Veiled Freedom – Jeanette Windle
What does it mean to write Christian Fiction, or to write fiction as a Christian? That’s a question that I’ve been pondering ever since I read Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and possibly ever since I first did NaNoWriMo. One difficulty this question posed for me was that I’d never read any. It was that question that led me to browse the Christian Fiction category on Amazon to see what was available for free when I got a Kindle for my birthday (I am a cheapskate after all). I’d already decided that part of the answer had to be that writing fiction as a Christian had to mean engaging with the real world in some way, which seemed to rule out most of the titles on offer. Then I spotted this one. About a Christian aid worker and set in contemporary Afghanistan it seemed to have potential.
My first impression was that the book was portraying an Americanized perception of Afghanistan, the way you might imagine it if you’d watched CNN but never actually been there. This of course was disappointing. For about half the book, this continued, and the story looked set to be heading towards one of those “odd couple” romances with a private security contractor. But the longer the characters spend in Afghanistan, the more they come to understand the place, and the more realistic I felt the portrayal of Afghanistan and its people was. The more, too, I got gripped by the story and the people and wanting to know where it was going. It wasn’t until very late on that I realized it wasn’t going where I thought it was, and where it went instead was much better.
If I’d come at this book looking for a gooey romance with an interesting backdrop that would make me feel the world was a nice warm cuddly place, then the ending would have been disappointing. On the other hand, if I’d come at the book with a romanticised perception of Afghanistan I would probably have learned something from it. That wasn’t where I was coming from, but I learned a lot from it anyway.
So what is the purpose of Christian fiction? Or, what kind of fiction should a Christian write? And is anyone out there actually doing that? Well, it needs to engage with the real world, not ignore it. It should educate and broaden the mind, not allow the reader to escape into a world of their own prejudices. Indeed, it should probably look something like this.
My first impression was that the book was portraying an Americanized perception of Afghanistan, the way you might imagine it if you’d watched CNN but never actually been there. This of course was disappointing. For about half the book, this continued, and the story looked set to be heading towards one of those “odd couple” romances with a private security contractor. But the longer the characters spend in Afghanistan, the more they come to understand the place, and the more realistic I felt the portrayal of Afghanistan and its people was. The more, too, I got gripped by the story and the people and wanting to know where it was going. It wasn’t until very late on that I realized it wasn’t going where I thought it was, and where it went instead was much better.
If I’d come at this book looking for a gooey romance with an interesting backdrop that would make me feel the world was a nice warm cuddly place, then the ending would have been disappointing. On the other hand, if I’d come at the book with a romanticised perception of Afghanistan I would probably have learned something from it. That wasn’t where I was coming from, but I learned a lot from it anyway.
So what is the purpose of Christian fiction? Or, what kind of fiction should a Christian write? And is anyone out there actually doing that? Well, it needs to engage with the real world, not ignore it. It should educate and broaden the mind, not allow the reader to escape into a world of their own prejudices. Indeed, it should probably look something like this.
posted by tomdg at 12:14 AM
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