L.B.: 28:06:42:12

Left Behind, pp. 387-391

"I felt my heart strangely warmed," John Wesley wrote of the moment of his conversion. Something similar is happening to Buck Williams in this passage, but his warmness is far stranger than Wesley's:

Buck did not trust himself to respond with coherence. He still had chills, yet he felt sticky with sweat. What was happening to him? He managed a whisper, "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner," he said.

I don't know if you do this too, but sometimes when I read a scene -- particularly one with a vivid description of some gesture or facial expression -- I find myself imitating that description.* That response is a kind of test, a way of verifying whether the description is realistic, whether it rings true. With scenes like the one above, I find myself mentally re-enacting them. Try it yourself here. Does Buck's "whisper" make any sense? Rayford gives his hour-long, uninterrupted speech on End Times prophecy. He finally reaches the end and Buck doesn't comment, doesn't say, "Well, that was fascinating/interesting/different," he just whispers -- whispers -- "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner."

I just can't see that happening.

The authors' task here is not an easy one. Buck is on the verge of an epiphany, of one of those magical, transforming moments when we catch, or almost catch, a glimpse of something transcendent and our heart is "strangely warmed." You don't have to have experienced a religious conversion to appreciate what Wesley meant by that. If you've ever had any such glimpse -- any moment of grace, or clarity, or of the sudden onrush of overwhelming beauty, insight or love then you know what Wesley's talking about. (Kate: "Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany." Angel: "I keep saying that, but nobody's listening.")

Nothing like that seems to be happening here for Buck, who seems to be experiencing flu-like symptoms. The authors want us to interpret this scene as the working of the Holy Spirit through Rayford. It comes across more as the working of salmonella through, perhaps, the chicken.

Buck's spiritual crisis might be easier to understand if the authors ever actually let us hear what it was in Rayford speech that gave him chills. Then again, knowing what we know about the authors and about their decidedly uninspiring prophecy checklist, that might make Buck's spiritual sweatiness harder to understand. Based on the rough outline of Rayford's speech that we are given, he never deals with what you'd think would be the key point: The world is going to end. Soon.

If I were Rayford, I'd have led off with that fact: "How old are you, Williams? 30? You'll never be 38." That would seem like an attention-getter. Rayford should be offering a constant running countdown, like Frank the rabbit in Donnie Darko.

Instead, Rayford tells Buck his whole life story and then babbles about the Two Witnesses in Jerusalem. He knows that the world is going to end in almost exactly seven years -- knows this with certainty, having read it in the Bible, or at least on the back cover of Left Behind -- but he doesn't seem to think this is pertinent information to share with his reporter friend.

Thus when Buck asks Hattie for her take on Rayford's theory, she responds:

"I think Rayford is sincere and thoughtful. Whether he's right, I have no idea. That's all beyond me and very foreign. But I am convinced he believes it."

That's the kind of abstract opinion that you might offer if you'd spent the last hour discussing Rayford's theory of, say, the Tunguska Event. Rayford's presentation seems to invite just such an abstract response because he neglects to include the salient bit about the end of the world. If he had seen fit to mention, when they started dinner, that the world was going to end in 6 years, 357 days and 16 hours, or if he had mentioned when they were finished that the world was going to end in 6 years, 357 days and 14 hours, then "Whether he's right, I have no idea" would have been a mind-bogglingly inadequate response.

The more you consider this, the stranger it seems. Rayford is portrayed throughout this chapter as speaking with a desperate urgency because he knows the clock is ticking. He grows increasingly frustrated that no one else seems to appreciate his urgency, but he steadfastly refuses to fill them in on the whole ticking-clock aspect. Maybe he noticed the looks being exchanged between Buck and his daughter and he decided to withhold this information. After all, you tell two young people that the world is going to end in 6 years and 357 days and they're probably not going to want to take things slow.

