The many storylines of T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke’s Acts of Faith trilogy conclude in The Damascus Way.
Our protagonist is a new character, a youngThe many storylines of T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke’s Acts of Faith trilogy conclude in The Damascus Way.
Our protagonist is a new character, a young woman of mixed Greek, Syrian and Jewish heritage named Julia. She has grown up in a comfortable house with a gentle mother and a grandmotherly maidservant. There are only two ongoing problems in Julia’s world: her father, the wealthy trader Jamal, is doting but never around, and the people in the nearest village are cold to Julia when she goes to market. Her mother never evens leaves the house.
Eventually, our heroine learns that her mom is only Jamal’s mistress, and that he lives with his official wife and legitimate children in Damascus when he’s not accompanying his caravans across the desert. Helena, Julia’s mother, is well-aware of the situation and resigned to it—Jamal took her as a concubine years ago in exchange for helping her family out of debt—but the girl is enraged at her father for this ill use of them both.
Her whole world upended, Julia becomes friendly with the sect known as the People of the Way, whom her father reviles. (The title of the novel cleverly refers both to the famous road to Damascus, and the young Church there).
Here the thread of Julia’s fate tangles with that of Jacob, whom we know from the first two books. He’s about twenty now, and one of Jamal’s caravan guards. (Jamal doesn’t know about Jacob’s faith and would probably have never hired him had he known). Our friends Linux (whose name should be spelled Linus), Abigail, Alban and Martha (although not Leah, for some reason) are back, along with Dorcas, Abigail’s sweet little daughter by the late Stephen—warning: I will be ranting about this later. They have all left Jerusalem for good, both to spread the Gospel and to evade the Pharisees, especially one Saul of Tarsus, who wants all of them dead.
No content advisory needed. There is no real violence, no sexual content, and nothing else that would render the book inappropriate for a young teen reader.
The fictional aspects of the book find Bunn and Oke at the top of their game. They deftly juggle a huge cast of characters with a variety of dilemmas. Julia is the best protagonist in the series—easier to understand (and therefore root for) than Leah was at first, with an obvious motive. Unlike Abigail, who had no agency in her own book and barely any even now, Julia is proactive, even stubborn, and steers her own story admirably.
Julia’s banter with the combustible Jacob stands out from the other two pairings in the series nicely, more intense than the gentle courtship of Alban and Leah, but less so than the agonizing slow burn between (view spoiler)[Linux and Abigail (which is finally, finally reciprocal) (hide spoiler)]
Meanwhile we see the two women in Jamal’s life struggling to tolerate each other, while the merchant himself starts to feel the stirrings of a conscience for the first time.
So all the fictional characters get satisfying development, but the Biblical ones still fall flat (except Martha, who continues to be solid). We see Phillip meet with the Ethiopian eunuch here, which would have been a much more meaningful scene if we were given any characterizing information about Phillip up until now.
And poor St. Paul is so underserved. Despite being the main antagonist, he is given scarcely any page time. We hear of him and his cruel deeds, but we don’t see him in person until the climax of the book, when he falls from his horse.
Hiding the villain can work in something like The Lord of the Rings, where we barely see Sauron but plenty of his minions show up in person. This approach does not work for Paul because he’s not nearly that powerful, or even that evil. He’s much closer to a Zuko or a Kylo Ren—vengefully pursuing the heroes while wondering in his heart if they're right —and both of those characters are strong because we see them a lot. We get to know them.
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They operate not out of bloodlust or greed but a deranged sense of honor, just like Paul, who was convinced that the Christians were truly evil and would possibly cause the extinction of the Jewish people. Paul is a watershed figure in both Christian and world history, and can’t be pushed to the side like this without greatly weakening the book. Yet the authors seem almost… bored of him. This puzzles me greatly.
One major flaw in the novel is carried over from The Hidden Flame: the very silly idea that St. Stephen himself was married, and fathered a child, after his conversion. Dorcas is a sweet child and I like having her in the story—Linux is so cute with her, in particular—but there is no reason on Earth for her parentage. Nothing in the story indicates that she needs to be Stephen’s daughter. She doesn’t even need to be Abigail’s biological daughter—in fact, making Dorcas adopted would have been a great way to show that Abby’s commitment to helping widows and orphans is genuine.
But speaking of Stephen reminds me. Why is he the only character in this saga who died?
I was willing to overlook this in the first volume, since it took place over about a fortnight and none of the authority figures knew what they were up against. It was fine in book two, since Stephen’s death was the warning that things had gotten real. But none of our fictional leads have been martyred, as of the story’s ending, and I find that mighty strange. Everyone who joined the faith knew that they could be killed for it. Of all the original Apostles, only John avoided a violent end, and even he finished his days exiled and imprisoned.
This was handled so well in The Robe, which takes place over the same timeframe as this trilogy and ends with two of the three leads being led to the archery fields of Caligula’s palace, there to meet the fate of St. Sebastian. Marcellus and Diana could have lived to old age as aristocrats, but they chose to die for their beliefs rather than live on in a sick culture and deny the truth. They sacrificed everything.
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These characters, meanwhile…well, Alban and Linux sacrificed the army…and that’s about it.
This is a wholesome series with nice prose, but it doesn’t grasp the time period or culture it claims to portray. It’s not bad. But the vintage Biblical novels of Lloyd C. Douglas and Taylor Caldwell are a lot better. ...more
The adventures of the very first Christians continue in the second book of T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke's Acts of Faith trilogy.
Alban and Leah, the The adventures of the very first Christians continue in the second book of T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke's Acts of Faith trilogy.
Alban and Leah, the titular centurion and wife from the previous installment, have fled Jerusalem and the wrath of both Pilate and Herod. But the action remains in the holy city, witnessed by Leah's best friend Abigail, Alban's army buddy Linux, and Ezra, a Pharisee whose generalized contempt for the nascent Church is about to get really personal.
