Randy Alcorn (part 2)

The rules of this blog are to review from memory at least a year after reading—no notes.

Randy Alcorn’s Deception was so surprisingly disturbing that I’ll break the rule.

There are a number of things Alcorn improves on in this book. For instance, he doesn’t take himself so seriously, he lets characters be funny, he cuts down on the “heaven’s view” angle, he doesn’t make his literary heroes characters… From those perspectives, it’s an improvement.

But I should have seen something fishy in the endorsement by Chuck Norris (Chuck Norris? karate guy? mediocre actor? writing book endorsements?).

The endorsement was explained when, within the first 40 pages, Alcorn had mentioned Chuck Norris by name half a dozen times, in situations totally unrelated to plot or character development, and had compared him favorably to Vince Lombardi, Superman, and the Pope.

It turns out the Chuck Norris pandering is only a symptom of a deeper trouble: almost 400 positive name-brand product placements!

God help us, it’s like reading a think, bound version of a middle-class mall directory. Almost 400 name brand references! If you read a page every two minutes, you get about as many commercials every half hour as if you’d watched a network sitcom.

Mr. Alcorn’s trying to tell us heaven’s where it’s at, but one is tempted to wonder where his treasure really is, especially when it turns out that the commercials can be broken into the following categories:

● 15 alcohol

● 33 handguns

● 94 junk food

Alcorn’s sense of humor allows him to make self-referential jokes about the product placement at times, which I took as a good sign.

But then I started thinking (WARNING: I’m going to give away a plot twist here), if the climax of the action involves a character’s life being saved because he routinely carried three concealed firearms, then maybe Alcorn isn’t as tongue-in-cheek flippant about his product placements as he’d lead you to believe. Maybe he really believes the world will be better if we all read books that remind us which handgun to buy every fifteen pages, and which trash to munch every four pages. I wonder if he’s aware that he’s selling trash.

And his Christian characters aren’t alive.

It makes me wonder what Randy Alcorn really thinks heaven will be like.

 

(If you don’t believe me about the product placement, read it for yourself below. The following list shows the name brands in order of appearance in Deception. The list doesn’t include the dozens of references to 24, CSI, COPS, Law & Order, and fictional detectives.)

 

