Daniel Ausema gave a passing review of Wind Follower on Fantasy Forum. He says the book was heavy-handed. Interestingly, he's the only one who thinks this. Other christian reviewers haven't thought that at all. Strangely, secular writers don't think it is.
In fact, the book is seen as so unusual that a noted feminist, atheist academic will be presenting a paper on it at Swancon, an academic conference on Speculative Fiction...and at Wiscon, the feminist, alternative annual speculative conference. Check out the title of her paper: Out Of Egypt: The Palimpsest Of Speculative And Other Fiction(S) In Carole Mcdonnell’s Wind Follower. She sees Wind Follower as a book which innovately deals with and plays with different kinds of genres including slave narrative, romance, missionary testimony, high romance, interracial romance. But then again, she's an academic and secular -- therefore well-read-- and understands what I was trying to do.
Heck, the book has been read by a Yemeni-muslim, by several atheists, by narcissitic teenaged kids, by my angry-with-Christians-Orthodox neighbor and no one else saw the book as heavy-handed. So, what's going on?
Maybe he's ashamed of the gospel or getting his cringing moments mixed up with thinking that I'm being heavy-handed. Trust me: I know the feeling. I've been known to cringe when some musician walks up to receive an award and says, "I thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ." I then realize the musician isn't being heavy-handed at all. He said what he felt was necessary to say. So I suspect that Mr Ausema thinking I was heavy-handed had more to do with his own issues of what was allowable in a Christian novel than with any heavy-handedness on my part. His heavy-handedness-gauge and cringe-o-meter are way too sensitive. Besides, the book is about a pagan conversion. I was just as heavy-handed in depiciting the religion of the pagans as I was with depicting Christian spirituality. Wind Follower is a multicultural Christian high fantasy novel which tells the story of First Peoples as they encounter imperialism mixed with religion. That is an important issue to People of Color who are Christians. White Christians have written books for centuries but never have they written stories from a pagan's point of view which showed the spirituality of pagans. Perhaps, like Mr Ausema, they just are so inured in their white reality they don't care about the lives and loves of non-whites.
Once thing that is really dawning on me is how individual tastes are affected by region, race, and culture. So far immigrants, folks with strong immigrant backgrounds, white folks who deal with black culture, and minorities immediately like andn understand the book. The Carl Brandon Society has recommended this book as one of the twelve books by Speculative Fiction writers that should be read during Black History Month 2008. And several atheists in that society have read the book and truly liked it. So if atheists don't think it's heavy-handed, and if most Christians don't think it's heavy-handed...what is Mr Ausema's problem? The folks who tend to like it least are white Christian men who live among other white Christian men. Something about not having to learn to deal with other cultures going on there, i think.
Mr Ausema also stated was how uninterested he was in the love story. In C S Lewis essay, "On reviewing," Lewis stated that a reviewer should not review a genre he neither likes nor understand. Those who love romance love it immediately. Those who don't...well.... Why read a paranormal romance if the pages with the romance bores you or if you are not interested in how love grows between a man and a woman? In addition, if one isn't interested in anthropology or the study of religion and only wants a stereotypical Euro-fantasy then one should not pick up the book either.
Another reviewer....who was more open-minded had no problem with it.
I often forget that although conservative Christians are a large part of the population, this is one of the few countries where Christians tend to be pretty uninterested in social change. Abortion yes, but other than that, there are no conservative Christian groups against racism, etc. I have found that many Christians, like Mr Ausema are very provincial. Perhaps even shallow. As a culture our newscasts are filled with news stories about ourselves. If it weren't for the foreign news programs I watch, I sometimes wouldn't know about the latest flood catastrophe in India or the latest uprising or disaster in some other country. And talk about being shallow in his committment to story. He didn't even enter into the story well enough to spell my name correctly (McDonnell, thank you) or to state the book's title properly (Wind Follower, not Windfollower). If the guy couldn't read closely enough to know my name and the book title -- which are on every page-- I don't think he knows how to read closely to understand the book.
Daniel Ausema stated the first 150 pages of my book which is there to help the reader understand the marriage rituals and pagan spirituality of a world that is non-Euro well... is not of interest to him. Sometimes a reviewer simply doesn't understand a book and is afraid to admit that the book is a little above him. Or maybe that he thought the book was beneath him.
But I suppose what really annoys the heck outta me is that God and my friends and family know what I went through and that Wind Follower is a prayer to God. Those who suffer will understand that it is not heavy-handed in anyway. It is a plea to God to heal me, to heal my son, to help me to endure. But those who live at ease can always mock the prayers of other people. And that is what Wind Follower is to me...not a work of art, but a prayer to God.
-C
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7 comments:
I have to say that the generalizations are uncomfortable. "many Christians are shallow" is a not nice generalization. Perhaps many people, period, are shallow. :)
Define shallow?
Because someone doesn't enjoy romance novels doesn't mean they are shallow. Romance is a genre primarily/overwhelmingly favored by woman. I like romance. I've read hundreds of romance novels. I like romantic subplots.
My husband would yawn. He's the tenderest, best of husbands, a man who knows how to love, he just doesn't wanna read romance.
I think picking on Mr. Ausema here feels retaliatory, reads spiteful. I don't believe you meant it to be so, but it does read unkindly.
I don't see Daniel at all as shallow. He has his preferences, and WF ain't among them.
