No Glory Lives Behind the Back of Such
I want to heap ire on a certain book, and I intend to be quite wrathful about it. In the spirit of Lewis (and for much the same reason) I will not give its name, but rather call it The Red Book, as he called the subject of his critique "The Green Book."
The Red Book is a prime example of what is so distressing about modern Christian Fiction. I am hardly comforted by the fact that its author is a homeschooling mother of nine, the wife of a pastor, and was an English teacher. From her writing, I gather her to be a somewhat talented person who is really interested in literature, especially Lewis and Tolkien. The Red Book is set at Oxford circa 1960, a year after C.S. Lewis' death, and is full of interesting biographical and historical information about Oxford, Lewis, and Tolkien.
It goes rapidly downhill from there. The central character is a twenty-year-old American girl studying at Oxford in her Junior year of college. I don't need to be reminded that I am a Junior, and only just twenty-one, in order to be disgusted by the insipid romance which is concocted for this poor girl, whose name is, unluckily, Kate. The author has invented a completely type-cast young lord; handsome, arrogant, obviously not a Christian, and obviously interested in getting all he can from a short-term relationship with the petite brunette.
Now, mark this. Our heroine, who is--or so we are told to believe--a devout Christian, nevertheless cannot see through the lordling's drivel and nominal Christianity. Kate is supposedly the daughter of a successful lawyer in Virginia, but I'm blessed if I can see that, and I ought to be able to, as I am myself the daughter of a successful lawyer in Virginia. She is in fact a cardboard construct driven by a very simple engine: fascination with Shakespeare and Lewis. Again, I can strongly sympathize. This girl might as well be me, except for the painful fact that she is not complex enough to be a human two-year-old, much less a human twenty-year-old.
Shakespeare, of course, lends us the perfect segue into our other, and ultimate, love interest. Enter handsome young Oxford don David MacKenzie, who just happens to be Kate's Shakespeare tutor, and just happens to be on the downswing from his own painfully-ended engagement to a young lady with whom he "broke up," as they say, for the simple reason that he had been living in sin with her, but suddenly decided to "take his faith seriously" following the death of his friend and mentor--his friend and mentor, none other than C.S. Lewis.
I am sorry to pain you, but so it is. We will skip the love triangle--so boring and maudlin with its endless misunderstandings, misaffections, and jealousies. We will pass over the behavior of David MacKenzie, who, while touted as much-tempted but filled with Galahad's own purity, nevertheless pays such attention to Kate as would severely test any girl's emotional stability and mental peace. We will even pass over the miserable scenes involving his previous intended, a brazen redhead called Charlotte, who in the course of the book fabricates a dangerous illness, apparently in a failed attempt to get David back. I've only skimmed the end, but that is my conjecture. Oh, and in case you were curious... David and Kate save their first kiss for the altar.... so appropriate for a book which might become the standard for postmodern evangelical blah.
Has it come to this! Shall I never again see a Christian novel with more than pretentions to dignity? Do Oxford, Lewis, and Tolkien now have to be dragged in as interesting filler for a dime romance? Must I listen to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet lisped by a breathless Kate, who had been told to memorize a speech from the Bard, and of course chose that as an appropriate piece to deliver to David MacKenzie while he is examining her paper in his office?
My only solace is that this book was given to me as a Christmas present, that I did not choose it myself, and am free to leave it at home, or better yet burn it, when I go back to school in January. It was given me by someone who would most likely chuckle if he could see this critique, and will most likely agree with me about The Red Book, if he ever gets a chance to read it, which I will make it my duty to see that he does not, for it is entirely beneath his notice.
But don't despair, my dear. It has been a thoroughly lovely Christmas, and I will tell you all about it another time. For now, be content in the knowledge that I have received an Easton Press copy of The Iliad, translated by Alexander Pope, no less, and am in raptures, however it may not seem in me by some large jests that I will make.
My compliments to the author of The Red Book, and I repeat to her a paraphrase of what Petronius wrote to Nero on the occasion of the former's death at the latter's desire.