"I will get back to you before using any of your quotes," Buck says (possibly still whispering, it's not clear). He says this, apparently, to give Jenkins the opportunity to insert some of his research into the exotic world of professional reporters:

That was nonsense, of course. He had said it only to give himself a reason to reconnect with the pilot. He might have a lot of personal questions about this, but he never allowed people he interviewed to see their quotes in advance. He trusted his tape recorder and his memory, and he had never been accused of misquoting.

Buck looked back at the captain and saw a strange look cross his face. He looked -- what? Disappointed? Yes, then resigned.

Suddenly Buck remembered who he was dealing with. This was an intelligent, educated man. Surely he knew that reporters never checked back with their sources. He probably thought he was getting a journalistic brush-off.

A rookie mistake, Buck, he reprimanded himself. You just underestimated your own source.

Buck was putting his equipment away ...

If you're interviewing someone and you may have further questions later, there's no reason not to say, "I may call you later to follow up." But that wouldn't have allowed Jenkins to show off what he's learned about reportering, or to remind us again about Rayford's Ph.D. from Embry-Riddle. For all of that research, though, Jenkins still seems to think that a reporter's tape recorder is some kind of giant reel-to-reel machine with a detachable microphone -- the sort of "equipment" one would have to "put away" rather than just tucking back into one's jacket pocket. (He refers to it later in this scene as "the machine.")

Buck was putting his equipment away when he noticed Chloe was crying, tears streaming down her face.

Apparently Chloe also had the chicken.

What was it with these women? Hattie Durham had been weeping when she and the captain had finished talking that afternoon. Now Chloe.

"What was it with these women?" Gender isn't the common variable here. The common variable is Rayford. Spend an hour with this guy and you'll wind up sobbing uncontrollably or shivering through your sweat. Both of these have happened to me just from reading about him.

Buck could identify, at least with Chloe. If she was crying because she had been moved by her father's sincerity and earnestness, it was no surprise. Buck had a lump in his throat, and for the first time since he had lain facedown in fear in Israel during the Russian attack, he wished he had a private place to cry.

Buck assumes he knows why Chloe is upset, so he doesn't bother to ask her if she's OK, or to offer her a handkerchief, or to make any of the other sort of feeble gestures we humans tend to make when we notice that someone sitting next to us has tears streaming down her face.

It's at this point that Buck asks Hattie for her opinion, "off the record."

"Why off the record?" Hattie snapped. "The opinions of a pilot are important but the opinions of a flight attendant aren't?"

No, silly. It's not because you're a flight attendant. Your opinions don't matter because you're a woman -- which is also why the only opportunity you've been given to speak in this chapter is just one more attempt to portray you as thin-skinned and bitchy. That attempt backfires again. Score another point for meta-Hattie.

Rayford was not surprised at Hattie's response, but he was profoundly disappointed with Chloe's. He was convinced she didn't want to embarrass him by saying how off the wall he sounded.

He doesn't even seem to notice that his daughter is sobbing. Yet he's still "convinced" he knows what she's thinking and, based on that assumption, he is "profoundly disappointed" in her. I'm sure that comes across as comforting. What is it with these men?

"Mr. Williams," he said, standing and thrusting out his hand, "it's been a pleasure. The pastor I told you about in Illinois really has a handle on this stuff and knows much more than I do about the Antichrist and all. It might be worth a call if you want to know any more."

So thanks for the interview. Oh, and I almost forgot, the world is going to end in exactly 6 years, 357 days aaaaaand ... 13 hours. 'Bye now.

In these parting words, Rayford summarizes what he considers the key point of his hourlong speech. Here is the core of his message -- of the authors' message -- of his and their version of the "gospel": "The Antichrist and all."** Again, consider how strange this is in the best-selling "Christian novel" of the last two decades. Not, "Jesus and all," or "Jesus' return and all," or even "God's righteous wrath (and our righteous schadenfreude) and all." The Antichrist and all.

