My what a long road he's come.
Or what a long road I've come in my perception of him.

Next time I looked he was stupidly doing one of "those wild and crazy guys" on the same TV show.
Then all of a sudden he was doing Cyrano set in modern New England. Then I noticed a movie called L.A. Story.
And Steve Martin writing for the New Yorker? Or writing a play entitled Picasso at the Lapin Angle?

What's this all about?

Then the man shows up on C-SPAN as emcee for the National Book Awards. And that's only the stuff I have noticed.

Now comes a book, "A Novella," called Shopgirl.

It's a tiny book -- small in surface area and only 129 pages -- barely longer than a New Yorker story.

It's beauty, however, is huge. I don't think there's a spare word in this tiny book.

I had to overcome my tendency to ski rapidly through the fresh powder of long sentences in these pages.
And all those essential words are lovingly chosen and beautifully effective. The descriptions of the people
are especially evocative. The dimensions of the story's human relationships are insightful and instructive
(if you're so inclined).

Shopgirl is a story about the philosophy, economics, psychology, and religion of relationships between imperfect people.
In other words, it's about all of us.

There's a sort of love triangle. Sort of about love; sort of a triangle.

There's the shopgirl Mirabelle, artist wannabe (sort of), medicated out of depression more or less successfully.
A boyfriend Jeremy, who goes on a highly unlikely spiritual journey (probably worthy of its own book).
Another boyfriend, Ray, who strings Mirabelle along for his own purposes and, incidentally, saves her life.

The story is lovingly told and almost becomes a fairy tale, sort of. I'd really like some of the characters in this
story (besides the abusive Lisa) to be more assertive, sort of. But then they might not seem as realistic.

I liked it. (Can you tell?)

Interestingly, just after finishing the book, I read an article, "A Theology for the 21st Century," by the
Reverend Doctor Forrest Church that seemed to carry the same tone as Shopgirl.

He remarks that the "word human has a telling etymology...humane, humanitarian, humor,
humility, humble, and humus."

He defines religion as "our human response to the dual reality of being and alive and having to die."
Church argues that a 21st century theology must account for a world "where togetherness is no
longer a luxury but a necessity..." and one where "centrifugal forces spin us faster and farther from one
another." This theology must also account for the rational, empirical world outside of ourselves and for
the "transrational," spiritual world in our minds and hearts. This theology must be more like literary criticism
and less like debating to the death.

I don't know if those two bits of reading have more to do with each other than temporal proximity and tone,
but I think Martin and Church are calling us to do better than we've done in the past. Martin's story
is more entertaining; Church's essay is marginally more thought provoking.
I'm glad I read both.

• Sienna Powers' review from January Magazine
• Kristin Kloberdanz's review in Book Magazine
• A less enthusiastic review by Christian, a staff writer at BoldOpinion.com