Abigail is a cheery lass with a servant's heart, and considered a great beauty despite a slight limp (which would have discouraged most suitors in those days). All she wants to do is spread the Gospel and take care of her younger brother, Jacob, now a strapping and sulky teenager whose only interest in life is joining the Roman legionnaires. But Abigail, without being particularly aware of either man's existence, attracts both the lust of the bitter Ezra, and the earnest passion of hot-blooded Linux. Once she becomes aware of the intentions of the two rivals, she quickly dismisses the possibility of marrying the old Pharisee, but the handsome Roman with the piercing gaze spooks her on a level she does not yet understand.
Things are going to get better, but they're going to get very silly first.
In a good classic romance - in the tradition of L.M. Montgomery, etc. - the young lady who does not wish to marry would accordingly be left alone, and perhaps reevaluate when the better of the two suitors steps forward at the crisis point and proves himself a hero. Meanwhile we could get character development and other goodies.
But no, someone has to step in because Abigail cannot be allowed to make her own decisions. And by "someone" I mean Simon Peter, The Big Fisherman himself. You'd think he'd have better things to do with his time, being the head of the Church appointed by Christ Himself and all that, and you would be right.
Especially since the early Christians weren't big on arranging marriages. They believed that Jesus was liable to return and establish the Kingdom in Earth literally any day now, which would entail a certain amount of temporary chaos. "When you see The disastrous abomination set up where it ought not to be..." He had told them before His execution, "those in Judaea must escape to the mountains; if a man is on the housetop, he must not...go into the house to collect any of his belongings; if a man is in the fields, he must not turn back to fetch his cloak. Alas for those with child, or with babies at the breast, when those days come!" (Mark 13:14-18). Not a good environment to start a family in; in fact Jesus seems to be strongly encouraging His listeners not to do so.
In fact, perusing the stories of the ancient martyrs, it appears that many young women joined the Christians partly to escape arranged marriages.
So if Peter were to step in at all, it would be to tell both Ezra and Linux to kindly back off. But nope, he decides for Abigail that she should marry neither of them, but instead an outspoken young believer named Stephen. As if on cue, Abigail abandons her plan to be a consecrated virgin and starts swooning over Stephen because he's so godly and non-problematic. Unlike Linux, who makes her stomach feel weird and might have cooties.
The real St. Stephen was 100% consumed with zeal for evangelization and probably had even less interest in marriage than his fellow Way followers. He could have been married before his conversion, but after? Yeah, not likely. Assuming that this far-fetched thing would happen, he and his wife would probably wind up living as siblings, marriage unconsummated. In fact, that's what I thought happened, until (view spoiler)[Abigail reveals at the end that she's pregnant. What happened to "Alas for those with child" ? (hide spoiler)]
While all this anachronistic nonsense goes down in the Christian neighborhood, Linux's army assignments send him across the province. He's in a fine temper, having found out that Abigail has been married off to someone else, and he's also grappling with the drastic changes in his old friend Alban. We get some good character development from him, as he confronts his anger against the world and eventually decides to follow Jesus.
Then Linux returns to Jerusalem and asks Peter to catechize him. Who does Peter assign this task to but Stephen, because that's not rubbing salt in Linux's sounds at all. Seriously, why would you do this?!? You want to make converts, not drive them away! And Linux, being a much better human being than any of the other characters give him credit for, actually comes to admire Stephen, despite this universe's Stephen being kind of smarmy.
The other Scriptural saints don't fare much better. Peter is largely bereft of personality, and as previously discussed, most of his actions are far out of character and unlikely in historical context. Mary Magdalene has vanished from the story. Mary, Mother of Jesus, and John the Beloved aren't even mentioned. Saul of Tarsus is a generic menace who only appears in a few scenes despite being responsible for the most important event in the story.
The one exception is Martha of Bethany, here portrayed as a Marilla Cuthbert-like character who keeps the congregation alive, being the only person who remembers that they still need to eat.The authors seem genuinely fond of her, and it was nice to see this unglamorous Biblical figure get some attention for once.
Unfortunately, the most pivotal events in the book - the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, the gladiator combat witnessed by Jacob, and the martyrdom of Stephen - are left entirely on-screen (off-page?). The scenes don't need to be gory, although the graphic portrayal of Stephen's death in Taylor Caldwell's Great Lion of God left an indelible mark on my imagination. But there's really no good reason to exclude them from the novel.
This companion and pseudo-prequel to Douglas’ best-seller The Robe chronicles the ministry of Jesus from His calling of the first inauspicious ApoThis companion and pseudo-prequel to Douglas’ best-seller The Robe chronicles the ministry of Jesus from His calling of the first inauspicious Apostles to the Church that rose and grew so rapidly in the first few years following His death, resurrection, and withdrawal from the world.
We see these events unfold through the eyes of Simon, known to history as St. Peter, the Big Fisherman himself, who was such a majestic and comforting presence in The Robe. He shares point-of-view duties with Fara/Esther, the apparently fictional daughter of Herod Antipas and Phasaelis (called Arnon in the novel) an Arabian princess whom he was forced to marry for political reasons and divorced in favor of his older, cougarish sister-in-law Herodias.
Of the two protagonists, Fara has the more adventurous life. At age twelve, she swore to avenge her mother’s honor, and when her mother dies young of a mysterious illness four years later, the girl takes off for Judaea, disguised as a boy for her safety, aiming to assassinate her faithless father. Near the start of her quest, she runs into John the Baptist, finding him sympathetic and inspiring but frightened by his vision of the future.
She is followed after several months by her boyfriend, Voldi, who becomes friends with the Roman Mencius (who also appears in The Robe) and both become embroiled in the events of Passion Week, but neither to the same extent as Peter or Fara.