The culture more and more tells Christians to shaddup--and it does, everyone else is encouraged to speak up, be themselves, while folks of traditional Christian faith are told to shut the F up about faith and go quietly back to Pietism and private expressions of religion. I found your novel refreshing because it refused to bde silenced and told to be subtle.
Soemtimes, subtlety is cowardice. Sometimes, it's art. It's a personal call.
Mir
Hi Carole. First, I apologize for the misspelling--the FBS forum is a rather informal place to share what we're reading rather than a formal review, and I was posting that without the book immediately in front of me. So I'm embarrassed that you would have found my misspellings. (Wind Follower vs. Windfollower is somewhat ambiguous on the cover, so I guess that may have been the reason for that one, but it doesn't excuse it.)
I did enjoy many aspects of the book, and maybe I didn't do a good job of getting that across in the brief comment there, so if so again, I apologize.
I am certainly not a stereotypical male, for what it's worth--less so than about any I know, so that remark about machismo seems quite wide of the mark. But it is true that I rarely read a story for its romance. I'm not opposed to romance by any means, but it isn't what typically draws me in. So it's likely, as again I tried to get across in my comment, simply a matter of taste.
The comment about the religious nature was simply meant as a heads-up for the others on that forum, because it seemed something for them to be aware of. It could be I'm overly sensitive to that because of my background.
So, sorry again if it came across as overly negative, because there were many things I really liked. Most importantly for me was the decidedly non-pseudo-European-ness. That was a welcome bit of fresh air.
I would love to know more about what happens to the land and the children of Satha and Loic between the main events of the book and the time when it's being told by them in their old age. Any plans to return to the setting for more stories?
Peace,
After sitting on this for a day and rereading both the post and my comment/brief review on that forum, I feel a couple more things need to be added.
First, I'm too young to have been a part of the civil rights movement, but the issues of social and economic justice, or racial-, gender-, ethnic- and linguistic-equality and reconciliation--these are all things that I consider not only fine and good but a religious, moral and ethical obligation. It is something I have been pursuing in my own corner of the world, exploring in my writing, and seeking out and recommending in my reading for the dozen or so years of my adult life.
So, to take my comment that the relationship between Satha and Loic early on did not draw me in as much as I'd have liked and jump to the conclusion that I'm not interested in marriage and love and romance is, at the least, a stretch. To leap from that to the personal attacks that I am shallow and sexist (with the insinuation that I'm probably racist as well) I find mind-bogglingly unjust.
I don't state this as any attack on you by any means, and neither was the review meant as any kind of personal attack on you or the book--you are an author I had respected greatly, and as I stated in that review, "despite these reservations, there was much to like in this book..." My goal is always to live at peace with everyone, as far as I am able, and to seek that peace where it doesn't exist yet. But I felt the need to defend my own reputation in this instance.
Again, in peace,
Hi Mir:
Yeah, it DOES feel retaliatory. But honestly, if I wanted to be retaliatory I would have sent my friends over to his forum post and really made his life miserable. I was merely defending myself against a hit-and-run review.
As for saying Christians are shallow....well, in my experience many of them are. Perhaps it's what they allow themselves to read. I can't lie and say something else. And as I've said...after the snideness I got from some Christian reviewers about Wind Follower I totally decided not to write any kind of Christian story anymore.
So even if Daniel is kindly and nice...he is one of the rare ones. CS Lewis wrote a great series of articles on the nature of being a Christian reviewer. One of the things Lewis said is that a person should NOT review a genre he does not understand. And if he doesn't understand the genre, he should state upfront..."This is not a genre I particularly love or understand so I might not appreciate some of the niceties." Heck, that's what I do.
But to imply that the reason my book didn't draw him in was because of something lacking in the book....well, he's blaming a genre because he doesn't understand it.
Daniel:
I have read and noted -- briefly-- your comments.
-C
Mir:
I re-read my post:
It doesn't sound retaliatory at all. The definition of retaliatory means to get back at a person. If I were to retaliate that would mean finding one of his stories and savaging it. I did not do that. Indeed, if I had read any of his stories I would read it quite fairly.
I have had many disagreements with the atheist, feminist who is analyzing Wind Follower for the two conventions. And trust me, she has some interesting things to say that I don't agree with. But I have not savaged her book at all. So I'm not a retaliatory person.
I said, "Many Christians, like Mr Ausema, are very shallow." That wasn't a generalization. I qualified the comment: Many Christians like Mr Ausema. And earlier in the paragraph I talked about Mr Ausema's inability to enter into a world and to take a strange non-anglo world and committ to other viewpoints.
I said he said the book was heavy-handed. I disputed that. To dispute someone's silly assertion is not retaliatory.
I mentioned that feeling there is a heavy-handedness in a religious story is often something that comes from within a reader...something dependent on the reader's shame about his own faith. I even mentioned the fact that I have often cringed at things and it was my own issue...not the issue of the person making me cringe.
Strange kind of retaliation to include myself in that description also.
Love you, Mir, but I think you're seeing retaliation that isn't there. In the Christian world, the slightest disagreement is often blown out of proportion and seen as over-the-top or retaliatory because Christians so often try for that fake sweetness they are terrified when they see raw emotion. I was raised by a methodist minister grandfather and his charismatic catholic nun. I know this form of repression that judges any sign of anger as a sin and goes ahead and labels it. I see nothing wrong with the post. Therefore i'll leave it as it is.
More and more I become convinced that I really have nothing to do with American Christians.
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