The central figure in this message is not Christ, but the Antichrist. It's fair to ask, then, if LaHaye and Jenkins' religion might not be more accurately called "Antichristianity." In their defense, however, we should note that the essential focus of their religion is not to celebrate or serve the Antichrist, but rather to oppose him. That would make their religion something more like "Anti-Antichrist-ianity." To their way of thinking, Anti-Antichristianity is pretty much the same thing as Christianity. That's not unreasonable, if the same semantic logic that makes "not unreasonable" mean the same thing as "reasonable" were to apply here. But opposing Christ's opposite doesn't make you Christian, and the enemy of God's enemy isn't necessarily God's friend.

Here, as usual, Left Behind presents an extreme example of a more widespread problem in American evangelicalism. Evangelicals these days don't stand for anything, they only stand against. And as it turns out, being against unrighteousness and being for righteousness aren't the same thing at all. This isn't merely a problem for evangelicals, either. Consider how rare it is nowadays to hear some say they're "pro-America" without meaning, by that, that they're anti- something (or everything) else.

The foursome moseyed to the lobby.

OK, yes, bonus points for use of the word "mosey."

"I'm going to say my good-nights," Hattie said. "I've got the earlier flight tomorrow." She thanked Rayford for dinner, whispered something to Chloe -- which seemed to get no response -- and thanked Buck for sticking her with the cabfare his hospitality that morning. "I may just call Mr. Carpathia one of these days," she said. ...

Chloe looked as if she wanted to follow Hattie to the elevators and yet wanted to say something to Buck as well. He was shocked when she said, "Give us a minute, will you, Daddy? I'll be right up."

The point of this exchange, for the authors, was to arrange a chance for Buck and Chloe to talk one-on-one. They seem not to have noticed that this put Rayford and Hattie together. Alone together. On a hotel elevator.

Buck and Chloe talk about their mutual admiration for her father:

"Your dad is a pretty impressive guy," he said.

"I know," she said. "Especially lately."

Lately her dad has been forcing her to tag along while he torments his former pseudo-mistress, but that's not what Chloe is referring to. She means she's starting to think her father might be right about "the Antichrist and all." Buck agrees. At this point a good-night kiss is pretty much out of the question. If you're a guy, standing awkwardly outside her door/elevator at the end of an evening together, then you should, as a rule, avoid the following topics: 1) her father; 2) weird religious theories; and especially 3) her father's weird religious theories.

"I just met you and I'm really gonna miss you," Chloe tells him. "If you get through Chicago, you have to call."

Buck has already, somewhat creepily, booked a ticket to Chicago in the seat next to hers on tomorrow's flight. He doesn't tell her about this here, opting instead to up the creepy factor:

"It's a promise," Buck said. "I can't say when, but let's just say sooner than you think."

The clock is ticking.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* I once got caught on the train making faces while reading Bryce Courtenay's desciption, in The Power of One, of Pastor Mulvery's "lightning on/off smile" with his "escape-attempting teeth." To explain myself to the amused couple across the row, I read them the passage and soon they were trying to smile like Pastor Mulvery too. The Power of One is very good, by the way. Skip the movie, read the book -- it's like a South African Huckleberry Finn.

** Makes me wish Sellar and Yeatman were still alive to write The Antichrist and All That, at the end of which history really would come to a .

Comments

[Drak Pope]

If the people he interviews are always 100% satisfied with the way they come across in his articles, they can't be very good. I don't think even People magazine has that kind of record.

It's easy if you remember that Buck doesn't actually write articles. He conducts interviews and flies all over the world to investigate Pulitzer Prize-worthy international events, but he never writes a thing about any of them. It's impossible for someone to dislike their portrayal in one of his articles if he never writes any.

I mean, we are talking about the WBEW, and therefore the fact that we can look at Chloe as the intended victim of a creepy stalker

The problem is that since Chloe is so dull and unlikable that it's hard for me to feel happy or worried for her. She will marry Buck and raise a whole bunch of dull kids with him, and I'm not happy for her.

[Muse of Ire]

The foursome moseyed to the lobby.
OK, yes, bonus points for use of the word "mosey."