Peter, born Simon, is just a fisherman of Capernaum with little education and no use for religion. He hears of an itinerant preacher with apparently magical healing powers from his young friend John, son of Zebedee. Annoyed that someone has taken John’s attention away from his job fishing, Peter storms off to one of Jesus’ sermons, and witnesses the Man of Galilee give eyesight to a toddler who was clearly blind before. His whole worldview shaken, Simon spends the next several weeks irritable and depressed. Meanwhile, Fara, under the alias Esther, seeks refuge in Simon’s mother-in-law’s house, and gets a day job as a maid at Antipas’ palace, where she hopes to eventually carry out her oath.
Then Jesus calls Simon to follow him, and the miserable man only feels right in the presence of the Carpenter, so he obeys Him. His brother Andrew and his friends James and John soon join them. As Jesus travels across the country, trailing miracles in His wake, His following swells. After Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law with Fara as witness, He convinces her to follow Him, and she does. We witness the dance of Salome and the execution of John the Baptist (all handled with the utmost discretion); the Feeding of the Five Thousand (which diverges a bit from Scripture, but nothing really alarming); the raising of Jairus’ daughter; the Last Supper; the sham trial, torture, and execution of Jesus; the Resurrection; the meeting on the road to Emmaus; the Ascension; the Pentecost; and finally the events immediately leading up to Peter’s execution in Rome.
There are fleeting references throughout to Marcellus, Senator Gallio, Demetrius, and other characters from The Robe, which was fun. Mencius is an important supporting character in both.
The Big Fisherman is not quite as good as its predecessor—it feels rushed in parts, and Voldi’s arc is a lot more melodramatic than anything in The Robe. This book is also a bit more didactic in the religious department, which might have been inevitable since Jesus is actually a character this time, rather than a permeating invisible presence. But The Robe was a sky-high bar to clear, and I can forgive Douglas if he can’t quite vault it this time.
The character development for Simon/Peter is obviously quite good; he seems ready to step off the page by the end. Fara/Esther is not quite as developed, but she has spirit and gives up everything for her beliefs and the safety of her loved ones, making her a truly heroic character.
Douglas’ Jesus is very gentle, gracious, and wise. The book makes a point of contrasting Him with His spitfire cousin John, a ploy which unfortunately makes His outburst at the money-changers in the Temple seem far out-of-character, but overall is quite effective. Douglas also makes a point of showing Jesus doing His day job—He was a carpenter, remember?—and doing it exceptionally well.
I wish as a Catholic that Douglas could have made the Virgin Mary part of the story. It is strange that Esther was a female disciple but never met either her or Magdalene. Oh well. Douglas was a Protestant, so his avoidance of the subject is understandable.
This book seemed to play loosely with history at times (for instance, Herod Antipas died in exile but was probably not assassinated as shown here) but a story set this far back in time, with so few complete records of anything, has a lot more wiggle-room in this regard than something from the Renaissance onwards.
The violence (except for the Passions of the Baptist and Jesus, neither of which is gorily portrayed) is nonexistent, the sex (just some insinuations regarding Herodias, Herod, and Salome) is also nonexistent, and there’s only the mildest of language and drunkenness. It would make a fine addition to the library at your church or upper-grade parochial school.
It would also make a fine addition to your home library.
Four stars for the intriguing subject matter and flashes of insight. But the book tends to favor emotional speculation over historical fact or legend Four stars for the intriguing subject matter and flashes of insight. But the book tends to favor emotional speculation over historical fact or legend or even Scripture. Longer review coming....more
A stunningly beautiful book filled with SHORT (as in 1 - 2 pages) stories about saints, historical/legendary figures, and mythological personae interaA stunningly beautiful book filled with SHORT (as in 1 - 2 pages) stories about saints, historical/legendary figures, and mythological personae interacting with animals. The content is fine for the smallest of children, but the beauty of the stories and the equally stunning illustrations make it wonderful reading for people of any age. I still find myself thinking of these little tales. They make me want to be a gentler person. ...more
Daria, an educated young widow in a time and place where “respectable” women were not even necessarily literate, has survived by tutoring a rich youngDaria, an educated young widow in a time and place where “respectable” women were not even necessarily literate, has survived by tutoring a rich young girl in Rhodes. Unfortunately, the girl’s father has decided that his daughter is getting too smart, and Daria is on the run.
The night she flees Rhodes, her path crosses with that of the merchant, Lucas, who offers her passage to Ephesus, where he will employ her as his tutor. Lucas is a widower, moody and unpleasant. But handsome, and noble in his mercurial way. Daria cannot help being drawn to him, even as she senses something is very wrong…not only with Lucas, but with the whole city of Ephesus. Cults are clashing in the streets. Young women are turning up brutally murdered. Greeks, Romans and Jews all suspect each other of the worst crimes.
Content Advisory Violence: There appears to be a serial killer loose in Ephesus who targets young women. His victims are usually found physically broken, with little blood left in their veins. In a flashback, Daria’s husband cuts her with a large knife and tries to kill her; he does successfully kill himself. A woman gets her throat cut. A main character is sentenced to death but saved by irrefutable proof of innocence. Riots break out in the Temple of Artemis/Diana and the city streets. Higley doesn’t wallow in gore, but nor does she skirt around it.
Sex: Hektor appears to have a creepy relationship with every woman who has the misfortune to meet him. His shop and basement are full of drugged-out girls who all seem to be infatuated with him, and are described in a somewhat sensual way. Lucas and Daria kiss a few times. Lucas’ frenemy, Demetrius (a character mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles), makes a few predatory passes at Daria, but she’s having none of that.
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Hektor distributes hallucinogens to his followers. Lucas tries one of the drugs and…
Nightmare Fuel: …he has a vision and it’s something out of Pink Floyd’s The Wall (which I have never seen more than five minutes of. Five minutes was enough). IT’S TERRIFYING. DO NOT READ THAT PART LATE AT NIGHT. There are also a few demoniacs roaming the streets, raving and trying to throttle anyone who comes near them. We see the moment when a demon takes possession of one character, and he starts acting like Gollum. Gollum, not Sméagol.