Chicago Cubs, Smith & Wesson 340, Advil, Mr. Coffee, Juan Valdez, Starbucks French Roast, Mr. Coffee, Mr. Coffee, Ford Taurus, Big Gulp, Burger King, Acura Integra, Taurus, Glock 19, Black Jack, Ziploc, Wal-Mart, Taco Bell, Olympus, History Channel, Cheetos, Yankees, Lou’s Diner, Tabasco, Burgerville Tillamook cheeseburger, Taurus, Ovaltine, Dinty Moore beef Stew, Spaghetti O’s, Spaghetti O’s, Spaghetti O’s, Estee Lauder, New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Photoshop, Hallmark, Jay Leno, Chuck Norris, Black Jack, Starbucks, Hot Dog on a Stick, 7-Eleven, Bud, MiniMart, Taco Bell, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris, Budweiser, Ruger P-97, 357 Magnum, P-97, Browning, Seahorse, Wally’s Donuts, Wally’s Donuts, Black Jack, Jazzy’s Barbecue, Taco Bell, Breathsavers, Starbucks, Pilot G2 gel pens, Pelikan fountain ink, Budweiser, Sanicare electric toothbrush, Colgate, Black Jack, Docers, Black Jack, Black Jack, Raiders, Black Jack, Wally’s Donuts, Clemmer’s Furniture, Photoshop, White’s Market, Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue, Snicker’s bar, Lou’s Diner, Lou’s Diner, Ralph’s Diner, Wally’s Donuts, Wally’s Donuts, Dell computers, Lay’s potato chips, Cheetos, Pepsi, Cheetos, Lay’s, Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, Glock, Glock, Glock, Dinty Moore beef stew, Jiffy cornbread muffins, Budweiser, 9mm SIG-Sauer P226, Family Circle, Mr. Coffee, Glock, Burger King, Purina Beggin’ Strips, DiGiorno pizza, Barlow Bruins, Emu slippers, Bud, Seattle’s Best, Butterfinger, Strickland’s Sail Shop, Marlow catalog, Strickland’s Sail Ship, Strickland’s Sail Shop, Mr. Coffee, George’s Marine Supply, Marlow, Strickland’s Sail Shop, OSU baseball, Dea’s In and Out, Diovan, Lou’s Diner, Black Jack, Black jack, Beeman’s, Clove, Clove, Clove, Black Jack, Beeman’s, Black Jack, Safeway, Costco, Home Depot, Kleenex, Yankee’s, Braves, Wally’s Donuts, Black Jack, Lou’s Diner, Lou’s Diner, Flying Pie Pizza, Krispy Kreme, Pizza Schmizza, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gap, Lou’s Diner, Mr. Coffee, Chevy Tahoe, Ronald McDonald, Lou’s Diner, Tuurns Millenium Pro 9mm, Lou’s Diner, Do Drop Inn, Blazers, Do Drop Inn, Do Drop Inn, Krispy Kremes, Nike, Baja Fresh, Big Gulp, Egg McMuffin, Baja Fresh, Cheetos, Scrabble, Outback, Krispy Kreme, Krispy Kreme, 7-Eleven, Grayson’s Fine Pens, Krispy Kreme, BIC pens, Powell’s City of Books, Washington Post, Powell’s, World Cup Coffee & Tea, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Amheiser-Busch, Budweiser, Riesling, Earl Gray, Black Jack, Architectural Digest, Olympus, Mace, Rubik’s Cube, Canon, Starbucks, Red Robin, Starbucks, Frappaccino, Frappaccino, Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Starbucks, Starbucks, Sominex, Disney, Disney, Toys “R” Us, Fighting Irish, George Foreman Grill, Hillshire Farm Sausages, Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce, Koch’s horseradish, Rolodex, Paradise Bakery, Schrunk Plaza, BlackBerry, Hot Pockets, Fritos, Wally’s Donuts, Calamity Jane’s burgers, Calamity Jane’s, County fair Burger, A&E, Ritz crackers, Skippy peanut butter, Gentleman’s Quarterly, Skippy, Ritz, SIG-Sauer, Glock, Glock, SIG, SIG, American Heritage dictionary, Hallmark, Mariners, Toyota, WinCo, Holiday Inn, Google, Budweiser, Budweiser, Irish Cream, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, V8, diet Sprite, Coors Lite, Black Jack, Black Jack, Black Jack, Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Adidas, Earl Grey, TD-53 bug detector, TD-53, Outlook, Outlook, MSN, Google, Burgerville USA, Tillamook cheddar cheese, Burgerville, Lou’s Diner, Dea’s, Audi, Porsche, Imitrex, Cok, Swiss Miss Pudding cup, Picasa photo program, Zero bar, Toyota Camry, Camry, Papa Murphy’s, Whitman’s Sampler, Milk Duds, Whoppers, Photoshop, Pillsbury Doughboy, Safeway, Glock, Pillsbury Doughboy, Taco Bell, Marlboros, Powell’s City of Books, World Cup Coffee & Tea, Sumatra-Mandheling coffee, Powell’s, 7-Eleven, Cheez Whiz, Cheez Whiz, A&W, Lou’s Diner, Diet Coke, Black Jack, Wally’s Donuts, Ovaltine, Starbucks, Budweiser, Mr. Coffee, TD-53, TD-53, Lou’s Diner, Black Jack, TD-53, 7-Eleven, Tupperware, Starbucks, 7-Eleven, 7-Eleven, Lou’s Diner, WinCo, Breyers, Baskin Robbins Flyin’ Pie pizza, Glock, TCBY, Baskin Robbins, Lou’s, Cadillac STS, BMW 530i, BMW 530i, Cadillac STS, BMW, Cadillac STS, BMW, BMW, Cadillac, BMW, Lou’s Diner, Mr. Coffee, Black Jack, Starbucks, Starbucks, Winterhawks, Taurus, ProStaff binoculars, McGraw’s Outlaw Barbecue Sauce, Vikings, Old Spaghetti Factory, Old Spaghetti Factory, Mizithra, Mizithra, Coke, Coca-Cola, Coke, 7-Up, Coke, Coke, Coca-Cola, Coke, Coca-Cola, Riesling, Earl Grey, Google, Coke, MapQuest, Advil, Do Drop Inn, Diet Coke, Black Jack, Photoshop, Photoshop, Rockport World Town Classics, Rockports, Rockports, Black Jack, 9mm Beretta, PXD Storm, Beretta, Beretta, Beretta, Glock, Beretta, TD-53, Bluetooth earpiece, Glock, Glock, Glock, Budweiser, Starbucks, Glock, Beretta, Glock, Krispy Kreme, Black Jack, Krispy Kreme, Glock, Seahawks, Krispy Kreme, Black Jack, Krispy Kreme, Krispy Kreme, Old Spaghetti Factory, Mizithra, DiCiannis, Tender Tbonz Sizzlin’ Steak snack, Glock

Randy Alcorn

Randy Alcorn is the type of writer who probably gets told things like, “You write very well for a preacher.”

I have no idea whether he is actually a preacher, but he writes well for one.

Deadline and Dominion are long sermons told via stories in which the characters talk in sermons.

This doesn’t mean they’re bad books. Just be aware of what you’re getting into. It’s an old hobby of socially-active writers (Balzac and Tom Clancy both jump to mind), but if it’s not done very well, it loses readers. Alcorn does it well.

Deadline is about a journalist whose life is falling apart, and who gets caught up in a mystery involving abortion and underground organ transplants. Dominion involves the Deadline hero’s friend, whose life is falling apart, and who gets caught up in a mystery involving corrupt politicians and racial violence.

And if you think these topics would be great place for discussing the virtues of universal healthcare, sex education, standard distribution practices for medical resources, gun control, or financial mismanagement by political conservatives…well, people of your political party probably wouldn’t like these books.

Oh yeah, and both books involve a storyline that takes place in heaven.