Except, of course, that "moseying" would be the last thing this foursome would be doing. "Moseying" implies relaxed, aimless rambling; with all the interpersonal tensions in this little group, "made a tense beeline for the lobby" would be more truly descriptive.

[Geds]

Alternatively, if it's before 1960, you dissolve to a train racing into a tunnel.

Nothing wrong with bringing that back...

[Keith]

twig: Any technical tricks to writing the ineffible? Specificity of sensation? Dramatic shift to a completely disjointed thought?

I usually try to rely on sense memory and describe what i felt in a similar situation (this is the whole "Write what you know" thing) It's tricky and takes some doing but it usually produces satisfactory results, at least enough for readers to get the gist of what's happening.

[Izunya]

As a writer: getting the epiphany down on paper is not really the trick. I suggest reading people who've had epiphanies but as Jack Grey pointed out, even C.S. Lewis had a tendency to punt on this one.

The thing that makes the epiphany believable--or the thing that makes an epiphany *unbelievable,* no matter how lovingly it's described--is the aftermath. Depending on the situation and the particular epiphany, the character may be joyously gabbling insights about the universe (which likely sound extremely stoned to everyone who's not in the know) or appalled at their past behavior and determined to make things right if it kills them. But their behavior is going to be different than before. Their entire perspective is different than before.

This, of course, is yet another failure in L&J's great big carnival of fail.

Izunya

Alternatively, if it's before 1960, you dissolve to a train racing into a tunnel.

Or you could dissolve into a collapsing factory chimney run in reverse, tall soaring poplars in the wind, waves crashing, fish in shallow water fountains, exploding fireworks, a volcano erupting with lava, a rocket taking off, an express train going into a tunnel, a dam bursting, a battleship broadside, a lion leaping through flaming hoop, Richard Nixon smiling, milking of a cow, planes refueling in mid-air, Women's Institute members applauding, caber tossing, a plane falling in flames, a tree crashing to the ground, and finish with the lead shot tower collapsing run normally.

And then you would show Hattie in bed smoking a cigarette and complaining, "Oh, Rayford, are you going to do anything or are you just going to show me films all evening?" Rayford would respond, "Just one more sermon about the Antichrist, dear."

[greygelgoog]

"All of these characters run around in their own little ego-centric shield buffer, as if no one else on Earth truly exists. Again, you could make the case that this is how RTCs believe non-RTCs behave, but that doesn't change the fact that we are supposed to sympathize with the main characters here, that they are supposed to show we heathens the Way."

In my personal experience, this is actually how many RTCs behave. They are saved, and you're either with them or against them. But it doesn't really matter because they're saved. It's a "I've got my ticket to Heaven and it's my way or the highway" mentality I think.

[Tonio]

That was me at 4:19 p.m.

[Penh]

Is it even possible for four people to collectively mosey? I've always thought of moseying as a very personal gait. Maybe two people could mosey together if they were long-time friends and understood each others' rhythms, but four people? Three of whom are weeping, shivering, or pissed off because of the fourth? I just don't buy it.

[Scott]

Wait. That was... pleasant. Is this some New Scott,

No, it was actually a pretty nasty comment; it was just nastiness aimed at someone (even if fictional) you disapprove of rather than someone you approve of.

[mds]

He knows that the world is going to end in almost exactly seven years

Erm, since we're dealing with premillenial dispensationalism, here, doesn't the world end in almost exactly one thousand and seven years? The new heaven and new earth stuff comes after Satan is bound for a thousand years. You know, what saner Christians, aka amillenialists(*), call "the Church Age"?

(*)Okay, I guess I could throw revivalist postmillenialists and post-tribulation premillenialists into the "saner" category. But reconstructionism and premillenial dispensationalism are right out.

[Keith]

How'd that double post get in there? Typepad strikes again!

[Vermic]

No, it was actually a pretty nasty comment; it was just nastiness aimed at someone (even if fictional) you disapprove of rather than someone you approve of.

