Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam
Let us know what you think of that book.
I've heard both good and bad about that book.
The good came from a Roman Catholic.
The bad came from someone who thought it was too "New Age" and synchrenistic.
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I finished it yesterday. I have mixed reactions, myself. Will go into more detail in a few days (I'm still on the road now, heading home), but briefly, I thought the story, as a vehicle for his message, was fairly creative and suited the author's purposes well. And it's a pretty good, engaging story. A little wordy and redundant, awkwardly written here and there, but overall, not a bad first novel.
On the downside, I found the buzz and the hype to be overly optimistic. It is trumpeted as providing answers to difficult questions. Why does God allow pain and suffering? Why is there evil? Well, its non-answer boils down to this: we don't know. "God" even admits this explicitly in the book. I don't have it in front of me, so can't quote it, but we hear God say something like "I didn't stop the bad guy from doing that horrible thing" (don't want to give too much away, for those who haven't read it yet) "for reasons you can't possibly understand yet" to the protagonist. And God, the
creator of the
universe, all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving, could think of only
two ways to have prevented that bad thing: 1. not create in the first place (no world, no human race, no nothin'), or 2. interfere with the bad guy's free will. Huh? I'm not all-wise or any of that, but even
I could have thought of
lots of other ways!
OK, there's more to it than that, but nothing that satisfies very well. And some of it is self-contradictory. Can't think of an example now, but maybe later.
And the author has the protagonist play into his theology in ways that very few normal humans would. He wants us to learn that man is nothing without God. We can't do anything right, without God's help. We're dumb. God asks him to define good and evil. He dumbly says that good is whatever makes
him feel good, and evil is whatever hurts
him. How many ordinary humans would answer in such a self-centered way?
Is the book "deep"? Oh, it's wrapped in a whole bunch of pop theology and counter-intuitive non-logic (sometimes, just being counter-intuitive adds credibility, for some reason!) to make it seem like it's so very deep. And yes, many of the ideas expressed are thought-provoking. But answers? Few and far between, I'm afraid. And very little, if any, that haven't been expressed before, when you boil it down.
Oh, one line stood out especially. God says "Maybe your understanding of God is wrong!" Dripping with irony, I thought. Yes, maybe Mack's (the protagonist's) understanding of God is wrong. But maybe the
author's understanding is wrong! Maybe mine is! Maybe yours is! But the uncertainty doesn't stop some people from making a lot of statements of fact, with no way of knowing if they're true or not. Even if you accept the Bible's infallibility, there will be several contradictory interpretations flying around for almost any scripture. People simply repeat what they've been taught, after deciding which of those things they like best. That's what we all do, I suppose, myself included.
Did I say "briefly"?
Guess I got carried away. But I do have some more to say. If I get around to it.
