Madman - a review
Every now and again, I read a book that makes me sit up and go "Wow!" Madman by Tracy Groot is such a book.
In my sometimes despairing search for a well-written Christian book, I was told to read Groot. Seldom have I received better advice.
When I read a book, I plunge right in, reading uncritically and eagerly. Bad writing jerks me out of my happy abandon and I start getting grumpy. If it's really bad, I give up. (I'm still trying to persuade myself to pick up The DaVinci Code again, but so far it's not working.) In the case of Madman, I surfaced for air after a couple of chapters with a startled feeling of well-being thinking, "Did that ever slide down nicely!" Sort of like the reaction you'd have when walking into an unknown Mom-and-Pop restaurant and finding yourself eating a gourmet meal that could make a food columnist weep.
Groot's clear, elegant prose goes down like a particularly good cup of premium-blend coffee, rich and satisfying, but not at all precious. The story, with all its potential for melodrama and bathos, is told with restraint and compassion, despite the presence of many elements common to thrillers and horror stories. For this is the story of the madman of Gerasene, a demon-possessed man delivered by Jesus at the cost of a herd of pigs. It is told from the viewpoint of Tallis, an Athenian playwright, philosopher and servant of a philosopher, sent to investigate what has happened to a satellite academy set up by his master. Upon finding out that it has mysteriously dissolved and that one of the teachers is now a madman roaming the tombs of the Decapolis, he feels compelled to try and help. Groot handles the story with deft skill, making this a very difficult book to put down.
Elegance of style, sophistication of thought, and a rip-roaring good story. It doesn't get any better than that.
Well, actually, it does. It also has one of the best covers I have seen on a book in a long, long time.
Five stars for this one. Take a good look. I don't hand out five very often.
Paperback: 320 pages, Publisher: Moody Publishers
Technorati tags: Madman, Tracy Groot, Fiction
2 comments:
The fact that you find The Da Vinci Code to be unreadable is a tribute to your good taste in prose. I've never made past a few pages because the writing isn't just poor but actively offensive.
The cover you show here is nice. It looks very much like (that is, almost identical to) the "Weeping Buddha" woodcarvings very common in Asia. The sculptures are almost round, usually about the size of a softball, and on inspection show a human figure in variations of the pose shown on the cover art. You can see one here:
http://www.natashascafe.com/html/buddha.html
but there are many variations, including the head-clutching variety that resembles the cover. They're kind of creepy, especially in stores that have fifty of them.
EW, I can imagine it would be creepy. I like this cover because it reflects both the content and the style of the book. It hints at deep and troubling emotions, but its power lies in understatement. Not that there aren't some pretty nasty things in the book - there pretty well has to be - but they are drawn sparingly with quick, skillful strokes, instead of with overwrought prose.
As for the DaVinci Code, I finished it with considerable difficulty. It irritated me on so many levels that it inspires me to impassioned rants at the drop of a hat. It has all the charm of a Macdonald's hamburger. You have to smother it in fixings to choke it down at all, and the meat is of suspect origin. It does prove that enough fat and salt will sell almost anything.
That is the shortest rant on the subject that I am capable of producing. I'll spare you the longer version.
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