Well, all I know is, when I read it, I felt my heart strangely warmed.

[Jesurgislac]

Raka: Is this some New Scott, or did someone finally tie down our Classic Scott and forcibly medicate him?

Classic Scott is known for making good comments on the Left Behind threads, actually. It's the classic example of how Left Behind brings everyone together. Even Scott.

[Tonio]

Erm, since we're dealing with premillenial dispensationalism, here, doesn't the world end in almost exactly one thousand and seven years? The new heaven and new earth stuff comes after Satan is bound for a thousand years.

One of the Omen books uses II Peter 3:8 to claim that Satan's bondage would last one day, conveniently enabling the action to continue.

[Lea]

** Makes me wish Sellar and Yeatman were still alive to write The Antichrist and All That, at the end of which history really would come to a .

Oh man. That would win at everything.

Does his Gregory House impersonation for Tonio

I've never seen "House." I couldn't even tell you when it runs or what network carries it.

[mcc]

Hattie ... thanked Rayford for dinner, whispered something to Chloe -- which seemed to get no response

Okay... maybe I'm missing something, or something is revealed elsewhere in the text that Fred didn't quote or hasn't yet quoted. But what is going on with Chloe and Hattie in this scene? They're leaving abruptly, coming back, suddenly bursting into tears (sometimes at moments not directly related to Rayford's psychosexual harrassment), whispering messages to each other. Is there some kind of a hidden subplot there? Were they talking about something in the bathroom? Why is Chloe crying? What did Hattie whisper to Chloe?

Does the text eventually hint at what exactly was happening there? Is it possible that, as usual, the authors actually buy in to Rayford and Buck's perspective, and we're supposed to take this unusual behavior as Chloe crying because she's so disappointed in / moved by her father's apocalypse speech [which she missed half of]? (Some of the details they're adding, like the whisper, seem simultaneously too arbitrary and too carefully-crafted for that to be the case.) Is this just Meta-Hattie and Meta-Chloe coming within a hair's breadth of storming off the set while Rayford, Buck and the authors remain oblivious?

Is it even possible for four people to collectively mosey?

Line dancing.

[Cowboy Diva]

This II Peter 3:8?
much confused...

[Tonio]

That was me again at 4:41 p.m.

[mcc]

Cowboy Diva, that's I Peter 3:8. You want II Peter 3:8.

[jamoche]

Depending on the situation and the particular epiphany, the character may be joyously gabbling insights about the universe (which likely sound extremely stoned to everyone who's not in the know)

Lois McMaster Bujold did a good job of that in The Curse of Chalion.

Hmm. Nope, wrong kind of epiphany. Not that I need an excuse to reread LMB.

[Daughter]

About Buck as stalker: I don't know if it's just LJ's attitudes toward women that produce this scene. I read a Christian novel once that injected "This Present Darkness" types of angels and demons into an ordinary life scenario. The book was about two neighboring families, one Christian and one non-Christian. The former is praying for the conversion of the latter.

In one chapter, the father of the Xn family invites the father of the other to a men's prayer breakfast. He prays for the man to come, but also does certain things to make sure it happens. He talks to the wife of family #2 to ask if her hubby has any Christian friends or relatives. Then he contacts those people to ask them to make calls/send letters persuading him to come.

After husband #2 agrees to go, husband #1 arranges with wife #2 and a younger man at church for the younger man to pick up husband #2's car and drop it off at his job, so that husband #1 can drive #2 to the men's breakfast and back to work to have time to evangelize the guy further. He also talks to the secretary of #2 to let her know that the guy might be a little late getting to work.

So... how does husband #2 respond? Well, he's so touched by all the thoughtfulness and care that has gone into his spiritual well-being, that he ends up praying the prayer after the breakfast. Meanwhile, I thought that I would be so freaked-out if someone had done all these behind-the-scene things to get me to come to a prayer breakfast.

[Thlayli]

A Buffy ref and an Angel ref in the same post!

Well played, Fred.

