Christian authors trying to make new culture

A review of Beckwood Brae - David H Webb, and Nemesis Train - Nathan Brown.

Reviews by Kara Martin

In Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, he says: “It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time, we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture.”
Unfortunately, it is much easier to condemn, critique or copy... and that is the failure of much Christian fiction. I would like to congratulate two Australian Christian authors for doing some culture making instead.
David H Webb wrote Beckwood Brae to fulfil a promise he made to himself as a teenage boy when he was being forced to read Jane Austen’s Emma. He wanted to have available a book that celebrated masculinity in the same way that Emma, he considered, celebrated femininity.
The book is also influenced by John Eldredge and Dan Allender’s theology of masculinity. Like Eldredge, Webb believes God designed men to be dangerous, with the dreams and desires written in his heart: to be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk.
Beckwood Brae is about an ordinary bloke called Norri who makes his living by collecting nuts; but his village comes under threat by mysterious giant wolves that can speak, and fiercely armed soldiers. Norri and his friends man up, arm up and manage to ensure the village survives the attack. However, they find out they have defeated just the advance force from a powerful empire.
The villagers become heroes for their nation as they discover the means of defeating the enemy with the aid of some secretive forest creatures. Norri gets separated from his friends, journeying into the heart of the evil empire and delivering a fatal blow. They are aided in their struggle by the one true God. Will they prevail against overwhelming odds and demonic forces…?
I liked that this was complex story. There are some nice twists and turns and it is well-researched, especially in the detail of the weaponry and the war strategy. In addition there is a Christian emphasis, for example, no use of magic by the heroes; external intervention attributed to the “one true God”; the power of a Word; and the significance of reconciled relationships, especially father-son.
However, there are some disappointments also. This book needs editing: there are spelling mistakes and sometimes the descriptions felt clunky. In addition some of the phraseology and the setting are mismatched with the use of modern expressions such as ‘in the nick of time’ / ‘You’re a legend’.
However, perhaps my biggest criticism is that more depth is needed in the characters, especially the female characters. There is not much of a theology of femininity underlying this: the women are basically passive, supporting the men, quietly providing all the things they need to be courageous and dangerous. Only one woman is a celebrated soldier, and her father repeatedly apologises to her, because it is solely because he doesn’t have any sons.
Overall though, this book is a welcome addition, and as the start of a series, will hopefully enjoy a lot of success. It already has received excellent reviews on various internet sites.
My second book is completely different. Nemesis Train is a hard book to describe. It features a number of apparently unrelated stories about a series of characters: a wanderer, a clerk, a driver, a musician, a child… Only at the conclusion of the book do we discover the links between the stories. There is also a parallel plotline of wanting to make a difference, wanting to make one’s life count. And maybe that is the overlap with Beckwood Brae, although in a modern context.
This is the sort of book which, when you finish, you want to re-read just to try and spot all the links. There are more obvious Christian signals through the book, woven into the story; and the book has a powerful message: it is about suicide among war veterans. At the back of the book there is the astonishing fact that 6,256 US ex-servicemen and women suicided in 2005, almost double the number killed in the height of the Iraqi conflict, 2003-2005! In Australia the suicide rate amongst men and women who have seen action in war is 20% higher than the general population.
However, this book too could be improved: I found some of the writing a bit awkward… and I’m still not sure whether that was part of the atmosphere of the book, but it made it a little difficult to get into. More significantly, the actual look of the book is not attractive. It has an ordinary cover, which doesn’t give any hint as to what the book is about, and neither the font nor layout make it attractive to read. Nemesis Train is a clever idea which could have better executed… With some more subtlety, some more clues in the chapters, some clearer linking of themes…
I do applaud David H Webb and Nathan Brown for taking the risk of creating some cultural items.
KARA MARTIN is a lecturer with School of Christian Studies (www.socs.org.au), and is an avid reader and book group attendee. Kara does book reviews for Heart 1032’s Open House (www.theopenhouse.net.au).