Book Review: The Shack

So I resisted for quite a long time reading this book. All I heard was "God" blah blah blah "religion" blah blah blah. Now, while I have no problem with books abut God and religion, when they're THIS popular, they're usually the type of books that only those really hardcore fanatics like. But when someone came in to return the book because, and I quote, "God is not a large, black woman", I knew this might be something I should check out. I sniffed around a bit, read an excerpt online, didn't think I'd like it, let someone co-workers talk me into it, and sat down to read it.
It was soooooo slow. Like, I just stopped reading for awhile and read a whole other book. (You can check out my review for that book, Dave Cullen's "Columbine" on an earlier post.) Then I finally picked it back and up and forced myself to continue reading.
I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. While I am not religious, I do enjoy studying theology. And this book is very theological and not very religious. For example, Mack, the main character, marvels at the fact that none of the three --- Papa (God), Jesus, and Sarayu (the Holy Spirirt) --- are white. That made me happy. And, of course, God is indeed a large, black woman. Jesus does not believe in the institution of religion, another brownie point int my eyes, nor does he want to turn people into Christians. As he points out to Mack, he himself is not Christian.
There are many points throughout the book that made me quite happy to see. But there was one little gem that I just couldn't stop beaming about.
In his journey towards healing, Mack encounters a character known as Sophia, a woman who is described as the embodiment of God's wisdom. Now, I don't know how many of you have studied other facets of religion, but Sophia as wisdom is not a new concept.
The Gnostics, an ancient, religious sect that are supposedly responsible for a vast number of the books in the Apocrapha, held a slight different belief than Christians about the order of creation. In their tradition, God was created by another being: Sophie (or Sophia), who was wisdom. And seeing the character of Sophia play the role of wisdom in this book just made me delieriously happy.
Unfortunatly, the book was rather a long bore, with only a few good things sprinkled throughout. For the most part, it was the writing that killed me. I know, I know. I've had a bit more experience in what is supposed to be good writing than most people. So I tend to judge books a bit harder. But honestly! When was the last time this guy had a grammer class? And who on earth edited this thing?? No one seemed to have checked it for readablity. I guess they were too excited about having a religious piece of fiction to make sure it was well-written.
Another big turn-off was the way he had Papa, Jesus and Sarayu explain things. Some of it was great and wonderful and made perfect sense. But it seemed as though a vast majority of it was simply a rehash of another question that had already been asked pages before, just with another --- although equally as confusing --- way to answer. A good portion of the time I had to re-read entire pages, and still felt just like Mack, whose favorite saying was "Huh?"
In simple terms, the book had a great idea. It was probably one of the most original books I have read in a long time. And the parts of it that I did understand were great. While it doesn't want to make me run out and join the local church, it did help me have a better Scriptural understanding of God. But the execution was very, very poor. Will I read it again? Probably not. Will I recommend it? Only to people who have an open religious mind. But hey. Any book that portrays God as a large, black woman is, without a doubt, something worth looking into, if only for the novelty of it.