[Cowboy Diva]

Thank you mcc. ::goes away cursing at google::

[cjmr's husband]

@Tonio at 4:19,

How can we award you an internet if typepad eats your name!!!

[Tonio]

This II Peter 3:8?
much confused...

Your link was to the First Epistle. I cannot type that last word without hearing Sam Malone: "Those Galatians...when will they listen..."

[aunursa]

But opposing Christ's opposite doesn't make you Christian, and the enemy of God's enemy isn't necessarily God's friend.

L&J wouldn't necessarily disagree with this. In the later books Orthodox Jews and other assorted characters also oppose the Carpathian regime.

paulf
I've been a journalist for 24 years, and I've never done an interview with my wife or kids present. None of what this guy does even remotely resembles anything a journalist does.

Well, technically it was Rayford's kid who was present. Buck is unmarried, and we never actually meet the members of his family who were left behind.

And given the best-selling end-times books that have proliferated in America for dercades, why would the repture be a surprise to anybody? "Oh, shit, Hal Lindsey was right!" everyone would say. Which is proof for certain that the rapture is not going to happen, now or anytime in the next billion years.

You need to get with the program -- Christianity is a big secret. Only RTC's know about Christian theology. CINO's and we non-Christians have no clue about this Jesus dude, much less such obscure Christian concepts as the Rapture, Armageddon, Pre-Millenial Dispensation, and the subject of Revelation 13:18.

[Robb]

Ah Fridays: between the They Might Be Giants weekly podcast, the end of the work week, and Fred tearing apart LB, there just ain't no better day. Er, um, there isn't not a day that is not better. Or rather, I'm very much Anti-Anti-Fridays.

******

@ The artist formerly known as Scyllacat -

Good choice on the new handle - I named my daughter Thalia for more or less the same reason: the world could use more laughter & happy endings.

******

"Why off the record?" Hattie snapped. "The opinions of a pilot are important but the opinions of a flight attendant aren't?"

Buck stammered something about trying to consider her status as a lower level employee than Rayford, but didn't get halfway through the sentence when Hattie's shin connected with his genitals.
The feeling was something Buck had known only twice before in his life, and he was clawing desparately at his memory to remember what those occasions were, if for no other reason than to escape the pain he felt now. It was as if he was watching the nature films of his youth, with the bloom of a flower sped up to happen within seconds, but instead of tender petals of soft pink, there was a bloom of fire. The strange feeling of warmth accompanied it, but it wasn't any kind of comforting warmth, but a harshness - like being held a few feet over a fire.

His vision didn't actually dim, but the sensation of sight left him as his nervous system reeled from the blow delivered to his groin. The sensation dimmed only a bit when Buck realized he hadn't taken a breath in several seconds. His lungs felt like they were filled with slowly expanding needles. He haltingly took a breath, relieving some of the pain in his chest, only to renew the monumental ache that filled his whole abdomen.

There was a shuffling he slowly became aware of, and he guessed it had been a full minute by the time he was aware of what was going on around him again. Buck now saw a piled dress on the ground. He had just begun to recognize it when a red boot stepped into view. The figure attached to the boot leaned down over him and whispered in his ear.

"Sorry, that one was meant for Ray," he knew the voice was Hattie's, "But you're not exactly un-deserving, are you?" There was an edge to it he'd not ever heard, as if a completely different person occupied her body. He turned to look at her and wondered if it was even the same body.

Hattie now wore a tight spandex suit, fire engine red, trimmed in a maroon, with a matching cape fluttering gently behind her. The suit covered her entire body, except for her neck, with a mask covering her nose & forehead, which dissappeared around her head into her silky raven hair. Every curve of her body was somehow simultaneously revealed, yet covered, and she looked as athletic & muscular as she did feminine.

If not for the intense pain in his groin, he'd probably have had an erection just from looking at her. His eyes drifted to the spot between her breasts, where an "MH" was emblazoned in silver.

Buck tried speaking again, but she put a finger to her lips.

