Monday, March 09, 2009
The Hack
Six months ago, more or less, everybody I bumped into at Cornerstone was reading The Shack, so I figured I'd give it a try.
But everybody in Ramsey County was also reading The Shack, so it took a while for my request to come in at the Ramsey County Library. I picked it up on Saturday. Read (and sometimes skimmed) it Saturday into Sunday morning.
As a statement of a particular systematic theology, it's clear and mildly entertaining. And for those who've never encountered this particular theology or this view of God, I can see where it could be compelling and important. I can even say that I'm glad I read it. It reminded me of some things I had let myself forget, and it helped me to focus on some important questions. Plus I'm glad I'll be able to talk about it somewhat knowledgeably if it ever comes up.
But as a book, and particularly as a novel, my primary impression is that it was really, really bad.
First off, it's a novel that pretends it's nonfiction, which is annoying at the least and fraudulent at worst. (In the two days since I learned this, I've already encountered people who were misled into thinking it was a true story. Lots of people don't know what a "novel" is, as I've found out in teaching.) Since this is not the 19th Century, I don't understand why we have to have a foreword and afterword that pretend like this is all true. When novels were first being figured out, this was somewhat commonplace, but we've moved past it a long, long time ago. Doing it now not only seems ridiculously outdated and unnecessary, but like a cheap stunt. (I suspect the real reason it was done is that the author wasn't able to figure out how to work the backstory in to the main text and so needed the foreword to somehow get it in there.) It's made worse by the fact that the foreword describes our main character as someone who's really at his best conversing with experts. This kind of flies in the face of the rest of the book, where he seems easily dumbfounded by concepts no more esoteric than fractals.
Structure aside, the book is just poorly written. Several sentences were befuddling for no good reason. Others were just cliched, dull, or laughably obvious. ("They had a veritable feast of burgers, fries, and shakes." Hoo boy. First, that's not a feast, veritable or otherwise. Second, if their food is that pedestrian, why do we even need to know about it?) One of the best lines of the book is "Faith doesn't grow in the house of certainty." Yes, you read that right. One of the best lines is an incomplete metaphor. It couldn't be the garden of certainty, the soil of certianty, or as my wife suggested, the hothouse of certainty?
At the heart of the book is the main character's grief over the murder of his young daughter. He kind of works through this in a way that's kind of authentic. But I really felt the book cheated there, shielding him from all the worst stuff and letting everything work out in the best way it possibly could to give him closure. I'm not sure how much comfort that will be to people who live in a nonfiction world where some people don't get a miraculous solution that leads to earthly justice and a tidy ending.
And like all interpretations, this one reveals some things clearly and conceals others. The God it points toward is amazing, and if this book is someone's first or second or third step toward that God, great. God will use it for good, as with all things. But the people who are launching the "Missy Project" to get the book wider recognition and make a movie and everything should realize that this book has no "literary qualities" worth praising. God is worth better than this, much better. I appreciate that this guy tried to do something good, and I value the good that's come from it. But as a reader and someone who's a bit familiar with literature, I'm disappointed by the product.
But everybody in Ramsey County was also reading The Shack, so it took a while for my request to come in at the Ramsey County Library. I picked it up on Saturday. Read (and sometimes skimmed) it Saturday into Sunday morning.
As a statement of a particular systematic theology, it's clear and mildly entertaining. And for those who've never encountered this particular theology or this view of God, I can see where it could be compelling and important. I can even say that I'm glad I read it. It reminded me of some things I had let myself forget, and it helped me to focus on some important questions. Plus I'm glad I'll be able to talk about it somewhat knowledgeably if it ever comes up.
But as a book, and particularly as a novel, my primary impression is that it was really, really bad.
First off, it's a novel that pretends it's nonfiction, which is annoying at the least and fraudulent at worst. (In the two days since I learned this, I've already encountered people who were misled into thinking it was a true story. Lots of people don't know what a "novel" is, as I've found out in teaching.) Since this is not the 19th Century, I don't understand why we have to have a foreword and afterword that pretend like this is all true. When novels were first being figured out, this was somewhat commonplace, but we've moved past it a long, long time ago. Doing it now not only seems ridiculously outdated and unnecessary, but like a cheap stunt. (I suspect the real reason it was done is that the author wasn't able to figure out how to work the backstory in to the main text and so needed the foreword to somehow get it in there.) It's made worse by the fact that the foreword describes our main character as someone who's really at his best conversing with experts. This kind of flies in the face of the rest of the book, where he seems easily dumbfounded by concepts no more esoteric than fractals.
Structure aside, the book is just poorly written. Several sentences were befuddling for no good reason. Others were just cliched, dull, or laughably obvious. ("They had a veritable feast of burgers, fries, and shakes." Hoo boy. First, that's not a feast, veritable or otherwise. Second, if their food is that pedestrian, why do we even need to know about it?) One of the best lines of the book is "Faith doesn't grow in the house of certainty." Yes, you read that right. One of the best lines is an incomplete metaphor. It couldn't be the garden of certainty, the soil of certianty, or as my wife suggested, the hothouse of certainty?
At the heart of the book is the main character's grief over the murder of his young daughter. He kind of works through this in a way that's kind of authentic. But I really felt the book cheated there, shielding him from all the worst stuff and letting everything work out in the best way it possibly could to give him closure. I'm not sure how much comfort that will be to people who live in a nonfiction world where some people don't get a miraculous solution that leads to earthly justice and a tidy ending.
And like all interpretations, this one reveals some things clearly and conceals others. The God it points toward is amazing, and if this book is someone's first or second or third step toward that God, great. God will use it for good, as with all things. But the people who are launching the "Missy Project" to get the book wider recognition and make a movie and everything should realize that this book has no "literary qualities" worth praising. God is worth better than this, much better. I appreciate that this guy tried to do something good, and I value the good that's come from it. But as a reader and someone who's a bit familiar with literature, I'm disappointed by the product.
