The Grants' Bulgaria Blog.

Hi all – time for another random review.

The Shack has been a huge best-seller, promoted enthusiastically by church groups. The fictional book centres on a middle-aged guy called Mack who’s had some tough things go on in his life. In brief, the book describes a weekend that Mack spends at a remote shack with none other than God. The book uses the dialogue between Mack and God to address the question of why a loving God would allow awful things to happen to people.

I suppose like many others I was hesitant to read the book. “Best-seller” isn’t something I count as a glowing endorsement… but when I got over my pretentiousness and started reading The Shack I was immediately impressed with the quality of the writing. [I did the same with The Da Vinci Code but gave up after only 50 pages. Abysmal writing!] Young’s narrative in the first 80-odd pages features great characterisation, a delicate exposition of Mack’s emotional state, good use of “hooks” to keep the tension building, and a skilfully told action sequence.

Once we meet God, the writing deteriorates massively. I’m talking “Pulitzer” to “airport novel” in the space of 20 pages! Of course, the genre of the novel completely changes at this point too, so it’s somewhat forgivable but I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. Some of the exchanges between Mack and God, where Young is trying to explain some very complex theology, read like an infomercial – you know the kind where the presenter (Mack) asks blatantly leading questions of the guest (God) in order to elicit the precise message they’ve been scripted to deliver… I’m sorry, but it’s that bad.

On the other hand, this doesn’t necessarily take away from the impact of the exchanges between Mack and God. As I said, the novel changes genre at that point. The first 80 pages are an engaging novel about a likeable but hurting man called Mack… the rest of the book is a novelised text-book featuring a crash course in the question of why God allows suffering. But, as Dave Rietveld’s review of the book suggests, this confusion over the genre is unhelpful because it forces you to change the way you interpret what you’re reading.

Specifically, there are two reasons why I struggle with the way the theology is presented in the second movement of The Shack. Firstly, the foreword and afterword set the book up as a true story (though it is declared as a novel – ie. a fictional work). This may improve the reader’s experience of inhabiting the book, but it’s confusing. Secondly, since the author speaks for God, in a manner of speaking, it becomes easy to imagine that you’re really reading the words of God, rather than an attempt by the author to answer some HUGE questions.

I felt like I had journeyed with God after reading the book – and I had! God (the real one!) has been and is using this book to challenge me in my own faith. But… The Shack is not The Bible part 2. My advice (to myself – and I recommend it to you!) is that a book like this needs to be considered in the same sense as any other book about God. It’s one man’s (inspired) account of how God relates to people. In reality, one of the book’s main messages is to engage with God; to deepen your relationship with him and follow his guiding. Clinging to The Shack as some sort of talisman would, as such, be a gross (and ironic) misinterpretation of that great advice.

The other problem I found with the book was that some of Young’s theology is just too cerebral! For me, the fact that so much of what God had to say to Mack came in the form of wordy, convoluted platitudes really took away from their potential impact. I don’t think the Bible has very much of that kind of writing (except maybe Romans ) so it seems disappointing that Young – clearly a very intellectually capable thinker – resorts to an attempt to explain too much of “how things work”.

I’ll admit that this criticism is based on my personality; Young is no doubt a very structured thinker, whereas I’m a rather phlegmatic (read: lazy) one. You might love having things spelled out a bit more (albeit in very intellectual terms) but I think I’m more comfortable with the vagaries.

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By this point you’re probably quite confused about what I actually thought of the book. That’s appropriate because I was confused by it! I loved some of the writing, and cringed at other parts; I empathised with some of Mack’s experiences, but couldn’t understand some of his responses; I was moved by the way it showed God’s love for his people, but just plain confused by some of what Young tried to espouse.

I think my conclusion was that The Shack was an enjoyable and challenging novel. I suspect that many people might read the book and scoff at it for some of the same reasons I struggled with it – “bah, I can’t stand the way he portrays God…”; “pfft, it didn’t make a word of sense!”; or “meh, I couldn’t really get into it”. That’s understandable but also a pity. Personally, I found that by suspending my doubts about the writing and asking God (you know, the real one) to use the book to deepen my relationship with him, I got a lot out of the book.

Tags: Books, Reviews

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