Conclusions Combining Biblical fiction with gothic fiction is an ambitious and improbable goal, but Tracy L. Higley pulls it off with surprising verve in So Shines the Night.
Higley’s prose is fluid and confident, and she paints a vibrant, often lurid, picture of ancient Ephesus. Daria and Lucas are flawed characters trying desperately to hold on to what little light can reach them.
The supporting characters are interesting too, both the creepy ones (Demetrius, Lucas’ servants) and the wholesome ones (St. Paul and his congregation).
Of particular note is the youth, Timothy—yes, that Timothy, Paul’s acolyte. Here Timothy is portrayed as a kind, brave and handsome lad, who is drawn to the sorrow in Daria’s eyes and quickly becomes infatuated with her, before he and some of the other Way-followers are forced to flee the city.
I was annoyed and a little disgusted when the fictional Abigail married St. Stephen in Davis Bunn and Janette Oke’s The Hidden Flame. But Higley seems to understand that an evangelist of this era was unlikely to marry, given the constant peril they lived in, and anyway that would be an awkward fusing of a real person with a fictional one. Timothy is sweet, and his innocent love warms Daria’s gloomy heart, but his destiny called him elsewhere and hers (view spoiler)[was with Lucas (hide spoiler)]. Timothy is the St. John Rivers to Daria’s Jane Eyre. Guess who Rochester is.
So Shines the Night is a superlatively exciting, scary yet uplifting book. Unlike many Christian books and films, this novel is willing to dive deep into darkness so that the Light may shine the brighter. It’s well-researched historical fiction, with a mood and tropes borrowed from gothic fiction, plotted like a mystery and paced like a thriller. There is definitely a Christian message of redemption in it, but it is so engrossing, twisty, and fun, that I think non-Christian readers who give it a chance will thoroughly enjoy it. Warmly recommended for older teens and adults....more
The youngest daughter of a Roman man and a Romanized Jewish woman, Leah is now orphaned and penniless. She is hired as a maidservant by Claudia ProculThe youngest daughter of a Roman man and a Romanized Jewish woman, Leah is now orphaned and penniless. She is hired as a maidservant by Claudia Procula, a friend of her deceased mother. When Claudia's husband, Pontius Pilate, is sent by the Emperor to be governor of Judaea, Leah has no choice but to sail with the family she serves.
Leah doesn't feel fully at home among Romans, but she has nothing in common with her other people, the Jews, whom she has had little exposure to before now. She doesn't understand their religious fervor, or their ever-simmering hatred and disgust for the Romans. This Passover has been even more fractious than usual, culminating in the execution of an itinerant preacher with a restless following. All Leah knows about the dead man, Yeshua of Nazareth, is that He haunts Claudia's nightmares.
But as turbulent days rush by and bizarre rumors sweep Jerusalem, Claudia pays Leah to infiltrate Yeshua's followers and learn as much about Him as she can.
Leah must get these Galilean hillbillies to trust her while evading another detective, the centurion Alban, hired by her employer's husband. Pilate has betrothed Leah to Alban, without seeking the girl's permission, on the condition that the soldier discover the missing corpse of Yeshua, proving that He died and saving Pilate's administration a lot of embarrassment. Alban is young, brave, handsome, and kind, so Leah just knows he's hiding something.
No content advisory needed. This is one of the cleanest adult books I've ever read. It is fine for young teens.
Bunn and Oke write as a surehanded unit. The pacing is fluid and the fictional characters are mostly a likeable crew, especially Alban, his servant boy Jacob, and his army buddy Linux, both of whom will have major roles in the two later installments. Leah is something of both a misanthrope and misandrist, but once we learn how she got that way she's easy to sympathize with. The Biblical characters are sketched with much less detail, except for Claudia. As my friend Katie noted in her review, this Claudia comes across as manipulative, and afraid of Jesus rather than fascinated by Him. This is quite different from how she comes across during her brief appearance in Scripture, or how she's been portrayed in works such as The Passion of the Christ.
The romance that blooms between our two sleuths is sweet and slow and filled with empathy.
I took off two stars for the two major problems I have with the series. The first one continues throughout, and I'll discuss it when I review The Damascus Way.
The other is a fleeting line, almost too petty to mention, that occurs halfway through the book...
The scene: Leah has been befriended by Mary Magdalene (who is given very little development in this book and disappears by the second book). Our heroine is distressed one day and runs to the Disciples' neighborhood, and is greeted by a gaggle of Christian girls her age and younger. They ask her whom she seems and she, panting after running across the city, can just get out the word "Mary."
"We have several Marys," says one of the girls. "There's Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany*, Mary the Mother of our Lord -" Then one of her friends cuts in, "Don't be silly. Why would she want to talk to His mother?!"
Yeah, who'd want to talk to her? I mean, Luke did, the third Gospel writer and Dear and Glorious Physician. himself, but he's like, I don't know, a saint or something.
In all seriousness though. It makes no sense that these young women, who were friends of Jesus while He lived, would disrespect His mother. She was the kindest and most supportive of women, and probably many there loved her as much as their own moms.This whole episode had no reason to exist, was probably out of character, and as a Catholic I found it to be in poor taste.
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Anyway, that part bugged me but it was not enough to ruin the book. Coming soon, The Hidden Flame.
*There's a theory that Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, and Mary Magdalene are the same person. ...more
Lloyd C. Douglas didn’t take up writing till he was fifty. That astounds me. This is as fine a novel as any produced by someone who had been scribblinLloyd C. Douglas didn’t take up writing till he was fifty. That astounds me. This is as fine a novel as any produced by someone who had been scribbling since childhood.
