Just over a week ago I finished reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What. Earlier tonight Amanda and I finished reading The Half Blood Prince. I don’t know with which ending I am most disappointed.
One peaks with an analysis of Romeo and Juliet as a deeply profound retelling of Christian reconciliation. (For those of you who haven’t read either Miller’s or Rowling’s books, I won’t say which one. Oh, and climb out from under your rock.) I loved the book and was a bit let down by this “let me prove I was an English major” stretch that, while I could accept the premise, seemed so unlike the rest of the text. Having forced my share of comparisons – Ngugi/Wordsworth, Mau Mau Rebellion/Industrial Revolution, The Tick/The Nixon Presidency – I proudly admit to the plank in my eye but offer my disappointment nonetheless.
The other book was an equally engrossing book that I also loved reading. My disappointment came with the “now you’re forced to by the next book whether you want to or not” ending. What kind of Back to the Future II kind of closure is that? And now I have to wait another six months to, maybe, get some resolution.
Oh, and if you dig Miller’s lifeboat metaphor (which I really did) you might want to try reading Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. Better yet, skip the whole lifeboat thing and take an elevator with Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist.
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2 comments:
I read "Searching for God Knows What," this summer, too, and tend to agree on the ending. With the whole Romeo & Juliet thing I thought maybe he had prepared those thoughts for a talk or lecture or some paper, and thought they were definitely good enough to tack onto a book someday. I do really like this book, though. It's a great reminder of God's love to me . . . to know that He has, throughout the Bible and creation, appealed to me in ways I could understand and feel (art, romance, etc.) so I can know Him. It's just awkward at the end . . .the whole book he's talking about people and himself and how crazy, broken, and misguided we all can be at times. Then alluding to Shakespeare to get to the resolution of it all - our need for Christ. Yeah a little awkward.
And check out "Lifeboat" by The Elms on the latest edition of The Bored-Again Christian podcast. I'm sure it's an equally conceited metaphor. Or whatever.
Hey brother.
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