Review Explores Themes of Faith in Recent Historical Novel and Poetry

The Christianity Today piece examines Robert Harris’s novel Agrippa, noting that its narrator, lacking the secretaries who shaped Julius Caesar’s memoirs, dislikes lengthy books that aim for grand conclusions. It describes Agrippa’s dry account of the civil wars that erased Cicero, Mark Antony and tens of thousands, highlighting his secret remorse over lost marriages and his inability to change personal circumstances despite his public achievements under Octavian.

It also discusses Christian Wiman’s poetry collection The Dance, which moves from intimate fears surrounding a bone marrow transplant to reflections on beauty’s ubiquity and its dependence on suffering to shine. The review quotes Wiman’s line that “it is suffering that makes it shine,” and notes his exploration of beauty as both a gift and a burden amid illness.

The article does not reference specific biblical passages; instead, it uses these literary works as illustrations for contemplation on faith, remorse, and the role of suffering in perceiving beauty, offering readers a reflective lens rather than a direct scriptural teaching.