I hope to do more “You make the call!” posts in the future as I want to have more interaction involved on my site with the loyal readers that I have. But, they don’t work if you don’t interact so please make a comment.
My wife is reading a book (by an undisclosed author) that she received for Christmas. It is a fiction book, but the reason that Mandy likes it so much is that it deals with real life issues. She has not finished yet, but tonight was talking to me about the book. The reason she talked to me about it is because she wanted to hear what I think the characters should do in their given situation. Here’s where you come in…I am going to lay out the scenario, but I will change the names of the characters (and some of the irrelevant details) and I want to know what you think should happen.
Scenario:
Katherine is the main character in the book, she is married to Tom. Katherine is a very busy business woman, Tom is a college professor who is also a journalist. For the last year, Tom has felt like Katherine doesn’t have time for him and when young Tina, one of his students, shows interest he begins pursuing her, to the point that he falls in love with her, tells Katherine that he wants a divorce and proceeds to move in with Tina and has lived with her for the last 3 months. In an effort to get Tina out of his mind before he leaves Katherine Tom makes love to Katherine and now Katherine is 3 months pregnant with their first child. About a month after Tom leaves Katherine runs into Jeremy, the man who she has known since they were 12 (they are now 28). They were childhood sweethearts and had dated for several years until when Jeremy was injured during a professional game (he is a professional athlete) and Katherine went to the hospital to visit him the nurse told her that Jeremy was in with his girlfriend. When Katherine heard this, she never entered the hospital room. Now, during the current situation, the mixup is uncovered and they realize that Jeremy never was unfaithful to her, he was in with the team trainer and had told the nurse he couldn’t wait to see his girlfriend (Katherine). Katherine starts to let herself fall for Jeremy when Tom finds out that she is pregnant with their child and asks their pastor for a meeting between the pastor, Katherine, and himself because he has realized all that he is leaving behind.
We don’t know yet whether or not Tom wants to come back, but here is the question for you to answer, let’s assume Tom does want to come back and he leaves Tina, what should Katherine do?
A couple of Bible passages come to mind as I think about this:
Remember, don’t just be a spectator, let me know what you think…
Ted Dekker both starts and finishes what he set into motion with Black. In a world where the spiritual is physical Thomas Hunter must keep the Circle from breaking apart as the world careens towards the final showdown between good and evil, between Elyon and Teelah.
I was extremely excited to begin reading Green because I loved Black, Red, & White. I don’t know if it was because I held unrealistic expectations or if the book wasn’t as good as the previous books but I was disappointed when I finished Green. My disappointment was mainly due to the way Dekker closed the loop, I felt he could have done it in a way that was more satisfying. I will say that Dekker’s grasp of the Biblical narrative is amazing, what really threw me though was his shifting back and forth between Biblical allegory and more direct Biblical example. Throughout the series he has had definite Biblical allegory, but in Green he throws in some scenes where they really aren’t allegory, I basically knew how the scene was going to end even as it started. He even names one character Ba’al which immediately paints the character in a certain light for most readers. It was also disappointing that with the current vampire infatuation in our culture that Dekker decided to go there.
Note: In the material that I have read for Green the book is grouped with Black, Red, & White and left at that. There are parts in Green that refer to the Lost Books Series (Chosen, Infidel, Renegade, Chaos, Lunatic, & Elyon) as well as the Paradise Novels (Saint, Sinner, & Showdown). As I was reading Green, I wished that I hadn’t stopped reading the Lost Books at Chaos because there is are parts within Green that I am assuming a reader who has read the Lost Books and Paradise novels would understand the backstory a little better.
I’m willing to give Dekker the benefit of the doubt though and give Green a 3 out of 5 rating.
Related Reading:
Note: due to a quirk in WordPress I am unable to hyperlink all of the books referenced in this post…I sincerely apologize.