I hope most of us are familiar with the plot of The Robe, since it’s the basis for one of the most sweeping, epic films of Old Hollywood. Marcellus Gallio is a high-born, somewhat indolent Roman Tribune who gets shipped to the fractious province of Judaea, and is conscripted into helping execute a young Jewish man accused of treason and blasphemy. The soldiers gamble for the crucified man’s few possessions and Marcellus gets his robe—a remarkable garment, woven without seams. But when he touches it, a mysterious madness and a sickness comes upon him. The dead man was named Jesus of Nazareth.
Marcellus is joined on this venture by his loyal slave, a Greek named Demetrius, who is deeply touched by the Nazarene and desperate to learn all he can about him.
Meanwhile, Marcellus’ family and friends back in Rome struggle to stay in the favor of mad Emperor Tiberius and Gaius, Tiberius’ depraved heir apparent. (view spoiler)[(Unlike the film version, Caligula doesn’t show up until almost the end. The character in the movie is a combination of him and his uncle Gaius, which is a bit confusing since Caligula’s real name was also Gaius). (hide spoiler)]
Douglas’ writing is rich, especially his descriptions. People, buildings and landscapes all feel like you can reach through the pages and touch them. When he spoke of long treks through the desert and chaparral parts of Judea, my throat felt as parched as those of the men. When he checked on Marcellus’ fiancée, Diana, on Capri with the Emperor, I could feel the sea breeze and smell the salt. He also captures the moods of the two worlds his hero inhabits: the poverty and secrecy of the Jews and the nascent Christians forms a vivid contrast with the Romans, who are either noble but nihilistic, or debauched beyond description, or mad.
Most commendable is his ability to evoke the lead-poisoned, perverted world of the Roman aristocracy without overwhelming the reader with the vile decadence of it all. He gives us just enough detail to get by, only implying the more sordid rumors and practices. This does not in any way detract from the quality of the work. (Contrast the odious Cleopatra’s Moon, where every other word once the heroine reaches Rome is about pederasty. And that was marketed as YA). Nor does he wallow in gratuitous gore—the Crucifixion and the Stoning of St. Stephen have plenty of it built in, without an unnecessary plot detour to the gladiator fights.
Douglas also casts a good balance portraying good and evil. Like in real life, it is spread evenly among the Jews and Romans. A few unflattering stereotypes of both peoples are employed, while their virtues are lauded. Come down too heavily on one side and the work would seem either directly anti-Semitic or obliquely anti-Catholic (tainting the Romans beyond redemption can’t help but imply things about the Roman Church). Douglas deftly avoids both pitfalls. If anything, he’s a bit too kind to the Greeks.
I only have a few small complaints about this book, none of which merited knocking off a star. Like most books of its length, it does drag in the middle and perhaps a few sentences could have been sacrificed to make it flow better. It’s also annoying that the female characters (except Miriam) do not seem to understand the stakes of the conflict to the degree that the men do, but that, alas, must be expected of a book from this time, especially one written by a man.
As a Catholic, the Protestant undercurrent in the book sometimes annoyed me. The story of the weaver-woman who made Jesus’ Robe was touching, to be sure, but isn’t it just far more likely that His Mother made it? Justus even offers to introduce Marcellus to Mary at one point, but Marcellus says no. His reasoning is sound—she might remember his face from the execution and flee from the sight of him. But I wish that Douglas had gone there. Our Lady would have been the first to reach out to Marcellus.
(view spoiler)[Finally, and this is a complaint about the plot rather than the quality—I really shipped Demetrius with Lucia. I know he was a slave and she his owner’s sister, and such a romance would have been clandestine and difficult, but what’s a love-interest arc without a bit of star-crossing? (hide spoiler)]
The 1953 movie based on the book—starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature as Marcellus, Diana, and Demetrius—is smashingly good, but diverges from the book so often that I almost wish someone would remake this as a big-budget miniseries, with younger actors to match the ages of the characters, and catch all the intricacies of its cast and its plot. Or maybe split the book into two or three theatrical movies. If they managed to eke three movies out of The Hobbit, this has a lot more material already there and might actually work as a one-book duology or trilogy.
The Robe will enthrall any reader who gives it a chance. A Christian reader will find both their faith and their imagination invigorated by it, while a secular reader might gain a new perspective on the faith, in a sweeping historical novel with lively characters and deep, thorough world-building. People of any creed should be able to enjoy that. It’s appropriate for teens and adults. Highly recommended....more
Great Lion of God was in the same haul as The Robe and Dear and Glorious Physician—in the small but cherished book collection of my grandmother, who dGreat Lion of God was in the same haul as The Robe and Dear and Glorious Physician—in the small but cherished book collection of my grandmother, who died the year after I was born. Grandma might not have read many books, but quality is more important than quantity, and these three novels are some of the finest I’ve ever read.
Great Lion of God chronicles the life of Saul/Paul of Tarsus, that tempestuous man so vital to the spread of Christianity around the Roman world, and therefore a seminal figure in world history. Born to a somber Pharisee father and a materialistic Sadducee mother, Saul is fearsome even as a child. His mother is so shallow that she fails to bond with her little boy because she thinks him too ugly to be her offspring. Perhaps to irk her on a subliminal level that he does not yet grasp, Saul embraces the devoutness of his paternal family instead, but carries it to an extreme of religiosity that his father, mild-mannered Hillel, finds frightening.
This extremeness of Saul’s becomes a fixed part of his character after his crush on Dacyl, the neighbors’ Greek slave girl, goes sour. She asks him to have sex when they barely know each other, and being a horny boi he’s eager to oblige her. But immediately afterwards he has a panic attack, becoming disgusted and horrified by both his own raging hormones and the girl he found so desirable just a moment ago. From this point forward Saul nurses a deep misogyny, and a loathing for even the most innocuous expressions of affection between men and women. He even mistrusts his own little sister.
Shortly thereafter a plague sweeps through Tarsus, striking down Saul (who eventually recovers) and his mother, Deborah (who does not) among hundreds of others. The boy becomes even harder and angrier, and feels guilty for not bonding with his mother even though she was the one to reject him in early childhood.
