And I Almost Didn’t Read It…
Posted by Vanity of Vanities! on October 27, 2009
When I heard about the new book chosen for my book club, I did what anyone with an internet connection would do; I Googled. I had never heard of it, so I typed in, “loving frank nancy horan.” I must say, I was not terribly impressed with the subject matter.
I doubted whether I should spend the $14.00 as I swiped my card at Barnes and Noble. (No time to order cheaper.) I read the first thirty pages, and I was disgusted.
You see, Loving Frank is a novel built around a real-life situation that simply pisses me off. Long story short, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright left his wife and children for a client’s wife, who also left her husband and children. The beginning of the book is all about their unfolding love story, complete with sickeningly-sweet nothings and secret, illicit meetings (although, they were not graphic). Call me naive, call me inexperienced, call me whatever you like, but I have zero tolerance for marital infidelity. Of course, the involvement of children made it that much worse. The fact that it was based on a true story made it nearly unbearable.
I wrote on my Facebook page that I would give it another 30 pages before trashing it… and then, I couldn’t put it down. I can’t really explain it, but I slowly realized that the author was not trying to make me like the mistress or pity her situation. The author wasn’t taking sides; she was simply telling the story of a horribly mistaken woman and a tragically flawed man. And it was as compelling as it was infuriating.
My final conclusion is that it was an incredibly well-written novel. If that’s what you’re looking for, and if you can make it past the beginning, I doubt you’ll regret it. For all my fighting, I sure don’t.
*If you think you might like to read the book, please don’t look on Wikipedia or elsewhere for the biography of any of the characters. It’ll ruin the ending of the novel. Just check after you read the book to confirm, “Oh my goodness! It’s true!” like I did.
shannon said
Never judge a book by the cover.
Or the first few pages.
hehe
Nick said
My tolerance level on that is zero as well. I’ve been trying to see the gospel in all things now – though it is quite hard. I almost always want to say, “That’s wrong! I’m not supporting this!” But if I actually start to look deeper into a book, movie, song etc – I see how bad Christ is needed to repair this flawed world.
I watched a movie called Sunshine Cleaning the other day, and tried to think about what brought the characters to the situations they were in. What fueled the choices they were making. It was also great to see them choose to do things they thought were right (the law is written on our hearts regardless of our beliefs).
Examining the content of media in light of Christ has really shaken things up for me.
Vanity of Vanities! said
I agree. As long as it’s not pulling you away from Christ or tempting you, there are a variety of “secular” creations that can actually increase your love for Christ and your compassion for other people.
City of Thieves « Vanity of Vanities! said
[...] by Vanity of Vanities! on November 30, 2009 You may remember that I recently reviewed a book that I didn’t want to read. I still had mixed feelings about it in the end, but I concluded that it was quite well-written, [...]