Faith and Faithfulness: Basic Themes in Christian Ethics.

Compared to Job or 2 Samuel, reading ethics is like rooting for the Red Sox; one is continually let down in the end. But there are exceptions. Meilaender, an ethicist graced with a lucid prose style and a literary sensibility, is such an exception. In Faith and Faithfulness: Basic Themes in Christian Ethics (University of Notre Dame Press, $11.95, 211 pp.), he is out to make sense of Christian freedom, human nature, and even the limits of the Christian vision. Shakespeare, Karl Barth, Helmut Thielicke, Augustine, and the philosopher Michael Oakeshott figure prominently. Meilaender's careful critique of universal moral absolutes is very helpful, especially his ability to make room for ambiguity and exceptional cases--indeed, for both human and divine freedom--without relativizing fundamental values. He is especially good on the tension between particular loyalties to family and friends and broader humanitarian responsibilities. The legitimate autonomy of the secular sphere is also shrewdly assessed. In this context, Meilaender relies on an essay by the Thomist Josef Pieper (which appeared in Commonweal!). Pieper described the legacy of the Christian West as "theologically grounded worldliness." Meilander explains: "Worldliness--that is, an appreciation of natural reality and a recognition that its existence cannot simply be absorbed by Christian vision." Later, relying on Augustine, Meilaender elaborates: "For we need more than a way to carve out a distinctively Christian life amidst the ruins of a surrounding civilization; we need also some way to maintain contact with all that is good in that civilization, to understand that if it is often vicious (in the technical, moral sense), its vice is, at least sometimes, `splendid.'"

On a lighter, airier, and entertaining note, David Lodge's most recent novel, Therapy (Viking, $22.95,321 pp. , is a delight from its hobbled protagonist's entrance to the winning, if perhaps too winning, conclusion. Tubby Passmore, a successful TV sitcom writer and hypochondriac, is at the very full heart of Therapy, fitfully navigating both the perils of a suddenly collapsing marriage and his long-collapsing, fifty-something body. Lodge's novels have chronicled an entire generation of English and mostly Catholic academics, and he can make you laugh out loud. He can also quote and explain Kierkegaard--and make you laugh out loud doing it. Not many novelists capture the everyday humanity of their characters with as much affection or sympathy as Lodge does in Therapy.

John Updike's The Afterlife and Other Stories (Fawcett, $6.99, 316 pp.), shows his powers of observation and incantation are undiminished. Does anyone else suffuse the conflicts and minutiae of middle-class American life and longing with such transcendent ambition? Only Updike can turn the possible sexual subtext of a dental hygienist's touch into an erotic poem so gently transgressive that the reader's jaw aches from smiling.