In this dangerous frame of mind, Saul journeys to Jerusalem with his father to prepare for his sister’s wedding. Stomping about the city and hating everything he sees, he comes across what he first assumes are a brother and a sister, but turn out to be son and a mother who was very young indeed when She bore Him. These two are peasants from the lowly region of Galilee, yet somehow They have the poise of royalty and a magnetism that goes beyond even a crown. Saul believes the two to be sorcerers and flees from Them, reviling Them.
Saul hates nothing more than the decadent and oppressive Romans, and gleefully follows the exploits of the Zealots who carry out petty terror attacks against Roman soldiers here in Judaea. But he learns quickly that any Zealot victories are short-lived, and their ends unhappy…
In one of the most haunting scenes I’ve ever read, Saul witnesses a mass crucifixion on the walls of Jerusalem. The condemned are mere boys in their late teens and early twenties, just like Saul—and just like the Romans driving nails into their hands and feet. The brave rebels are coming to an inglorious end, for crucifixion is a death reserved for the most contemptible criminals. They strain to breathe, their pain too much for mortals to bear…
…and yet another young man emerges from the crowd, with the clothing of a redneck and the bearing of a king, and in a quiet but resonating and powerful voice He recites the Shema:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
The dying youths repeat this phrase after Him, and He walks down the line, reciting Psalms and they echo the sacred words. By the time He has walked from one end of the line to the other, the boys have died, mercifully and peacefully, their faces and bodies eased as if they merely fell asleep. And the young man in the rough clothing—whom it should surprise nobody is one Yeshua of Nazareth—pulls His cloak up over His head and slinks away from the crowd, hunched over as if He has absorbed the pain from the executed youths and taken it into His own Body.
From this day forward Saul’s life begins to change, and he will resist that change with every step but will be ultimately powerless against it.
There are plenty of authors still living whom I deeply admire, but I have yet to stumble upon any who write with the majesty of Taylor Caldwell. Her words bring the places she describes—in this case, the many cities of the ancient eastern Mediterranean coast—to such vibrant life that a movie version would almost be redundant. No physical detail of a person, animal, object or place escapes her notice, nor does the most fleeting thought, or movement of a person’s soul.
Her saturation of detail can make some parts of the book uncomfortable to read. CAVEAT EMPTOR: this is Christian fiction, but hardly the feel-good, G-rated stuff that usually gets sold under that name these days.
The mass crucifixion scene is horribly graphic—the boys, already bleeding profusely from their hands and feet, also have hundreds of small cuts on their backs from the splinters of their rough wooden crosses, which they have to rub against in order to breathe in this position, and some from pain and exhaustion soil themselves.
This also applies for the stoning of St. Stephen, a beautiful youth who by the end of his martyrdom barely appears human, bleeding so profusely from his head that his hair color and facial features can no longer be recognized.
Then there’s the sex scene with Saul and Dacyl, which is not explicit but rather graphic all the same, and Caldwell’s terminology rapidly veers from sensual to lurid and corrupt, so the reader experiences the same upheaval over the incident that Saul does. This is all brilliantly done, but renders the book highly inappropriate for Sunday school. Squeamish readers are duly advised.
But just as this book explores the pits of human experience, it shows us the highs, too—especially when the Divine intersects with the mundane. The visions of Saul are as searingly described as if Caldwell herself experienced them. The scenes with Jesus are infused with an eerie majesty. The many tempests of Saul’s inner life will draw you in and wring you out.
Like Dear and Glorious Physician, this book is an immersive and haunting experience that demands and deserves to be savored. Warmly recommended for adults and mature teens of any faith or none....more
This was one of my late grandmother’s books, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for not throwing it out or selling it when we moved Grandpa outThis was one of my late grandmother’s books, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for not throwing it out or selling it when we moved Grandpa out of that house. What a find!
Dear and Glorious Physician chronicles the life of St. Luke the Physician, starting when he is a ten-year-old child, a Greek slave in the Roman province of Syria. Despite his ostensibly lowly rank, Lucanus (as he is then called) grows up in a happy, stable environment with both of his biological parents. His master is a kind if austere man who allows the lad to be friends with his own sickly daughter, Rubria. That winter a great, bright star appears in the heavens overhead, which fascinates Lucanus, who was always somewhat otherworldly even as a child but becomes steadily more ethereal from that point forward.
Lucanus is in for a rough adolescence. He falls in puppy love with Rubria, but she succumbs to her sickness, grieving him deeply. He decides to train as a physician, and becomes locally renowned as a healer, but is unable to save Rubria’s mother from dying in childbirth (although he did save the infant, which was no small feat). His father, whom he never liked much, drowns not long after. Lucanus begins to feel that life is arbitrary and God is cruel. This hatred for the way things are is all that drives him.
He goes to Alexandria to further his medical training. Meanwhile his master, Diodorus, remarries—to Lucanus’ mother, Iris.
While in Egypt Lucanus meets another girl, a young Jewish aristocrat named Sara (whose name should be spelled with an H, by the way). The attraction between them—emotional, physical, and spiritual—is instant and powerful, but Lucanus is too angry with the world to allow himself to truly love Sara, or accept her belief in a loving God who watches over all. His mother and step-family have moved to Rome, and he joins them there.
Rome is both the crown jewel and the cesspit of the Western world at the moment. Nowhere else would you find more art, more education, more commerce—and nowhere else would you find such apathy, such madness, such depravity and such decay.
Lucanus is an established doctor by now, and the step-son of a loyal Roman soldier. With a solid reputation for himself and a good family background, he is sought as the personal physician to Emperor Tiberius. The young man is also a great athlete and very handsome—with the fair hair, blue eyes, and height so coveted by the Greco-Romans—and the wicked empress, Julia, wants to make him her next conquest. She gets him drunk at a party and almost has her way with him, but he evades her and flees the imperial city. Her favorites, having displeased her, tend to wind up dead.