"Terrorize the people, but do not sing. Abuse the law, but do not write verse. Be a tyrant, but do not offend the sacred Muses."
The Red Book is a prime example of what is so distressing about modern Christian Fiction. I am hardly comforted by the fact that its author is a homeschooling mother of nine, the wife of a pastor, and was an English teacher. From her writing, I gather her to be a somewhat talented person who is really interested in literature, especially Lewis and Tolkien. The Red Book is set at Oxford circa 1960, a year after C.S. Lewis' death, and is full of interesting biographical and historical information about Oxford, Lewis, and Tolkien.
It goes rapidly downhill from there. The central character is a twenty-year-old American girl studying at Oxford in her Junior year of college. I don't need to be reminded that I am a Junior, and only just twenty-one, in order to be disgusted by the insipid romance which is concocted for this poor girl, whose name is, unluckily, Kate. The author has invented a completely type-cast young lord; handsome, arrogant, obviously not a Christian, and obviously interested in getting all he can from a short-term relationship with the petite brunette.
Now, mark this. Our heroine, who is--or so we are told to believe--a devout Christian, nevertheless cannot see through the lordling's drivel and nominal Christianity. Kate is supposedly the daughter of a successful lawyer in Virginia, but I'm blessed if I can see that, and I ought to be able to, as I am myself the daughter of a successful lawyer in Virginia. She is in fact a cardboard construct driven by a very simple engine: fascination with Shakespeare and Lewis. Again, I can strongly sympathize. This girl might as well be me, except for the painful fact that she is not complex enough to be a human two-year-old, much less a human twenty-year-old.
Shakespeare, of course, lends us the perfect segue into our other, and ultimate, love interest. Enter handsome young Oxford don David MacKenzie, who just happens to be Kate's Shakespeare tutor, and just happens to be on the downswing from his own painfully-ended engagement to a young lady with whom he "broke up," as they say, for the simple reason that he had been living in sin with her, but suddenly decided to "take his faith seriously" following the death of his friend and mentor--his friend and mentor, none other than C.S. Lewis.
I am sorry to pain you, but so it is. We will skip the love triangle--so boring and maudlin with its endless misunderstandings, misaffections, and jealousies. We will pass over the behavior of David MacKenzie, who, while touted as much-tempted but filled with Galahad's own purity, nevertheless pays such attention to Kate as would severely test any girl's emotional stability and mental peace. We will even pass over the miserable scenes involving his previous intended, a brazen redhead called Charlotte, who in the course of the book fabricates a dangerous illness, apparently in a failed attempt to get David back. I've only skimmed the end, but that is my conjecture. Oh, and in case you were curious... David and Kate save their first kiss for the altar.... so appropriate for a book which might become the standard for postmodern evangelical blah.
Has it come to this! Shall I never again see a Christian novel with more than pretentions to dignity? Do Oxford, Lewis, and Tolkien now have to be dragged in as interesting filler for a dime romance? Must I listen to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet lisped by a breathless Kate, who had been told to memorize a speech from the Bard, and of course chose that as an appropriate piece to deliver to David MacKenzie while he is examining her paper in his office?
My only solace is that this book was given to me as a Christmas present, that I did not choose it myself, and am free to leave it at home, or better yet burn it, when I go back to school in January. It was given me by someone who would most likely chuckle if he could see this critique, and will most likely agree with me about The Red Book, if he ever gets a chance to read it, which I will make it my duty to see that he does not, for it is entirely beneath his notice.
But don't despair, my dear. It has been a thoroughly lovely Christmas, and I will tell you all about it another time. For now, be content in the knowledge that I have received an Easton Press copy of The Iliad, translated by Alexander Pope, no less, and am in raptures, however it may not seem in me by some large jests that I will make.
My compliments to the author of The Red Book, and I repeat to her a paraphrase of what Petronius wrote to Nero on the occasion of the former's death at the latter's desire.
"Terrorize the people, but do not sing. Abuse the law, but do not write verse. Be a tyrant, but do not offend the sacred Muses."
posted by Praelucor at 4:26 PM
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