Conservative Book Talk

Dekker has written some of the best Christian novels in the last few years. Strangely though, he seems to be going more esoteric and confusing in his books. For example, check out his Circle trilogy. (Disclaimer: I’m not responsible if you neglect your daily duties or lose sleep after becoming engrossed in these books….) Later, Dekker moved into books exploring various other subjects such as the value of prayer in Blink and a discussion on the three part nature of humans in Three. More recently in Showdown, Dekker attempted to expand on a portion of the Circle trilogy. Showdown was a confusing treatise on love. Saint appears to be the sequel though that wasn’t clear. In fact, it wasn’t until I searched on Ted Dekker at Amazon, that I realized it was the sequel. Strange. Saint did reference Showdown but not in a manner that indicated that it was a true sequel. It would appear that quite a few of his books are now built on the foundation of the Circle trilogy.

Anyway, what I didn’t like about Showdown was that Dekker was obviously trying to have an important discussion with the reader but I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say about love. Without that understanding, the story didn’t make a lot of sense. Saint did a much better job of storytelling until the very end when the story delved deeply into the materials of Showdown. Then things fell apart. In my opinion anyway.

Saint is about a man being trained as a super elite assassin. Part of his training involves mental discipline. This training revolves around the re-creation of his personality and memories. Consequently, he has no idea whether his current memory set is real or fake. Another assassin seeks for a reason to kill Saint.

After his training is complete, Saint receives his last training mission/first real mission: kill the president of the United States.

At this point, Dekker begins to study an intriguing idea: If a Christian’s mind is wiped and reprogrammed to be a killer, is it possible for the Christian nature to reassert itself; can a Christian stop being a Christian if his mind is reprogrammed? Intriguing idea.

Of course the absolute dumbest part of the book is the character’s reconnection with his “Christian nature.” He stands around in the desert yelling “I Believe!” What does he believe? No idea.

This reveals the problem with some of Dekker’s works: he tries to preach, but then neuters the message to be unoffensive. The result for me: confusion. Just be explicit and tell me what you are trying to say. At least that is how it appears to me. If someone knows otherwise, preferably from Dekker, I’d love to hear about it. All I know is that I find some of these books confusing.

Overall, Saint is worth reading. Showdown could be skipped in my opinion, but if you MUST read Showdown, then at least read the Circle trilogy first. For that matter read the Circle trilogy anyway.

Have you read any of Dekker’s books? What are your opinions of them? I personally enjoy have enjoyed his earlier books myself.

Tags: Matt Gardenghi, Saint, Ted Dekker, Thriller

This isn’t a book review in the traditional sense, mostly because I am not certain I want to tell people what I just read. We’ll get back to that. What I did do was this: I explored two genres that I have traditionally frowned upon and was surprised at my findings.

First, was anime. Now, anime is a Japanese style of cartoon (manga == comic book; anime == cartoon). I have had a negative approach to anime because those I knew who liked it also tended toward more adult materials. Turns out that in the Oriental societies, anime is considered to be an art form equal with live action cinematography. Anime runs the gamut from children’s shows to adult action flicks and everything else. Now one problem with anime in the US is that it is seems to be closely linked to pornography. I don’t recommend performing Google searches on anime as you will often be just one or two clicks away from seriously objectionable content. If you read (and can search in) Japanese then your search will be less problematic.

So, a few weeks back, I came in contact with anime over the course of daily life and as usual my gut reaction was to condemn it. Then I recalled a friend who had told me about how anime in Japan is no different then Disney (or Pixar) films in the US. So I decided I should get to know the genre a bit better before writing it off. moreover, it turns out that Disney has released several films by Hayao Miyazaki. These films have been re-dubbed with experienced US actors that include the famed Patrick Stewart.

Turns out my friend was right. I’ll probably not go digging up anime because its tough to find good stuff in the US, but I learned that I shouldn’t discount it as a style or genre. What I watched was excellent material with good (albeit different due to Eastern perspectives) stories.

Result: if you have the opportunity to watch Miyazaki movies like Castle In The Sky or Porco Rosso, take the chance and watch them to broaden your horizons. Another good anime is Steamboy which has an interesting discussion about the role of science within society.

Next I read Marvin Olasky’s article in a recent World Magazine. He spoke highly of another genre that I typically disdained: graphic novels. Now if you are like me, you look at a graphic novel and see pictures instead of words. Obviously it is inferior to real novels, right? Or maybe not so much. Since I was trying out new genres, I went to the library and requested the only one I knew. I was both surprised, impressed and saddened.

