*deep breath*
So. Recently, I have been hit with a wave of nostalgia. I have been listening to old music from my upbringing, stocking my fridge with childhood favorites (I got really, really excited when I realized I could afford to buy dill pickle spears), revisiting classic movies, and rereading books that left an impression on me as a young child or in my teenage years.
Just because something is nostalgic, however, doesn't mean it's necessarily good or good for you. Nostalgic fills you with a sweet, longing feeling but indulging in whatever is bringing back that feeling may not be so dulcet or fulfilling.
In my case, for example, indulging in both Kraft macaroni and cheese and Christian literature leaves me feeling sick, bloated, frustrated, and guilty. Turns out reminiscing may be hazardous to your health.
This past week, I reread a book I first encountered when I was about 14 years old. This book is Tahn, by L.A Kelly. When I read the book a decade ago, I devoured it. Oh, I had my issues with it even then, but I was captivated by the plot, the mature subject matter, and the titular character of Tahn. I overlooked all my problems with the novel to continue on to the second and third books in the trilogy. Truthfully, I was very inspired by the book and a lot of my ten-year old writing project, Aakroveil, was born from ideas and concepts I got from this piece of literature. As I've begun working on Aakroveil in earnest again, I wondered if Tahn would hold up for me. Thus, I downloaded it onto my phone via the Kindle app and settled in.
Oh boy. The issues are...many. Let's examine, shall we?
First, a summary: Our story begins with a night of violence. We follow Tahn, a young man who is in the process of kidnapping the Lady Netta Trilett. He is under the orders of his master, Samis, a leader of mercenaries who has built his kingdom based on fear and forcing opium on his soldiers, "the Dark Angels". Samis recruits his soldiers at a young age, often picking up orphans and street urchins.
Lady Netta, is of course, terrified about being kidnapped but she is even more surprised when this man encourages her to scream and alert the rest of her family to the danger that is coming. Samis' soldiers end up burning her home to the ground and murdering most of her extended family. This attack is a political ploy ordered by Baron Trent who is vying for the currently unoccupied throne. Netta is also astonished to recognize that this man, Tahn, is the same man who killed her husband, Karll, three years before.
Tahn, however, is done working for Samis. He is tormented by the violence he has been coerced to commit and has decided to once and all be free of him. By kidnapping Netta, he actually saves her life. He takes her to a cave far away from Samis' men and asks her to remain there until he is able to help her further. He tells her he must first go back to Samis to free the young children in Samis' "care".
Through trickery, Tahn convinces Samis he is still working for him and manages to save all the children. He takes them back to the cave where Netta is and asks for her help in taking care of them. Netta, a good Christian woman, is very confused by this man who, for all accounts, should be a monster, and yet is seemingly doing a good and right thing. As she is unsure of whether or not her family is still alive or if it is even safe for her to reveal her location, she decides to stay. Netta then begins teaching the children their alphabet along with reading Scripture to them and sharing the gospel with them.
Eventually, Tahn begins to hear her lessons and he comes to faith. Before he can share the good news with Netta and the children, he is ensnared in a trap by Samis to capture him, as Samis has by this time realized Tahn has betrayed him. Baron Trent convinces Samis to allow Tahn to travel to the great city of Onath where he can be publicly hanged. The Baron comes up with the idea of blaming Tahn for the deaths of the Triletts.
Netta and the children hear of this and decide to save Tahn, which they do. They travel to Onath. Netta discovers her father and cousin survived the attack. They then reveal themselves at Tahn's hanging and expose the Baron for the evil man he is. Yay.
Netta's father, Lord Bennamin Trilett (Okay, I'm sorry. But can we admit how awful a name this is? Bennamin? Just name him Benjamin! PLEASE), honors Tahn as the man who saved his daughter and welcomes him and the children to come live with him and the remainder of his family in their non-charred country house as they all try to rebuild their lives. Tahn gladly accepts for the children, but is reluctant to accept himself. He expressed to Bennamin (hehe) that he has...feelings...for Netta which may complicate things. Bennamin is surprisingly unconcerned about this and invites him anyway.
In the meantime, Samis' army has fallen apart and Samis now wants to kill Tahn more than anything in the world. He attempts to, but dies before he gets the chance. More on that later.
Then Netta and Tahn admit their love for one another and the book ends hopefully about everyone's future.
*another deep breath*
Okay. I'm going to first delve into thematic issues I have with this with this novel, and then the literary ones. Many of these are issues that I find to be reoccurring in a lot of Christian Fiction I have read. Ready? Let's go.
