines during that time was nothing of what I had previously believed. Though the story isn't necessarily about concubines, the reader learns of cultural roles they had through X's story.

The story is very well written. As I mentioned above, it's written in a poetic style with vivid details. There was more sexual content than I'm used in a Christian fiction book, though it's not sexually explicit. Wolfe describes in details of Augustine's and X's love for each other but never goes so far to describe the act of sex. There is no foul language. The reader will be exposed to scenes of birth and a mother dying after birth. There are elements of death of other characters. There are also elements of paganism and pagan gods.

This book will be added to my favorites list. It's richly written and emotional entrancing.
For those who don’t need or want a detailed review, here is the executive summary of mine The Confessions of X is a superb novel in all respects, characters, story, writing, and insight into the human heart. You should not miss it.

For those interested in a bit more detail, let me begin by admitting that I bought The Confessions of X with a great deal of skepticism. I have loved Augustine since I first read an English translation of his Confessions as a teenager, and I studied him seriously as an undergraduate and graduate student. And I love historical fiction when it is well done. So when I read a complimentary discussion of Suzanne Wolfe’s novel online, I decided I couldn’t resist buying it. But the odds of actually enjoying the book seemed rather low. A great deal of historical fiction falls flat for me because it is anachronistic (modern characters with modern concerns pretending to belong to another era) or just poorly written the author is admirably excited about some historical period or person but can’t actually write fiction. On top of that, Augustine was a towering intellect, and I along ago decided that he was a great human being, but he is very difficult for many people to understand in our (on the face of it) very different time. And a book focused on Augustine’s relationship with the woman (X) he treated terribly, at least by our lights, and whom he doesn’t even dignify by telling us his name – it sounded like a recipe for disaster likely to show a complete lack of sympathy with him and an inability to grasp what he or X might have been like as actual, flesh and blood, intellectual and emotional, human beings. So when the book came I put it on a pile of books and ignored it for a few days.

This past Thursday after I finished work in the evening I decided I might as well find out if The Confessions of X was what I feared. I read the first chapter and put it down, tears running down my face the problem with the novel, I had learned in less than six pages, was not that Wolfe’s novel was second-rate but that it was altogether too good, too achingly beautiful to continue. Thirty minutes later I realized that not reading something this good would be even worse, and I started chapter two. I don’t recall exactly when I went to bed, but it was the wee hours of the morning, I had finished the book, and I was crying again. In another novel I love, a wise character says at its end “I will not say do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” The Confessions of X is heart-breaking, but it is not tragic, and its intense realism about the place of pain and sadness in human life is not dispiriting but a realistic and powerful affirmation of what human beings can be and become.

So what exactly is so wonderful about this wonderful book? The writing is part of the answer. Wolfe is master of a simple, subtle, elegant style. She has an eye for physical detail, and her characters speak like human beings, not two-dimensional caricatures. Her pacing is brilliant The Confessions of X will often flow along smoothly, and then suddenly one is brought up short by an event, or even a single line, that adds complexity, or picks up a resonance from the past, or foreshadows what is to come. I would imagine that Wolfe’s remarkable skills as a writer enable her to write in any number of genres, although I for one want to read more Wolfe novels set in the past!

The characters are another brilliant achievement. X, Augustine, his mother Monica, their friend Nebridius – all are fully developed, entirely believable personalities. Wolfe has a remarkable ability to bring even a minor character to life with a few lines, and she has a deep, humane sympathy that enables her to draw us into the lives, loves and sorrows of the people she portrays, and without sentimentalizing them or turning them into stock characters. I need not have worried this is the Augustine that his own writings reveal, deeply honest about himself, wonderfully receptive to other persons and to the world. And X is just as she must have been a person as remarkable as the man who loved her.

As for anachronism, that besetting sin of the historical novel The Confessions of X takes place in the world of late antiquity, in North Africa and Italy, in a deep and convincing way. I don’t just mean that she knows a lot of facts about the time and place (she does!) or that she doesn’t turn her story into an allegory or morality play about twenty-first century issues (she doesn’t!). In her hands, the world in which X and Augustine lived, long ago, comes alive, and they and all the other characters do as well. Wolfe’s novel meets the high bar that excellent historical fiction must surmount it makes the past world in which it is set present, in all its alien strangeness, and it enables us to encounter human beings who truly belong to that alien world but are, at the same time, persons we can imagine knowing.

Anyone reading this review will have guessed by now that I think Wolfe has overcome the modern penchant for misunderstanding Augustine. Wolfe has a profound grasp of the historical Augustine’s most basic intellectual, ethical and emotional commitments. It is one of her master-strokes of imagination that X becomes the person with whom Augustine learns what those commitments are. Far from the cold and inhuman caricature that modernity projects on him, Wolfe’s Augustine is the flawed but passionate man, in love with his world and with his people, that his writings reveal. The Confessions of X paints the portrait, and tells the story, of the woman who must have been his equal.