At Patheos: NRA: Switching horses mid-apocalypse

Fred Clark has posted a new post, NRA: Switching horses mid-apocalypse, at Patheos.com.

This week Fred writes about pp. 1-4 of Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist

Excerpt:

In stories featuring intentionally flawed protagonists, we can read with the hope that these characters will eventually be redeemed. Even when, as in The Sopranos, the repeated rejection of such redemption is the central theme, such deliberately flawed characters help us to explore what the possibility of such redemption or growth might be like.

But here in this series, the authors do not allow for the possibility that Rayford and Buck might require any such redemption. In their minds, explicitly, these characters have already experienced all the redemption they will ever require. They’re not going to change. They’re not going to get any more likeable than they already are.

And where unlovely characters like Meursault, Raskolnikov, Winston Smith or Tony Soprano are never held up as role models, it seems that here the authors are constantly pointing to Rayford “That Guy” Steele and to the insufferable Buck Williams as ideals whom every reader ought to imitate.

[Fred Clark, NRA: Switching horses mid-apocalypse, May 25, 2012, posted at Patheos.com]


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Comments

[Firedrake]

I think that the core narrative problem - as opposed to the various moral problems - with these books is that the authorial collective is essentially uninterested in the unsaved, and really in anyone except the Designated Protagonists. In terms of style, we're stuck with what Buck and Rayford see, and to a large extent with their uncaring attitudes to the people around them.

If I were trying to tell this story, I'd be distinctly inclined to an approach similar to World War Z, with more viewpoints and those more widely separated. That way it doesn't matter if some of them are unsympathetic, and more of the disaster-porn can be shown on-camera.

I do regard this as completely separate from the moral problems in the story, especially the way the "Christians" go out of their way not to behave in a Christlike manner; the books could have been written much better, but would still have been morally repugnant. Given how popular they've been, perhaps we should be glad they weren't...

[hapax]

Speaking of the books' popularity, I've notice a gradual waning over the years.

Since we live in the buckle of the Bible Belt, as they say, these books have always been among our highest circulating titles -- as well as our most commonly donated items. We have them in all formats (regular print books, large type books, books on tape, books on CD, downloadables, downloadable audios, VHS, DVD)

Well, I no longer get copies of LB books in every single donation cart. Our bookstore has asked us to stop sending them, because they don't sell anymore. And just last week I weeded the audiotape versions, since they haven't gone out in two years.

I haven't had a single enquiry about the new editions, nor have I seen one come over my desk.

Which isn't to say that there aren't plenty of horrid books with dubious moral messages and execrable prose still in heavy demand.

But I think it's safe to say that L & J are ready to go hang out with Hal Lindsay and his ilk in the "No-Longer Kewl Kidz Korner."