Back in the Near East, Lucanus makes a travelling companion, a man from deep in Africa named Ramus who has come to seek the Messiah, and has sworn an oath of silence until he finds Him. For years these two friends wander the Mediterranean coast, Lucanus healing everyone who seeks him, his Nubian friend ever looking out for the One born beneath that Star all those years ago.
In Greece the two men suffer violence and Ramus is blinded, but when Lucanus weeps over the man his eyes are miraculously restored. Not long after, Ramus strikes off alone to seek the Messiah. He has heard rumors of a man named Yeshua in Judaea.
With all his Roman enemies dead, Lucanus returns to the Eternal City, where he meets again with his darling Sara, who is dying of tuberculosis (if memory serves). She wants to marry him, so her last years may be brightened by the man she loves and possibly a child. But Lucanus cannot make this jump, although he assures her that he loves her. He sails East again, and they exchange letters until her death. His step-brother has taken ill.
Lucanus finds that his step-brother got sick after participating in the crucifixion of one Jesus of Nazareth, a young Jew executed for supposedly fomenting rebellion. He heals his brother, but both men are convinced that the illness was supernatural in origin and journey across the small country in search of more information about Jesus. The more they hear, the more assured they become of the man’s divinity, and soon both are welcomed among His followers.
The book ends with Lucanus, alone this time, interviewing the Virgin Mary about her Son, in the first of many sessions that will eventually be written down as the Gospel of Luke.
Caldwell’s gift for description is beyond compare. As much as I wish for an intelligent film or television adaptation of this magnificent tome, it would almost be redundant. Such is her way of setting a scene that you can already see, hear, smell, and touch it. Not the smallest flower in the garden, not the most distant birdsong, not the briefest gleam of sunset against a sea wave escapes her. Her research—reportedly including thousands of books—is clear, and her reputed mystical experiences would also explain a lot.
The characters emerge as real, too: Luke, Sara, Diodorus, Iris, Keptah, and Ramus escapes me especially. Even those who seem a bit too pretty and perfect at first—such as our hero, whose golden hair, sapphire eyes, and perfect features never go unremarked upon—have vivid personalities and intricate internal monologues. Luke’s arc is long and agonizing, and one wishes at first for a happier ending, but the more time I’ve had to process the story, I think it’s ending is perfect.
There are too many brilliant scenes to list them all. Some of the best were the sickening slave market scene sequence in Antioch, Julia’s orgy in Rome—where Caldwell so well describes Lucanus’ drunken stupor that my own vision started to blur, and the last quiet tableaux, where Luke is both awed by Mary and reminded of his own mother.
Content Advisory
Please note: just because this is Christian fiction doesn’t mean it’s squeaky clean.
Violence: lots of off-page, unseen, murders and rapes. Those Romans were sick.
Gore: There are a handful of graphic medical scenes, including one where a woman dies in childbirth. Very hard to read.
Sex: A teenaged Lucanus is molested by slave traders, who remark on his beauty and tell him that some pederast or cougar back in Rome would pay a great deal for him. He seeks refuge in a temple and escapes this fate. Later on, a gay soldier makes a mild pass at him and gets rebuffed.
Julia shows up to her party in a hypersexed parody of a Minoan priestess’ garb, complete with exposed nipples. She and her ladies lean suggestively on Lucanus and every other man they can find, and they spread a rumor about a rival lady experimenting with bisexuality. The slaves at this party are forced to serve the guests nude, and later others are made to don satyr and nymph outfits and perform a foul mythological burlesque, portraying a mass rape. A plastered Lucanus wakes up to the rapacious older woman straddling him and kissing him all over. Disgusted, he shoves her back onto her lounging attendants and flees the scene. Date rape, aided with alcohol. It happens to men too.
Given that this is the classical world, we also see some nudity in non-sexual contexts. Lucanus meets two of Julia’s other boy-toys practicing wrestling in the buff, and proceeds to embarrass them both with his sweet kung-fu skills. (This really happened. Supposedly he was trained by a travelling monk from Cathay whom he met in Alexandria).
Napoleon Dynamite approves: [image]
As previously stated, nothing sexual about this scene, but it’s a little awkward that they’re just hanging out doing martial arts in their birthday suits.
Language: Nothing to worry about.
Substance Abuse: That one time Lucanus gets hammered is about it, but it’s written so vividly that I felt drunk just reading it.
Anything Else: Some will feel uncomfortable that a few of the stories about Jesus at the end of the book are not sourced in the Gospel. Caldwell drew on the visions of Catholic saints and medieval legends for extra material.
Then there is the very awkward subplot involving a black man seeking Jesus because he wants the "curse of Ham" lifted. Oh dear. Remember it was written in 1958.
All in all, an outstanding book for adults and older teens of any or no faith. Like all the best historical fiction, it draws you back into its era and breathes life into people long dead, and places long since fallen into ruin. It may also give you a different perspective on God, and the problem of death. An underrated classic; highly recommended....more
Elizabeth George Speare mostly stuck to colonial New England in her novels - Calico Captive, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Sign of the Beaver - butElizabeth George Speare mostly stuck to colonial New England in her novels - Calico Captive, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Sign of the Beaver - but in The Bronze Bow, she pulls the reader all the way back first-century Judaea, a place not that different from pre-Revolutionary Boston. Both places were a battleground between imperial soldiers who would rather been anywhere else, and local angry, disenfranchised young men endlessly seeking a punching bag.
Our eighteen-year-old protagonist, Daniel the Zealot, has spent the last four years on a mountaintop with his fellow outlaws. He imagines that he and his friends will be anointed by God and miraculously drive the Romans out any day now. In this gang, every man looks out for number one, but fate will soon throw people into Daniel's awareness and force him to care. They are:
- Joel, a childhood acquaintance who shares Daniel's thirst for freedom but not his bloodlust
- Malthace, called Thacia by her friends, Joel's beautiful and kind twin sister
- Samson, a deaf-mute foreigner rescued from a slave caravan who appoints himself Daniel's bodyguard after the later does a good deed for him
- Leah, Daniel's traumatized younger sister who hasn't left the family hovel in nine years
- Marcus, a young Gallic Roman soldier who seems to enjoy lording it over Daniel, and
-Jesus, an itinerant preacher of unclear political allegiance, Who says the strangest things and forces Daniel to examine himself.
