The First Shall Be Immortal

I completed Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart last week; it’s considered the first modern African novel written by an African. I wasn’t impressed.

As Wikipedia notes:

“The novel concerns the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion throughout the nine villages of the Ibo ethnic group of Umuofia in Nigeria . . . and the influences of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on his traditional Igbo (archaically spelled "Ibo") community during an unspecified time in the late 1800s or early 1900s.”

Though I’d heard the story was blistering toward the (British) Christian missionaries, and their destruction of the native African culture, I didn’t feel it was unrealistically blistering as the local culture (with its killing of twin babies when born, the bloodthirsty rites, etc) certainly wasn’t glorified. It was probably written as it was.

(Achebe’s well known for attacking Joseph Conrad’s quintessential African story Heart of Darkness for only giving the Africans in the story six words to say.)

Novels Fall Apart

It was difficult for me to care for Okonkwo and his surrounding cast, while the action and social interaction weren’t exactly riveting, though the cultural differences and ancient African sayings were fascinating. The early story lumbered along with few highlights (the fate of the adopted son) before it started flowing.

It wasn’t until the near end that I realized the tone was Old Testament-like, distancing me from the tale yet creating a timelessness to the story. While I still believe the characterization is weak and the underlying structure disjointed, I also realized part of my difficulties at the lumbering start was how the story was presented—from an African, not a Western, perspective. I was being immersed in an alien world (an artistic strength no other art form can match) and it wasn’t an easy baptism.

I’m still not sure it’s a great work, but it has occurred to me that I need to reread it now that I realized all this about me and it—and I never feel like I should reread anything. (So maybe that’s the start of a definition of a great work..?)

Whatever my thoughts, the book is still considered the progenitor to all other modern African novels by Africans.

From Russia With Love

No one would rank Alexander Pushkin in the elite tier of history’s greatest writers/novelists, yet most consider “the Russians” (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Turgenev) the finest group of novelists ever. Thus it’s interesting that most of “The Russians” adored Pushkin. (To be fair, he is still considered Russia’s finest poet, though I’m not sure that puts him in the Top 10 Poets of Forever, when you consider Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Virgil, Keats, and the other immortals swarm at the top.)

They revered him because he was the first to break the code and figure out how to write modern fiction that was Russian and not European.

Indeed, in War and Peace, roughly 66 years after Pushkin's death, Tolstoy talks specifically about not wanting to create a European novel, but something different. Thus, this sprawling classic alternates chapters between narrative and essay/analysis, a sometimes enlightening, often bewildering combination; Tolstoy is still struggling to clear the path Pushkin blazed.

Guns Blazing
Dashiel Hammet’s Maltese Falcon is unreadable (just watch the great movie with Bogart and you’re only missing one discussion and dull exposition), but he created the hard-boiled detective novel that Raymond Chandler perfected in a short series of delightful Phillip Marlowe novels. In fact, he only wrote about five of these hard-boiled novels. Still, it’s Hammet and Chandler that are credited with the genre

The First Shall Be First

The first may not be the finest, but (s)he is never forgotten, for the first is the creator of a conduit all others travel upon, even when their talent exceeds the trailblazer’s.

So far, Apostolic authors have satisfied themselves with trolling through the depths of prairie romances and a few didactic adventure stories. I greatly anticipate a Pentecostal poet or an Apostolic novelist who will break the code for the rest of us to build upon.

In a century that will greatly depend upon storytellers to share their (religious) viewpoints for their voice to be recognized, it’s important we have a language to share it in.

It’s Gotta Be The Atheists!

We can’t whine that the mainstream publishing industry is unreceptive, even hostile, to literature that has Christian characters, themes, and/or metaphors. There’s just too much evidence to the contrary. (And no, I’m not talking about Christian book publishers that, with few exceptions, are by Christians to Christians, and that only Christians know exist.)

Major awards and publicity have been given to overtly Christian literature in the last decade. To name just a few:

• Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, a book about an aging Calvinist minister writing to his young son (how’s that for an exciting concept?), won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.
• Kent Haruf’s Plainsong was fiction finalist for the National Book Award in 1999.
• Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River (2001) was a Book of the Month choice and featured in an NPR book club discussion.
• Brett Lott’s Jewel (1991) was an Oprah choice in 1999.
• Still one of the most prestigious forums for short fiction, The Atlantic Monthly’s annual Fiction Issue (on newsstands now) features three (of six) short stories that involve religious faith. Last year, there was one—Tim Gautreaux’s “The Safe.”

True, it’s not an overabundance of riches, though once you start including highly-regarded authors who include Christians or characters struggling with God in their works, the list noticeably inflates.

Shooting The Canon

This doesn’t include the Western Canon, where two of the all-time best were Christians:

• Many consider Dante’s Divine Comedy to be a greater poetic accomplishment than anything Shakespeare created.
• Leo Tolstoy created two fascinating prose classics—War and Peace, Anna Karenina—that are too often known for their length instead of their brilliance. He was also a master of short stories (“Master and Man”) and novellas (The Death of Ivan Illych).

Then there’s these Christian slackers:

• Flannery O’Conner’s short stories (“Parker’s Back,” “Revelation,” “A Good Man is Hard to Find”) were powerful enough to power her into the canon.
• Graham Greene (The End of the Affair, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter) is said to have been short-listed for the Nobel Prize for literature.
• C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia are undisputed children’s favorites.
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky is still proclaimed the most psychologically astute novelist who has ever written, penning Crime and Punishment, Notes from the Underground, and The Brothers Karamazov.

Defining their Christianity is not my intent. Showcasing their unflinching portrayal of Christianity, its themes and characters, is.
The Truth We Ignore?
Publishing isn’t nearly as biased against Christian works as it is against inferior works, (though it sometimes seems too eager to publish the inferior). Perhaps the problem isn’t hostile atheists, but Apostolics unwilling to bleed on the page for their calling. Perhaps we’d rather kind of give it a go from the safety of our churches rather than dive into the requirements publishing today demands.

Like Christian musical artists unwilling to move to Nashville to risk their lucky break, we may find ourselves not attending writing conferences (where agents and publishers examine manuscripts), or taking writing courses with experienced professionals (that costs money!), or going the extra mile for our calling, then wonder why we can’t get connected to major publishers. Everything takes work.

Most of the titles mentioned are the current and classic standards of literary excellence. If we’re to continue this tradition we must read them, study them, love them, and then seek to build upon them..

I think we can do it. I know we will do it. Wanna be first?