#1: The Eroticism of Sexual Assault
This, to me, is one of the most heinous crimes of Christian literature. In this book, one of Tahn's "cohorts" attempts to rape Netta before Tahn safely conducts her to the cave. Tahn doesn't allow it, stating that business must be taken care of before pleasure. This scene is so cringe-y. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the author including this in the novel. It makes sense in the circumstances. My problem is how the situation is presented. She describes the actions taken by the man before he is stopped, yet never deals with the fall out. There simply seems no further point to this scene but to establish that a) the man who attempts to rape Netta is evil (shocker, we knew that already and spoiler, Tahn kills him about an hour later, so...I don't care) and b) Tahn may actually be protecting Netta after all, which again, is something that the author is already unveiling to us.
There also other hints of sexual assault in the novel. One of the children Tahn rescues is girl masquerading as a boy. This girl hints to Netta that she was sexually assaulted by her father (this child is 9), but never explicitly states it. Netta's response is basically, "Oh, you poor dear. I'm so glad you're safe now". Um...excuse me, what? There is much more to be explored there, in terms of healing and relationship for these two characters. Why bother putting this in if it goes nowhere?
My point here is, in Christian literature, one way to sneak in some "exciting sexual content" is to have a character almost be assaulted. This also falls into the "damsel in distress" trope. Women being almost assaulted but then rescued by a man in the nick of time...what an exciting and thrilling way to exemplify the courage and heroism of our male characters! To describe the act, but then never deal with Netta's emotions-her fear, her disgust, her shame, her trauma after almost being raped-is cheap and degrading. If you're not actually going to deal with the horror of sexual assault, don't put it in your novel. Otherwise, your reasons simply seem voyeuristic and erotic.
#2: Hard Christianity and missed opportunities
If you've ever had the pleasure of watching any of Say Goodnight Kevin on YouTube, you will have heard him use the term "Hard Christianity" for any piece of Christian media that is edgy pretty much just for the sake of proving Christians can do edgy things. This novel deals with a lot of difficult issues, "gang" violence, childhood abuse, murder, sexual assault, suicide, torture, eternal damnation, drug addiction, and political corruption.
But it doesn't deal with any of these issues well. My problem with this is pretty much the same as my problem with point #1. The novel includes all of these things, but doesn't take the time to explore the impact on the characters. Inclusion of hard things doesn't mean working through them. It seems like Kelly wanted to write a novel that exemplifies God's grace in the most broken of situations. Good. That's a wonderful goal. This doesn't fully happen, though, as there is no exploration of the motives behind human wickedness. Kelly opts out of delving into the psychological, philosophical, and spiritual implications of evil for her characters, even though evil deeds are what drive her plot.
Also, we get underlying political unrest in this novel but we don't get any information about...anything. What is this world? Where is it? What happened that the throne has been unoccupied for seven years? Is there anyone else trying to claim the throne besides the Baron? What's the economy like? The culture? Fashion? How does Christianity exist if this doesn't take place in our world (and hey, maybe it does but it doesn't explicitly say and all the town names are made up so who knows). To be fair, I believe this is something she delves into in book three of the trilogy, but we, the readers, should not have to wait that long for this world-building information.
#3: Jesus Magically Cures Everything (including opium addiction)
I. Cannot. Stand. This. Not one, not two, but THREE characters in this novel come to Christ and suffer NO ILL EFFECTS OF SUDDENLY QUITTING OPIUM. The characters laugh and rejoice at this and seem to accept this as a natural way in which God works. NO. This is not natural-at all. Certainly, God could choose to help His child to work through withdrawal without symptoms and I am sure He has, but this is not how it works for most people. I find this to be incredibly insulting to people who have struggled with addiction of any kind, especially those people who have cried out to God for help in their addictions and He has denied them. I believe the story would have been much more effective and powerful to show Tahn coming to Christ and then struggling through the pain of withdrawal. God's grace doesn't take away all the hard things about our lives. It helps us through them. This would have been a much more relateble development and would be more interesting to read.
Additionally, after Tahn comes to Christ, he instantly lets go of his violent and angry ways. He struggles a little bit to forgive Samis, but he lets go of the long-harbored desire to kill him. In fact, he prays that he will never have to shed blood again, a prayer that God answers when Samis conveniently dies of what appears to be a stroke before he and Tahn have to face off. Again, this is the easy way out. It would have been much more interesting and real to show Tahn struggling with the contrast of his old self- bitter, angry, murderous, and his new self- redeemed, hopeful, peaceful. It would have been interesting to see Tahn forced to kill Samis out of self-defense and work through what that meant in the light of his newfound faith.
