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Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At the end of Half a Life, Naipaul's previous novel, Willie, a young Indian in late 1950s London, travels to Africa. At the beginning of his new novel, Willie is in Berlin with his bossy sister, Sarojini. It is 18 years later. Revolution has uprooted Willie's African existence. Sarojini hooks him up with a guerrilla group in India, and Willie, always ready to be molded to some cause, returns to India. The guerrillas, Willie soon learns, are "absolute maniacs." But caught up, as ever, in the energy of others, Willie stays with them for seven years. He then surrenders and is tossed into the relative comfort of jail. When an old London friend (a lawyer named Roger) gets Willie's book of short stories republished, Willie's imprisonment becomes an embarrassment to the authorities. He is now seen as a forerunner of "postcolonial writing." He returns to London, where he alternates between making love to Perdita, Roger's wife, and looking for a job. One opens up on the staff of an architecture magazine funded by a rich banker (who is also cuckolding Roger). Willie's continual betweenness—a state that makes him, to the guerrillas, a man "who looks at home everywhere"—is the core theme of this novel, and the story is merely the shadow projected by that theme. Sometimes, especially toward the end of the book, as Willie's story becomes more suburban, there is a penumbral sketchiness to the incidents. At one point, Willie, remarking on the rich London set into which he has been flung, thinks: "These people here don't understand nullity." Naipaul does—he is a modern master of the multiple ironies of resentment, the claustrophobia of the margins. In a world in which terrorism continually haunts the headlines, Naipaul's work is indispensable.
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From
Half A Life (2001) might have been better been left without this sequel, which ruffles reviewers’ feathers as only a grand old man of literature can. Though his trophy shelf holds a Nobel Prize, his past accomplishments buy him little sympathy. In fact, it’s often difficult to tell if critics are more put off by Magic Seeds or their appraisal of Willie Chandran as a mouthpiece for Naipaul’s politics. For an author whose greatest works have a heavy dose of autobiography, this reaction is not surprising, though it makes one wonder whether critics are reading the novel or dissecting the author. In the end, one hopes the unlikable characters, implausible plotting, and general fog of pessimism are what doom this book, not critical disappointment in Naipaul.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
23/01/2009
Dating Jesus demonstrates Campbell's unrivaled ability to use her personal experience to explore and and expose broader social issues, such as women's role in traditional Christian religions. While she writes of her experience as a fundamentalist, the struggles, themes, and disappointments will be familiar to so many women who have felt let down provoking and gutsy with enriching personal insights and humor. Dating Jesus will get you thinking about your relationship with religion: it has already profoundly affected mine. Thank you Susan!
18/01/2009
Dating Jesus is memoir of growing up as a girl in a fundamentalist Christian church. Susan Campbell was radically involved with her church - teaching youth groups, organizing buses to worship services, "knocking doors." But she runs into increasing difficulty of finding an acceptable place of her own within the church; as a woman, many positions are simply not open to her. The book chronicles her growing frustration that "if all believers are urged to stay on the straight and narrow, there seems to be an especially narrow road built for women."
Despite this, the tone of the book is never bitter or mean-spirited (as many recent publications about fundamentalist Christians have been). Campbell recounts her experiences and growth both with respect and an easy humor. And it's clear how much thought she has put into her faith - how well she knows her way around the Bible and around its rhetoric. As a feminist Christian, I really appreciated Dating Jesus. Not because it offers a solution to reconciling feminism with faith (if there is one), but because it adds a meaningful perspective to the discussion, going back to the Bible to discuss how women were treated and should be treated in the church. A very thoughtful and well-written book
04/01/2009
I, too, emerged from a Midwest Fundamentalist upbringing---although more urban than that of Susan Campbell. I thought the primary thrust of her book would indicate great overlap with my roots. As I read her fine book, I found that not to be the case.
I learned from her book that a female raised in Fundamentalism has a DOUBLE DOSE of rules and regulations. Males raised in Fundamentalism still have the advantage of MALE PREROGATIVE. I believe that this male prerogative makes it easier for some males to break out of Fundamentalism---yet there are many males who wish to stay within Fundamentalism in order to benefit from male domination and male dominion.
I applaud Susan's ability to take a frank look at her Fundamentalist roots. She does so with mixed feelings. She wants to abandon much of that culture----yet at the same time she has a nostalgia for the close community and music from her Protestant Fundamentalism. I think her description of Fundamentalism as a sword that pierced her---with a broken piece of that sword still residing within her---will resonate with many who have a Fundamentalist background.
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