Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Shack

I'm still reeling, folks: this one's a keeper.  Have you ever read one of those books that just makes you feel so differently about your life, as if you can finally live the way you want to live, this time with permission?  Maybe that last part's just me being a paranoid type of person, but as for the first, it's true that my own current personal gnosis can be attributed to William P. Young's The Shack.

The Shack (Special Hardcover Edition)Mack is an everyman living in rural Oregon with his wife and kids.  He takes the little ones on a camping trip one day and returns minus one camper - his youngest daughter Missy, kidnapped and likely murdered in a little, decrepit shack in the dark woods of Oregon.  Mack is devastated and falls into a period of his life known as The Great Sadness, which takes over in his life and those of his family member, until the letter arrives.  In the middle of a snowstorm, Mack feels driven to check the mailbox for any new mail, and what he finds in that mailbox takes him back to the very shack that caused his misery and proceeds to change his life and his family's lives forever.

I don't want to give much of the plot away, upon request of the author in the back of the book, but you have to read it for yourself anyway - I doubt I could describe in the few words allowed by my posts the experiences Mack goes through following receipt of this... strange letter, to say the least.  Everything Mack sees, the reader sees, thanks to Young's somewhat broadly-characterized protagonist.  However, I found that this choice actually serves the impact of the story and its effect on the reader (unlike a certain YA series), and Mack's "huh"s and "wait... what?"s easily become your own, as he wades through the mess his life has become and fights the battles that will eventually redeem his soul.  Yes, the writing and the plot are very simple and predictable, especially at the beginning when all we are reading is story.  But the second half is where the interesting bits pop up, and I feel the need to issue a Now Leaving Regular Modern Fiction sign to mark the rest of this review...

This book is one of the reasons I enjoy reading Christian fiction, although I'm not particularly religious - in fact, this is one of the books that sort-of reflects back to me what I already believe God to be, if God does in fact exist (and if I really do believe in God at all... hmm).  Like Mack, I have also experienced that sort of subconscious longing for something (grace?) that the logical mind cannot grasp and possibly never will, and I did find some very interesting, truly original answers in reading The Shack.  I understand Mr. Young now faces some unofficial charges of heresy in his perceptions of God and the Trinity, but I think it's about time the world learned that religions need to change in order to survive.  But I digress.  For now, let's just remember that not all super-popular or bestselling books are overrated; some of them really deserve the praise!  That said, here is a hilarious review of The Shack from someone who is decidedly anti-everything-I-just-said.  Enjoy that too, and I will see you next time with a review of Rachel Carson's environmentalist classic Silent Spring!

2 comments:

  1. Great review, thanks. The outspoken ones that don't like the book are Hyper-Calvinist-- they don't believe Jesus dies for all (just the elect0 so they can't deal with Papa's love.

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  2. Hi Robin! I agree with you on that. I don't recognize the 'heresy' in books like this one, it's just an outpouring of love and good intentions that some folks/traditions are not ready for.

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