The Shack by William P. Young

I knew I was in trouble when I read the following blurb below the author's name on the front cover.

"This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" - Eugene Peterson

Could someone have written a 21st century version of the most tedious, unreadable book I'd ever encountered? I wondered.

Like yours, my reading time is valuable. I don't have time for overtly contrived and didactic. I never completed Pilgrim's Progress and THAT was for a grade. I considered returning this book to the store where I, upon recognizing the title as the one I'd been requested to read and review, had scooped it off the shelf without a second glance.

Okay, I thought, just read a couple chapters in order to explain my complaints to the person who made the special request. She's my sister, by the way, and her book recommendations are usually spot on so I never questioned her lack of any descriptive information beyond the title. I think she suspected I wouldn't want it and hoped it would slip under her Jewish sister's radar.

So I read. Did I find the story contrived? Yes. Did I detect didacticism? Oh, yes. Was it as painful to read as Pilgrim's Progress? Thank goodness, no. One can actually finish this book. Indeed, you'll read on hoping for a certain outcome - of which I'll not divulge - and maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. No spoiler alerts needed here.

Mack Phillips is a sad and devastated man. His youngest child, six year old Missy, had been abducted during a camping trip a few years earlier, a bloodstained item the only evidence found in a remote shack. A note, seemingly from G-d, inviting him to the shack for a weekend appears in his mailbox. He goes and meets the holy trinity. Or does he?

Readers might be attracted to this book for the potential controversy. There are bound to be sides taken. It seems a story for Christians, and yet quite anti-organized-religion. It advocates for a personal relationship with G-d without religion getting in the way - no middleman, so to speak.

I appreciated the unusual characterization of G-d as a woman, a wonderful African-American mother who cooks and bakes - dare I say it - indescribably heavenly dishes. But even that fell apart after further reading. I should have seen it coming since they never stopped referring to her as Papa.

Another point that is bound to draw some boos and hisses appears when Jesus tells Mack that he's not Christian, but Jewish. That will probably rankle some people on both sides of the organized religion question, however, many Christians do accept that fact about Jesus so perhaps not widespread rankling.

My lack of pleasure from this book stems more from its grammar hiccups, and other writing complaints, than from any religious argument. I know some stellar writers, people who can make the print sing from the pages, and yet they remain unpublished. It simply left me a bit on the cold side. On the other hand, my sister felt moved to tears at times during her reading, and considers herself better informed about the trinity.

As previously stated, I stayed to the end in hopes of seeing a desired result. I'm not saying I got what I wanted, but maybe I did.

Now the only remaining question is . . . Who is Eugene Peterson and how could he think Pilgrim's Progress is good?

MR. LOWRY, WHERE ARE YOU?

I referenced The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in my piece on The Old Man and the Sea. Well, I really stepped it then; one of the subsequent comments suggested I review Rime. I responded positively, after all, I liked it when I read and reviewed it under the tutelage of Mr. Lowry, my freshman English teacher. Nevertheless, I remain hopelessly poetically challenged and had no idea how I would proceed.

Although not kosher to contact one's former teachers - even potentially retired ones - I checked the telephone book for Mr. Lowry's number (I never used, but do remember, his first name). Fortunately, his unlisted status - a sound policy followed by many teachers, I suspect - relieved me of all possible temptation.

I liked Rime so much that, in spite of the decades that separate this from my ninth-grade year, I've employed the albatross hanging from neck analogy more times than I can say, and I think of this ballad whenever parched and in need of water. Case in point, my recent reading of Hemingway's Old Man recalled the mariner and lead to my current predicament, that of being unqualified to expound on a poem, especially one so rich in wild and magical imagery, so shape-shifting of form, and so full of archaic words - I mean already archaic for Coleridge's time.

My favorite of those words - eftsoons - is found in the third stanza. It means soon afterward, or immediately following. This word alone is a reason to love this ballad. Eftsoons my first reading of the illustrated copy I borrowed from the library, I entered a bookstore in search of a study guide. The store did not stock a guide but found an illustrated edition, different from my library one, among their bargain books, and eftsoons I bought it. Eftsoons another reading or two of the ballad, I located and purchased a downloadable study guide on Coleridge's Poetry. While not devoted solely to Rime it does comment on it, among others of Coleridge's works. In that commentary, it states that Rime is unique among his poems for several reasons. One of them is his intentional use of archaic language. And the word cited to demonstrate that point - eftsoons!

My study guide informs me that Rime "is written in loose, short ballad stanzas usually either four or six lines long but, occasionally, as many as nine . . ." I noticed that, too. My reading also made me aware of the following, although I'd never have been able to explain it. "The meter is also somewhat loose, but odd lines are generally tetrameter, while even lines are generally trimeter. (There are exceptions: In a five-line stanza, for instance, lines one, three, and four are likely to have four accented syllables-tetrameter-while lines two and five have three accented syllables.) The rhymes generally alternate in an ABAB or ABABAB scheme, though again there are many exceptions . . ." It seems the exceptions have exceptions; so the only appropriate response to this is, "Huh?"

Perhaps I uttered that interrogative expression in my ninth-grade classroom, while raising my hand, of course. No doubt Mr. Lowry responded with further discussion of poetic form, rhyme and meter. No doubt I took copious notes and learned this stuff well enough to ace the test, and foster a lifelong soft spot for this wacky ballad. I don't think I could have if attached to negative feelings due to a sub-standard grade. Nevertheless, I regret not fostering my notebook in the same manner.

Wacky ballad, indeed! Think Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and remember how the urban legend of the time posited that the Beatles sang of an LSD trip. That turned out not to be so, but Coleridge did become an opium addict "(it is thought that "Kubla Khan" originated from an opium dream) . . ." From his biography on Wikipedia I learned that he began taking laudanum - tincture of opium - for pain relief around 1796, and it may have been prescribed for various ailments even in his youth. With no controlled substance laws, and no social stigma against using them, Coleridge, and many others of the Romantic Period, freely imbibed. So it's still a big MAYBE that the mariner's birth in 1798, two years after Coleridge began self-medicating with regularity, was drug induced. That notwithstanding, one cannot possibly spell either opium or laudanum from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. But you can almost get tincture if you substitute another vowel for the missing "u".

Coleridge, the son of a clergyman, makes a fair amount of religious references in Rime. "Like the sun, the moon often symbolizes G-d, but the moon has more positive connotations than the sun. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the sun and the moon represent two sides of the Christian G-d: the sun represents the angry, wrathful G-d, whereas the moon represents the benevolent, repentant G-d. . . . and generally favorable things occur during the night, in contrast to the horrors that occur during the day." I missed that, on every reading. I might have known it at age fourteen, but I forgot. Sorry, Mr. Lowery.

Yes, moments ago I realized I'd misspelled Mr. Lowery's name. He, or someone like him, IS listed in the telephone book. I'm not going to call, though. He might want to quiz me and, while I haven't lost any of my affection for the mariner, it just wasn't the same this time around. If you have to read some scholars dry old study guide in order to write intelligently about a piece you like, because you no longer remember why you like it, and you still can't figure it out after rereading the piece AND the dry old guide, then maybe some mysteries can't be solved. Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right and You Can't Go Home Again.

That's part of it, but I don't think I ever gave Mr. Lowery enough credit. Somehow, the mariner spoke to me back in junior high. Although he didn't this time, a shadow of the old feeling still exists. Couldn't my teacher have spun a little magic of his own, something so potent it could linger for a lifetime? I think yes, and in so believing, there is only one appropriate response.

Thank you, Mr. Lowery, wherever you are.


Study guide: Coleridge's Poetry by SparkNotes available at www.sparknotes.com