"I've got a few things to do now - 'Buck' - but please make sure you take good care of Chloe." She turned and almost took a stride when a thought struck her, and she cocked her head at him. "One more thing -" and she kicked him again, squarely in his chest. This time, the pain he felt wasn't so bad, but the plastic crunch told him his tape recorder had shattered.

"You can quote me on that,'Buck'," then she turned and strode away. He moved to a sitting position to see where she went, trying to follow the sound of her footsteps, but none came. He carefully stood up, looking around as best he could, but she was gone.

Well, Buck though to himself, at least I know there's something worse than the end of the world. He hobbled away to find some ice.

[Jos]

The problem is that since Chloe is so dull and unlikable that it's hard for me to feel happy or worried for her.

Oh come on, Chloe's the only one in the book so far who's basically said that this God who took people away and is now going to plunge the world into blood is a complete and utter dick.

So I think she deserves some credit for that. Especially since Rayford did not manage to come up with a satisfactory rebuttal.

[daniel]

Why are you wearing that stupid human suit?

[Vermic]

@Robb: your Meta-Hattie is the awesomest person ever.

Meta-Hattie!
Meta-Hattie!

All the world is waiting for you
And the sass that you possess
Serving drinks on flights
Fighting for your rights
No author tells you what to doooooo-ooooo...

Meta-Hattie!
Meta-Hattie!
She's both smart and catty, Meta-Hattie!

[Bethany]

My immediate thought upon reading the first few lines was that Rayford had slipped something into Buck's drink.

Which would explain how Buck has sat quietly through Rayford's two-hour lecture on the Antichrist...

[Robb]

Chloe's the only one in the book so far who's basically said that this God who took people away and is now going to plunge the world into blood is a complete and utter dick.

So I think she deserves some credit for that.

True, but she's still the flattest, least described character. And given the rest of the two dimentional flakes L&J have foisted upon us, that's saying something.

[Johnny Pez]

I have thunk of another Right Behind plot. It involves Buck and Rayford doing a lot of puking.

It's been done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zw3XHJR5k

[Vermic]

Line dancing.

Yes! This was the exact image I got when I read the "moseying" line. The four characters side by side, with their dancin' boots on and their thumbs tucked into their jeans. There is no reason these characters would be moseying at this point, but that's what makes it so great. One minute they're sitting at a table, weeping about the Antichrist, then suddenly they're all doing the Boot Scootin' Boogie in the restaurant lobby. Priceless.

[Drak Pope]

So I think she deserves some credit for that. Especially since Rayford did not manage to come up with a satisfactory rebuttal.

All of the major characters have at least one moment when they act almost like real people instead of overly-programmed robots. That doesn't make them interesting, nice, lovable, warm, well-written, or deserving of any of the affection and genuine sympathy that well-written characters evoke in a reader. I do admit though that I smiled a bit when Carpathia chops off her head. It's a darn shame that the same thing didn't happen to Rayford.

[J]

Buck's spiritual crisis might be easier to understand if the authors ever actually let us hear what it was in Rayford speech that gave him chills. Then again, knowing what we know about the authors and about their decidedly uninspiring prophecy checklist, that might make Buck's spiritual sweatiness harder to understand.

I rarely watch broadcast television anymore, but sometimes, when I'm waiting for something else to happen (i.e. wife to get home so we can go out, microwave to finish zapping leftovers, etc.) I'll turn on one of the Christian channels but leave the sound off.

It's an interesting experience because it completely deflates these guys. If you had doubts about whether or not Rick Warren is a blithering idiot they will be swept away once you watch him standing at a podium and gesturing in total silence. Suddenly you realize how completely affected it all is--the whole-arm movements, the bullet-point-indicating gestures. He may be a master of salemanship but he is not keyed into the secrets of a good life or the identity of the creator.

[J]

Oh and I forgot to mention the smile; On every evangie's face, there's that smile. No matter how appalling or loopy the thing he or she is saying, there's That Smile. It's beyond merely "shit eating". It's "one of those mind-controlling ear worms from Star Trek II is inside my head".