Let’s start with the good: the story was well written and told primarily through pictures. It amazed me that quite a few of the first ten pages had few words. Of those words, most were in Arabic. Yet intriguingly, I knew exactly what was going on as if the author had spent pages detailing the scenes. This was surprising. The skill used to tell the story was fantastic.

The depth of the author’s story and literary knowledge also surprised and impressed me. I wouldn’t have expected an author with such knowledge and skill to be writing extended comic books. Maybe there’s something to these….

One thought before I reach the bad. I do not see graphic novels being a good substitute for books because they lack words. That might sound odd, but actual words on a page can boost spelling, grammar skills and more accurately direct your thinking than a picture. In some ways, they complement each other, or can do so if both are well written stories.

The bad: graphic images and content littered several sections of the book. This was a great disappointment not just because the material was offensive, but because there was so much talent wasted here. I wish I could recommend the book, but I can’t and won’t.

This lead me to a decision: do I continue reading this one book despite its obvious problems just so I could explore a new genre, do I just write off the genre due to the content of this book (and quit reading it), or do I wait until a more promising sample manages to cross my path? My decision was to keep reading, though I am not sure if I should have.

What do you do when you reach objectionable material? Some material in a book can be ignored. I can turn a page or ignore some element. (Mind you I try not to make it a habit to have to deal with such issues, and these are typically only a problem in novels.) With a movie, I would probably and usually shut it off. With a graphic novel, a picture is worth a thousand words. You can skip a page, but you still saw several thousand words….

Honestly, I continued partially because I wanted to read the story and partially because I wanted to learn more about the genre. Now, I’m not sure if either reason was a legitimate reason.

What do you do when presented with objectionable elements?

Tags: Anime, books, fiction, Genre, Graphic Novels, Matt Gardenghi

No, not the movie. This is a book about the supreme court and its destruction of the American Representative Democracy. One reads 1776 with its uplifting view of American governance and then picks up Levin’s Men In Black and finds a dark story of an oligarchy destroying American self-governance.

There aren’t many books that can persuade me to change my mind with regards to elections, but this one did the unthinkable. I will hold my nose and vote Republican for one reason: supreme court nominations. I had more or less decided to break with the Republican party and vote independent seeing as McCain isn’t much different than Obama in my opinion. I was hoping for Governor Huckabee myself. I had the opportunity to meet several of the candidates and Huckabee was the most impressive by far. But I digress….

Look, as a Christian the debate for me has been straightforward: vote my conscience and select someone without a chance at winning or select the moderate Republican and block the Democrats. Personally, given McCain’s moderate approach and close friendship with the extreme left wing, I had decided to vote against him. But, can I afford to let Obama seat a liberal on the bench? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

You see, Levin lays out on page after page how the supreme court has violated their mandate, accrued unchecked power, and legislated from the bench. Time after time (particularly in the last 60 years or so), the court has made decisions and then sought out justifications for their decisions. Worse, it hasn’t all been cloak and dagger; this has been done in the open, people just haven’t paid much attention. From supporting slavery to reverse discrimination (affirmative action), from banning God in schools to overturning sodomy laws, from legalizing abortion to interfering with the electoral process, the supreme court has systematically removed its oversight, increased its power and created “rights” not found in the constitution in an effort to push it’s agenda.

This book is a real eye-opener. It opened my eyes to the need to keep the court on its current track of conservatism. After all that darkness and the terrible situation painted by Mark Levin, what can be done? The court has systematically overruled any attempts to control it. The democrats in Congress have been working with groups the NAACP, NOW, and others to control court appointments at all levels and to block any judge who is a strict constitutionalist. (Surprisingly, no one seems to care or know! Of course this is the only way the left has been able to work: through the courts they win even as they have failed at the ballot box.)

Levin argues briefly in a short last chapter for term limits on all judges with unlimited reappointment. This would allow the people to easily evaluate a judge’s performance while keeping the judge from having to “politic” for their job. In any event, as long as no changes are made to the current system, I believe that I have little choice but to support a candidate that will be more likely to nominate conservative justices. The current conservative bent may be the only reason the right to bear arms was upheld recently.

You must vote your conscience this Fall, but please read this book and factor this important factor into your decision.

Tags: 1776, Mark Levin, Matt Gardenghi, Men In Black, Politics, Supreme Court