A pebble rolls down the mountainside, and then another, and another...in three hundred years the avalanche will bury Rome itself.
Content Advisory Violence: Slaughter is a fact of life in this setting. Rosh and his followers think nothing of killing the merchants who pass through their territory. Later, a skirmish results in the deaths of two freedom fighters and a handful of Romans. Daniel mugs a murderous old man but decided not to kill him.
(view spoiler)[Years before the story begins, Daniel's uncle angered the local Romans, setting off a chain reaction that ended with six men, including the uncle and Daniel and Leah's father, being crucified. The children's mother kept vigil with her dead husband, sickened, and died in a few weeks. Leah, who at the time was five years old, saw her daddy hanging on a cross, and has since hidden in the house. The villagers think she's possessed, although she acts nothing like a demoniac. Today she might be diagnosed with PTSD. (hide spoiler)]
Sex: Daniel thinks Marcus is staking out his house to spy on Daniel and his seditious buddies....it never occurs to him that (view spoiler)[Marcus has a thing for Leah, even though he actually saw the Roman youth checking her out on one occasion. Our hero proceeds to change the location of his secret Zealot meetings and notices that Marcus has not followed. Well done, Dan. Your sister has never spoken to a man outside the family, is literally afraid of her own shadow, and you left her alone with a horny Roman soldier - one from France, no less. The biggest miracle in the book is that Marcus is actually a nice boy who respects Leah's boundaries. (hide spoiler)]
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Lots of wine-drinking but no drunkenness.
Politics and Religion: The book definitely believes in Jesus as Savior and Lord, but it's not out to proselytize. Non-Christians can probably still enjoy it as a literary work.
Conclusion The Bronze Bow is a vivid glimpse of the ancient world, chronicling a fiery young man's journey from vengeance to compassion. Vintage YA and Biblical fiction at its finest. Heartily recommended....more
In a world much like historical ancient Sumer, there exist two nearby kingdoms, one monotheistic, the other polytheistic. The gods of the polytheisticIn a world much like historical ancient Sumer, there exist two nearby kingdoms, one monotheistic, the other polytheistic. The gods of the polytheistic kingdom are temperamental, but ultimately have the best interests of their worshippers at heart. The one god of the other city-state, Admat, is jealous and bloodthirsty. The other gods appear in the flesh among their people on festival days; Admat’s omens are ambiguous and his face is hidden.
Atop the magic-shrouded mountain outside the polytheistic kingdom, Olus the wind god is born. As a child, he attempts to befriend a human boy, but his efforts only get the boy in trouble. Guilty, Olus withdraws from the society of mortals.
Until he walks in the city of Admat and meets a lovely girl named Kezi. Kezi is an accomplished dancer and weaver, and she is marked for death. Her mother was gravely ill, her father prayed to Admat, and promised the god that he would offer the first person who congratulated him on his wife’s recovery as a sacrifice.
Kezi has a month to live, but she will never die if Olus has anything to say about it. In order to make her a goddess, he must bring her to the threshold of the Underworld and let her harrow it. Meanwhile he too will be tested. In the Land of the Dead, she almost loses her memory for good, and seeks for proof of Admat’s existence but does not find it.
The more time I’ve had to mull over this book, the more anti-Judeo-Christian it comes across. It could not be clearer who Admat really is—the epigraph from the Book of Judges should make that clear literally from the first page. While Admat is portrayed as perpetually angry and paranoid, Olus and his family are the sweetest little gang of deities you’ll ever meet. Granted, Olus’ mother causes earthquakes when she’s angry, and the god of prophecy (who should have been a much bigger character) is delightfully eerie. But any ancient pantheon, especially Near Eastern, should be far more severe and (for some individuals) grotesque than those shown here.
Like The Two Princesses of Bamarre and Fairest, Levine introduces fascinating concepts halfway through, but runs out of either space, momentum, or ideas, and the best parts of the book are abruptly abandoned in favor of more sweet-but-bloodless teen romance.
Three stars for a cool subject. I give Levine props for tackling these themes: Cupid and Psyche, ancient Mesopotamia, and Old Testament human sacrifice.
However, the book is too short to develop the rich undercurrents beyond a minimum level of analysis. It poses deep theological questions that it can't answer, given the short span of pages, and Levine would rather spend those pages on tender teenage romance. Note, though, that The Queen of Attolia was not much longer and had a great balance of mysticism, romance, political skullduggery, and war (the last two of which don't even figure into Ever at all).
The prose is convincingly ancient in its simplicity (although I do wish Levine wouldn't use the phrase "Adam's apple" which makes no sense in this pre-Judeo-Christian world). The characters are not complex, but likable and sweet anyway - especially Olus the adorable boy-god. The insta-love is less cloying than usual in this mythological context - it comes with the territory here, although few gods were as gentle as Olus, and few mortal girls were as willing as Kezi.
Based on this and Two Princesses, which is probably due a reread, I think Levine's books are good, but could be great given a hundred or so more pages to expand the themes, raise the stakes, and give a little grit to the male leads. Hey HarperCollins editors, would it kill you to let her write a four-hundred-page book?
The content is technically appropriate for upper middle school kids: all the violence takes place off-page, there is no sexual content beyond the chaste but frequent kisses between the young lovebirds, and there’s no four-letter words or substance abuse. There are frightening images but nothing worse than what you’d find in Lord of the Rings or Narnia—a good deal milder than those, in fact.
My only caveat is the anti-religious subtext. Once you see it, you can’t not see it. ...more