Novels of Phil Rickman
I've just finished reading a couple of novels I picked up in the cheap books tray in a supermarket. They were "Midwinter of the Spirit" and "A crown of lights" by Phil Rickman. I bought them because they seemed suitable light reading to fill in odd moments -- on Tuesdays I travel to Johannesburg to give a one hour lecture on church history, but I go with my wife who leaves before 6:00 am, and gets back after 7:00 pm, so there's quite a bit of time to kill.
I'd read some of Phil Rickman's novels before, "Crybbe" and "The chalice" -- about 6 years ago. They were spooky, ghost stories, and it seemed to me that Phil Rickman was trying to be a kind of British Stephen King. They weren't bad, but weren't particularly good either.
But the two two I bought last week moved Phil Rickman up a couple of notches in my estimation. Yes, they are still a bit spooky. The central character is, after all, the official diocesan exorcist for the Church of England Diocese of Hereford, which has a few parishes over the border in Wales.
But what struck me was that Phil Rickman handles relationships between Christians, neopagans, New Age types, Satanists and several others groups fairly well. Much of the "factual" literature one reads about these and the relations between them has an axe (or several axes) to grind. Phil Rickman may be writing fiction, but he seems to have done his research, and his characterisation seems a cut above the usual horror story.
Over the past few months I've been reading or rereading a number of books of the "secret ancient document whose contents will threaten people in high places" genre. Some of them seem to be popular, and this popularity seems to be an interesting social phenomenon that might be worth discussing here.
The most recent of these I've read I actually bought on the same day as the Phil Rickman ones -- "Codex" by Lev Grossman. Better than some of the genre, but but I didn't find it nearly as good a read as the Rickman ones. What I find off-putting about the "secret document" ones is that the characterisation is so bad. The characters are cardboard cutouts, and the institutions, and those who represent them, are caricatures. Yet they seem amazingly popular. My son, who works in a bookshop, says that people are always asking for these books, and seem to be convinced by the most unconvincing drivel.
And this is where Rickman seems, to me at least, to have done something quite
significant. While there are occasional false notes here and there, his characters are convincing, their beliefs are convincing, and they behave like real people, people one has met. There are distortions and exaggerations of people's beliefs and practices, but those too are like real life -- emanating from media hype.
I don't want to say too much, or to give the plot away, but I'd be interested in hearing the views of others who've read the books. I certainly recommend them and will be looking forward to reading more of Rickman's books in future.
I think they have quite a bit to say about Christianity and culture -- western culture and popular culture to be sure, and yet the kind of things that happen in the books probably happen far more and are taken far more seriously, in Africa.
I'd read some of Phil Rickman's novels before, "Crybbe" and "The chalice" -- about 6 years ago. They were spooky, ghost stories, and it seemed to me that Phil Rickman was trying to be a kind of British Stephen King. They weren't bad, but weren't particularly good either.
But the two two I bought last week moved Phil Rickman up a couple of notches in my estimation. Yes, they are still a bit spooky. The central character is, after all, the official diocesan exorcist for the Church of England Diocese of Hereford, which has a few parishes over the border in Wales.
But what struck me was that Phil Rickman handles relationships between Christians, neopagans, New Age types, Satanists and several others groups fairly well. Much of the "factual" literature one reads about these and the relations between them has an axe (or several axes) to grind. Phil Rickman may be writing fiction, but he seems to have done his research, and his characterisation seems a cut above the usual horror story.
Over the past few months I've been reading or rereading a number of books of the "secret ancient document whose contents will threaten people in high places" genre. Some of them seem to be popular, and this popularity seems to be an interesting social phenomenon that might be worth discussing here.
The most recent of these I've read I actually bought on the same day as the Phil Rickman ones -- "Codex" by Lev Grossman. Better than some of the genre, but but I didn't find it nearly as good a read as the Rickman ones. What I find off-putting about the "secret document" ones is that the characterisation is so bad. The characters are cardboard cutouts, and the institutions, and those who represent them, are caricatures. Yet they seem amazingly popular. My son, who works in a bookshop, says that people are always asking for these books, and seem to be convinced by the most unconvincing drivel.
And this is where Rickman seems, to me at least, to have done something quite
significant. While there are occasional false notes here and there, his characters are convincing, their beliefs are convincing, and they behave like real people, people one has met. There are distortions and exaggerations of people's beliefs and practices, but those too are like real life -- emanating from media hype.
I don't want to say too much, or to give the plot away, but I'd be interested in hearing the views of others who've read the books. I certainly recommend them and will be looking forward to reading more of Rickman's books in future.
I think they have quite a bit to say about Christianity and culture -- western culture and popular culture to be sure, and yet the kind of things that happen in the books probably happen far more and are taken far more seriously, in Africa.