이곳에서 듣고 있는 영미 문학 수업, 중간 리포트이다.
리포트라고 하기에는 조약하기 짝이 없지만,
블로그에 들어올 때마다 내 손발이 오그라들게 하기 위해 일단 블로그에 올린다.
The Shack Book Review
By Benjamin Kang
A brief summary of the story
When a whole country was hit by hailstorm and every affair was stopped, Mackenzie, a main character, found a note in his mailbox.
Mackenzie,
It’s been a while. I’ve missed you.
I’ll be at the shack next weekend if you want to get together.
It made him very upset. It’s because papa was a name which his wife, Nan, used to call God and the shack which is referred here is where his lovely young daughter Missy was kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer years ago. At that time, while Mack was attempting to rescue his other children from the torrent, Missy disappeared. Mack solicited God for a help and prayed. However, God maintained a silence and looked on when the serial killer committed a terrible crime. Thus the shack is the place of The Great Sadness to Mack. After a painful time, Mack decided to visit the shack without telling his wife.
Mack met Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu there. At first, Mack couldn’t believe all that happened and couldn’t forgive God.
“If you couldn’t take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me?”
Nevertheless, Mack shared meals with them, took care of a garden with them, learned the relationship and love with God, realized that the world can be improved not by rules and authorities, but by relationship. Mack appreciated that the right to decide what is good and evil on his own term is meaningless, and he had judged God as he had done the others. Finally, Mack forgave his father who abused him, and the murderer who killed his daughter. Finally, a gash in his heart had been healed and The Great Sadness had disappeared.
Discussion of matters of particular – Meeting God in person?
Meeting God must always be an exciting incident. Thus it’s not rare to find in the other literatures that a protagonist meets God in person, and then he generally gets healed and recover relationship with God and forgive a mean antagonist. For example, In Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, you can find a similar plot to the Shack. Therefore, a basic idea of this novel is that neither of creative nor originative. Like Moses in the old Testament, Meeting God in person has been a historically long expectation of many Christians. Moreover, by this literary technique, we can break a wrong, prejudicial image of God, such as cruel, ruthless creator who burned two cities in a day, even tried to destroy the earth with flooding.
However, a common problem of these kinds of literatures is that the author is not a real almighty God. No matter how hard we try, we can’t understand God perfectly. We can only guess God’s thought For instance, “Why God looks on the death of the children in the Africa?” The author tries to suggest some answers by talking through God’s mouth in the novel, but the answers should be incomplete.
A brief evaluation.
First of all, The symbolic meaning of the shack is utilized effectively. The shack was the place of pain where Missy’s blood stains still left. In fact, all we have the painful place in the deepest part of the heart where we buried our secret, gash, and ignominious memories. The shack in the novel is materialization of that place. That was very amazing that Mack is reconciled with God in the shack. It was very surprising that God is not only the creator who we have to praise and say thanks to in the joyful place, but he is also with us in the shack as well. It seems to be less affecting if the novel happened in the other place. In my opinion, the non-Christians can read this novel without any trouble like Christians can. They could recover the broken image of God. In particular, if I give this book as a present to my friends who got hurt and left a church, they can get recovered by reading this book while sympathizing with Mack.
I love the last part of the book. The author didn’t overemphasize the change of Mack. Instead, the novel is concluded after Mack resolved his daughter Kate’s quilt. It’s because Kate thought that Missy was dead because of her. However, if I were the author, I would delete the part that the murderer got arrested finally. That’s not necessary.
When I read a book, the most important value is whether a current book makes me to read continually without a distraction. In this view, the book doesn’t get a good point. It had a quick running speed until Missy was murdered, but after Mack arrived at the shack and met God, a flow of story was stuck. After this point, the story went on not based on events, rather based on conversations and descriptions which are quite boring.
Moreover, God used to avoid answering directly and alludes to Mack’s questions like many politicians generally do when they encounter very sensitive inquiries. Therefore, their answers are so difficult and hard to understand. In the novel, Mack didn’t understand many times what God said. I experienced same feelings with him.
Furthermore, I could find a typical mistake that we can see in these kinds of novels. I’d like to call this “The-evil-character-has-one-night-dream-and-his-philosophy-is- converted-at-a-time.” plot. In this novel, Mack spent three days with God recovering the Great Sadness. In particular, it was very affecting that Mack forgave the murderer, but It seems to be so rapid. Actually, in the Shack, although the author tried to express his change by the continuous step by step conversations and sharing with God, Mack was persuaded so quickly without enough reasoning.
Overall, this novel has integrity, and it is well-written. The author, William Pole Young, experienced the sexual harassment by the natives where William’s parents devoted themselves to a mission. This personal experience really seems to affect this novel is more persuasive.