The reality of Christianity is that Jesus promised our lives would get harder in many ways because of our choice to follow Him. In Christian novels, this somehow gets turned backwards where characters believe and suddenly everything is fine. Baffling. Absolutely baffling.
#4: Characters pray/praise God all the time
In nearly every Christian novel I've read, the Christian characters' inner monologue is just one long conversation with God. Man, I wish this were true for me, but it's not. In fact, I don't know many (any) Christians who would say that every time they have a thought, they are directing that thought in prayer to God. I know the Bible says to pray without ceasing but who actually accomplishes this?
Characters also punctuate nearly ever sentence with "thanks be to God", "thank you, Jesus",or "by the grace of God". Maybe the author intended this use of language to help the medieval feel of the text. Regardless, it's unnatural and pulled me out of the story. It was ludicrous how Tahn also adopted this language immediately after becoming a Christian. Bam! Instant change!
#5 Forgiveness and toxic relationships
Remember how Tahn killed Netta's husband, kidnapped her, and assisted in a plot that brought about the death of many of her family members? Yeah, well, this doesn't stop Netta from falling in love with him.
Granted, all of the evil things Tahn did were under duress and he actually does a lot of really good things. He has a lot of good qualities as well. But this man is a deeply damaged soul and the wounds between him and Netta should be deep and complex.
The ease with which Netta forgives Tahn for all the wrong he's committed is not realistic. It's very uncomfortable as the reader to see her brush aside everything he's done and give into romantic feelings for the man who murdered her husband. Many Christians might say this is a beautiful picture of forgiveness but it's not. Forgiveness is much messier and much harder. Again, I don't in theory have an issue with the two of them falling in love, but it happened too quickly and we skipped about a hundred steps of healing that needed to happen first.
The novel again misses an opportunity here to explore what forgiveness actually looks like. What is the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation? How do we offer grace and love to the people who have hurt us first? How do we let go of bitterness and anger?
Nah, let's skip all that and just have them kiss.
#6: No human being speaks this way
I wish there were a nice way to say this, but there really isn't. The writing is not good. While the descriptions in this book aren't terrible, the dialogue is unbelievably bad. As I mentioned above, Kelly may have been trying to get a medieval flair in the way her characters spoke, but what ended up happening is her characters speak in highly formal language that belies any true feeling or thought. Her characters' conversations don't have any natural flow or structure. Characters don't have distinct speaking patterns. The content of the conversations often feels superfluous.
Towards the end of the book, we are treated to characters rehashing the grace of God on nearly every page. If you can fill your novel with musings on the beautiful grace of God, please do. But don't present the gospel in the same way over and over and over again. We get it. Your characters get it. Move on.
#7: Constantly shifting perspectives
I love getting a story from multiple points of view, but the perspective shifts in this book were overwhelming. One minute it would be from Tahn's perspective, then Netta's, then back to Tahn's, then maybe one of the children. It was jarring. I'm not saying you can't shift perspective within a short time frame, but the transition needs to make sense and be purposeful. Most times, I didn't understand why we were suddenly getting this interaction from the other person's viewpoint when the conversation would have been fine to carry on from the original viewpoint.
#8 Tahn and Samis are the only interesting characters
There are a decent amount of characters in this novel, but most of them are so flat and similar to one another that I found I really only cared when I was reading about Tahn or Samis. Netta is so painfully boring and one-dimensional. The children don't have distinctive personalities. The bad guys are bad. The good guys are good. Tahn is somewhat conflicted in the middle until he accepts Christ and transforms into a saint.
There you have it.
Maybe you're reading this (although, seriously, did you wade through all of that? If so, you deserve a medal) and thinking, "Marian, if you hated it so much, why do you care? Why put all this effort and energy into this?"
Because it could have been so good. Kelly has a story here which, in its rawest form, is a thrilling adventure of a tortured man on his quest to physical and spiritual freedom. The plot is engaging. Tahn, as a character, draws you in. I care because I see this novel's potential and it pains me that instead of achieving something great, it slumps into the dreariness of cliches, tropes, and watered-down Christianity.
I am an artist and a Christian. I admit, I am not the greatest writer, actor, or singer. I struggle too to create excellent art. But if we're going to leave any lasting impact on this world through our creative endeavors we must struggle, not settle for half-convincing characters, conversions, and conversations.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to relive other aspects of my childhood that make me a little less queasy.
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