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i finished reading Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest and am still forumlating an opinion about it, but for now all positive thoughts.
basic premise: runaway teenager Ann Holmes encounters the Virgin Mary in the forest of a mouldering logging community. the vision sparks the predictable sort of chain reaction of faith and exploitation leading to the big philosophical question of the meaning and nature of miracles.
it's an interesting book, well-written, with a bit of a disappointing ending ~ disappointing in that it's somewhat anti-climactic as far as action is concerned, but satisfying in other ways (i.e. there's nothing lacking insofar as closure ~ all the ends get tied up very well, i think).
i think there are things about this book that might offend Catholics (but needlessly in my opinion). the character of Father Collins is rather intensely human, which i find endearing ~ those places where he is weak in some ways. i find more fault with his lack of protocol with regard to wearing his clerical collar than i do with his occasional lapse into matters of the flesh, frankly. it's interesting, really. i think he's well-drawn: he's a good person and trying to be a good priest, but all-too aware of his shortcomings (which aren't horrendous, mind you ~ refreshingly, he doesn't grapple horribly with his faith in that tired old cliché of "lost priest"). i like that he knows he's a coward and yet struggles tangibly with his cowardice in a way that makes him heroic, i think.
and the faith is presented fairly, i think ~ this embodied in the character of Tom Cross: that people can be believers and even devout and yet completely screw up all the time dawn to dusk, all the while struggling in their own way. and that people can be exploitive and greedy and stupid about their faith as well ~ Guterson does this without ever once bashing the faith itself (a difficult and admirable task!). he honestly examines the problems of an institutionalized Church without malice or even harsh cynicism. even Father Butler, the tiring old bore who comes to investigate the veracity of the Marian sightings isn't a monster: just a man with a job trying to do what he knows how to do (the description of him as a sort of endlessly paternal soccer coach with a whistle around his neck is apropos: you hate him, but you don't because you can't, it's just who he is).
there's a few things to object to if you want to nitpick the theology: some strange transgressions into the nature of evil as a tangible force might perk some eyebrows. Father Collins tells Ann that there's no such thing as the devil and i thought that was odd, though he later capitulated in a weird way that doesn't seem reconciled by the end (have to think more on this). but this is so minor, really. for the most part this book avoids the trap of what i often see in religious stories: the gross sort of relativism that negates the place of the Church. Father Collins, sinner though he may be, is no relativist. he stands firm for the Church. period. when Ann asks to be baptized, he doesn't just cave to her request, he tells her the steps she must take to receive it. in the hands of a more careless (less reverent perhaps) writer, he would have done it against all Church protocol because rules are just stupid and get in the way of faith (right).
the more i think about the ending, the more satisfying it is, everyone gets pretty much what they deserve and the last malicious stab of the Carolyn character (who is the most obnoxious and exploitive of all) is blithely set aside with a knowing smile because that's really how it is: it doesn't matter if a bone relic is really a saint or just a leftover piece of a chicken from ages past. and even though the miracles you anticipate happening from the beginning of the book don't happen, others do: more subtle miracles and even more grandiose miracles and then it doesn't matter whether Ann Holmes saw the Virgin Mary in the Forest or not ~ because regardless of what she did see, Mother Mary was there.
: D
i give it two thumbs up.
for those of you with sensitive sensibilities, the book is very honest in its depiction of human foibles, so does contain a lot of cussing, blaspheming, and some fairly frank sexual depictions (but nothing gratuitous, i don't think ~ could cut some of it, but by and large it seems necessary to the plot).
the Christian Science Monitor review says:
basic premise: runaway teenager Ann Holmes encounters the Virgin Mary in the forest of a mouldering logging community. the vision sparks the predictable sort of chain reaction of faith and exploitation leading to the big philosophical question of the meaning and nature of miracles.
it's an interesting book, well-written, with a bit of a disappointing ending ~ disappointing in that it's somewhat anti-climactic as far as action is concerned, but satisfying in other ways (i.e. there's nothing lacking insofar as closure ~ all the ends get tied up very well, i think).
i think there are things about this book that might offend Catholics (but needlessly in my opinion). the character of Father Collins is rather intensely human, which i find endearing ~ those places where he is weak in some ways. i find more fault with his lack of protocol with regard to wearing his clerical collar than i do with his occasional lapse into matters of the flesh, frankly. it's interesting, really. i think he's well-drawn: he's a good person and trying to be a good priest, but all-too aware of his shortcomings (which aren't horrendous, mind you ~ refreshingly, he doesn't grapple horribly with his faith in that tired old cliché of "lost priest"). i like that he knows he's a coward and yet struggles tangibly with his cowardice in a way that makes him heroic, i think.
and the faith is presented fairly, i think ~ this embodied in the character of Tom Cross: that people can be believers and even devout and yet completely screw up all the time dawn to dusk, all the while struggling in their own way. and that people can be exploitive and greedy and stupid about their faith as well ~ Guterson does this without ever once bashing the faith itself (a difficult and admirable task!). he honestly examines the problems of an institutionalized Church without malice or even harsh cynicism. even Father Butler, the tiring old bore who comes to investigate the veracity of the Marian sightings isn't a monster: just a man with a job trying to do what he knows how to do (the description of him as a sort of endlessly paternal soccer coach with a whistle around his neck is apropos: you hate him, but you don't because you can't, it's just who he is).
there's a few things to object to if you want to nitpick the theology: some strange transgressions into the nature of evil as a tangible force might perk some eyebrows. Father Collins tells Ann that there's no such thing as the devil and i thought that was odd, though he later capitulated in a weird way that doesn't seem reconciled by the end (have to think more on this). but this is so minor, really. for the most part this book avoids the trap of what i often see in religious stories: the gross sort of relativism that negates the place of the Church. Father Collins, sinner though he may be, is no relativist. he stands firm for the Church. period. when Ann asks to be baptized, he doesn't just cave to her request, he tells her the steps she must take to receive it. in the hands of a more careless (less reverent perhaps) writer, he would have done it against all Church protocol because rules are just stupid and get in the way of faith (right).
the more i think about the ending, the more satisfying it is, everyone gets pretty much what they deserve and the last malicious stab of the Carolyn character (who is the most obnoxious and exploitive of all) is blithely set aside with a knowing smile because that's really how it is: it doesn't matter if a bone relic is really a saint or just a leftover piece of a chicken from ages past. and even though the miracles you anticipate happening from the beginning of the book don't happen, others do: more subtle miracles and even more grandiose miracles and then it doesn't matter whether Ann Holmes saw the Virgin Mary in the Forest or not ~ because regardless of what she did see, Mother Mary was there.
: D
i give it two thumbs up.
for those of you with sensitive sensibilities, the book is very honest in its depiction of human foibles, so does contain a lot of cussing, blaspheming, and some fairly frank sexual depictions (but nothing gratuitous, i don't think ~ could cut some of it, but by and large it seems necessary to the plot).
the Christian Science Monitor review says:
Agnostics will resonate to Guterson's ambivalence, and atheists may feel pricked by his insight into humanity's thirst for transcendence, but the Christian reading groups that embraced the spirituality of, say, Leif Enger's Peace Like a River (2001) will be reluctant to take on a story that contains such disturbing scenes of violence and sexual abuse.i disagree that the book is ambivalent at all, though i suppose you can read into it all sorts of cynicism if you choose to. i think it is actually very clear and i think the final chapters make it clear where Guterson stands on the matter. i also think the violence and sexual abuse portrayed in the book is what makes such a compelling and powerful story ~ the more savage human nature, the greater need for redemption.
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