I can’t say I’m sorry I read them. They were decent quick reads. But I can say I would have enjoyed them more if the sermons had been reduced by 20% or so, and if the author weren’t prone to careless slips, like having a White character discussing problems facing Native Americans say, without any trace of irony, “I understand their reservations.”

And I prefer characters that can’t be summed up with three or four adjectives like, “big, loveable, black, troubled”.

In line with the fiction you’ll find in evangelical bookstores, Alcorn’s books outline the world in bold markers and put characters in neat boxes. It’s not an ambiguous place to be. At least he allows his characters to do things like have sex outside marriage—before they become Christians, of course, but it’s a step in the direction of having fiction that admits faulty people can show truth.

George MacDonald

There are a lot of ways to read George MacDonald. He was a Dickensian melodramatist, a heretical pastor with an attitude and a heart, a lover of the power of love, a writer of children’s stories and women’s fiction, and one of the greatest mythopoetists who has ever lived. And he’s one of my masters.

It’s well-known that C.S. Lewis referred to MacDonald as his master, and said MacDonald’s influence appeared in every book he wrote. MacDonald even has a cameo as the guide through heaven in The Great Divorce (as literary twists would have it, Lewis is given a similar fate in Randy Alcorn’s Dominion, but with much less fortunate results). In Surprised by Joy, Lewis tells of how his picking up a paperback copy of Phantastes for some train ride distraction resulted in changing him from an agnostic to a theist, and I decided it would be worth checking out.

I was short on cash (freshman year of college), and the used bookstore only had three titles in stock: The Genius of Willie MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, and Flight of the Shadow. Two children’s books, and one with a cover like you’d expect on a supermarket romance. But I gave it a try.

If it hadn’t been for my respect for Lewis, I would have been back at the bookstore the next day asking for my money back. The Genius… was almost unbearably dull and sentimental.

I kept going, though, with The Back of the North Wind shared the sentimentality (Did all Victorian Era children die with porcelain skin and giant eyes and words of wisdom?), but it also showed a mystical aspect and a flare for poetry that I appreciated. It takes guts to weave your own poems into a novel, and it takes brilliance to make it work. (The only modern author I know of who does it well is Tom Wolfe, and he usually plays it for humor.)

The Flight of the Shadow was from the Dickens school of mistaken identities and improbable plot twists, but I kind of like that school. And it touched on psychological and theological issues with an intensity, a gravity, that Dickens usually reserves for social injustice.

When those were finished, Phantastes was still checked out from the school library, but they had Malcolm (unfortunately retitled The Fisherman’s Lady in a modern edition), The Lady’s Confession and The Princess and the Goblin on the shelves. Malcolm and The Lady’s Confession had the stock characters—angelic orphans, noble poor—and stock plot twists—undisclosed secrets that weren’t that bad to begin with, and scientifically implausible last-minute medical rescues—but he had these amazing insights that were making me turn to him from Dickens.

And The Princess and the Goblin… well, here’s where he hit his groove. Skip the overly-precocious dialog, and you have a quick-moving, well-developed fairy tale with the symbolism and mystery and humor that so influenced the Narnia series. It’s sequel, The Princess and Curdie worked pretty well, too, although I think MacDonald traded too much of humor for symbolism.

And finally, Phantastes was back on the shelves.

If Lewis had never written another work, he would still rank as one of my favorite authors for introducing me to Phantastes.

The plot… a young man wakes up to find himself in Faerie, and he wanders, and he has adventures, and he dies. As told by imagery and poetry and short stories and vaguely essential foreshadows… If the book had been written on his deathbed, you’d have reason for suspecting some serious substances were being abused in its composition.

Other than the Bible, there is no book I’ve read more often, and every time I’ve read it, I’ve seen new truths.

Just don’t expect it to make sense.

MacDonald is definitely at his best when bringing the readers with him into the Imagined. The Light Princess and other stories, and The Gray Wolf and other stories, are up and down in their consistency, but are better than any other collections of fairy tales I’ve found. The Light Princess, in particular, should be in every anthology around.

Lilith, though, the story of a demon who repents, brought some problems. MacDonald was forced to leave his church because of his univeralism and denial of an eternal hell. He rejected the Calvinism of his Scottish peers as unsuitable for joy (again ironic since Phantastes, more than any other book, prepared me to understand and accept the Christian hedonism presented in John Piper’s Desiring God). In rejecting Calvinism, he didn’t reject God’s sovereignty, but proposed that God’s love, shown through Christ, would eventually bring all created things to saving faith.

I first became exposed to MacDonald’s ideas in his articulate but unconvincing sermon collection Proving the Unseen. I could think of arguments to the points he presented. What I couldn’t do, though, was answer the same thesis when it was presented as another astounding, puzzling, absorbing, and enthralling myth. I’ve read a lot of authors who argue with MacDonald, and some of them (John Piper and David Clotfelter) do so effectively on a logical level, but I have never read a rebuttal that appealed as strongly through pathos as this story of Adam’s first wife.

Most of MacDonald’s books were dated when I read them, and though they blitzed through the evangelical bookstores in modern-language variants, their time has probably passed. I can’t really imagine a future, though, in which Lilith and Phantastes will lose their relevance.