[aunursa]

"I never forget a face. Mister... Chekov. Isn't it?"

[Ian]

Jenkins still seems to think that a reporter's tape recorder is some kind of giant reel-to-reel machine with a detachable microphone

In my imagination "the machine" is an Edison style phonograph which records sound on a rotating wax cylinder. Also, much as I like Robb's Super-Meta-Hattie, I pictured Hattie moseying along wearing a poncho, sombrero and bandoleers of ammunition, muttering "I don't need no stinking epiphany" to herself, swigging rotgut from a hip flask all the while.

[Funkula]

Great post. Is it just me, or is Fred angrier than usual this week?

[Drak Pope]

Funkula -- he's been reading this piece of shit book in painstaking detail for five years. A bit of anger should not be unexpected. I know that if I found myself spending my Fridays talking about fucking Left Behind I'd be twitching and drooling on the floor in a fit of combined disbelief and apoplectic rage.

[Mau de Katt]

Nothing like that seems to be happening here for Buck, who seems to be experiencing flu-like symptoms. The authors want us to interpret this scene as the working of the Holy Spirit through Rayford. It comes across more as the working of salmonella through, perhaps, the chicken.

No no no....

It was... "the salmon mousse!"

[Nate Winchester]

Man... part of me enjoys this page by page picking, but part of me wishes you'd just hit the book as a whole, knocking only the highlight so you can rip apart the whole series before Jesus really does show back up.

Kate: "Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany." Angel: "I keep saying that, but nobody's listening."

Major props for quoting one of my favorite punchlines of that series ever. BTW, you forgot to link to TV tropes again.
Epiphany Therapy

Again, consider how strange this is in the best-selling "Christian novel" of the last two decades. Not, "Jesus and all," or "Jesus' return and all," or even "God's righteous wrath (and our righteous schadenfreude) and all." The Antichrist and all.

Oi! Too true. Man, forget about these guys making me ashamed to be a Christian, they're making me ashamed for writing.

[mike timonin]

As a character in the book, Buck doubtlessly reads it in his spare time.

I'd love to see Jasper Fforde take on these books - the secret inner lives of characters in bad books...

[burgundy]

A few years ago, I spent a month scoring essays for the exit-level TAKS test (the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, which kids take every few years, and they have to pass the exit-level before they can graduate high school). I don't remember the specifics of the prompt, but it had to do with how one event can have lasting consequences, or something like that. There were several kids who wrote about being saved. Not as many as wrote horribly cliched stories about high school students who drink and drive (and then he was PARALYZED FOR LIFE!!!), but enough that it was a noticeable sub-group. One or two of these were pretty good, but for the most part they got dinged for stock, unimaginative writing. I think there are some subjects that are just harder to write about without resorting to cliche, and epiphany is one of them. You're taking an experience that does not lend itself well to language and trying to use language to describe it; if you're not remarkably talented with words, you'll fall flat.

LaJenkins... they are not so much with the talent.

[Bugmaster]

I don't think you can write about an epiphany in a short paragraph -- not if you wanted your writing to be effective, anyway. An epiphany is pretty much a life-altering experience; and, because of this, you need to show how the epiphany altered your characters' life. That's hard to do in just one paragraph.

Ellen Ullman's The Bug contains a good non-religious example; I'm sure there are others.

[jamoche]

Yeah - I'm not so much looking for a "and now he's changed!" moment, but a "and this is the point where he realises he needs to change!" moment, because nobody is going to believe the former - he's promised to do better too many times before. But the cool thing about a long-running RPG is that I can draw this out as long as it takes.

[SueW]

Why is Chloe crying?

Hattie must have just dumped her. It makes as much sense as any other explanation.

Honestly, the more I read this book, the more repulsive the male characters come off. No one shows the slightest concern for the women in this scene. I don't care how much the authors go on about how honest and sincere and erudite and wonderful Rayman is. You can't like the guy unless you have no soul to save.