Customer Reviews

The Devil and Daniel Silverman

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Be careful of picking up this book-- it might just make your head explode. Although it is a droll, well-paced farce there are passages that did indeed set my heart pounding. I can only recommend this book to you if you believe:

1) You have an open mind
2) Homosexuality is acceptable between consenting adults
3) Women should have control over their own bodies
4) Evolution is an incontrovertible, scientific theory
5) The Bible was written by men

If you are not comfortable with these ideas as well as the idea that men and women should lead joyful, spirited lives filled with compassion with others, then I am afraid this book will disturb and anger you. As for me, it is good to know that I am not the only secular humanist left in this country.

In Mr. Roszak's book there is no question who the good guy is, and there is no moral confusion to challenge the reader. He sets up a series of reprehensible, cardboard characters and smacks them about with sarcastic glee.

However, that's okay. In fact, that's more than okay, it's necessary. We "liberals" spend too much time worrying about the gray areas in between. Sometimes a person has to simply react, and this book is clearly Mr. Roszak's visceral reaction to religious intolerance. Bravo, I say. Many on the right revel in savaging straw men, there's nothing wrong with giving it back to them now and again.

I found this book fun much the same way "Ditto Heads" find Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly fun. It offered me a few hours of unadulterated fascist bashing unburdened by an opposing viewpoint. I didn't come away from it with a more nuanced view of the various sides of the "culture war." Rather, I got some laughs and, I'll admit, a few moments of smug satisfaction. Like chocolate, it can't be your main source of sustenance, but it's a nice treat every now and then.

Having lived on both coasts and in the upper Midwest, my view of this novel was from understanding the blinders both groups walk around with in viewing their realities. Roszak captured them perfectly. While Publishers Weakly is correct in their viewing "broad, predictable sendups of the American religious right," they fail to understand that such predictable tensions are really critiques of the elitist left humanist, the ones finding it necessary to feel morally and ethically superior to those narrow-minded Midwesterners. If that was not the case then why, at one point in his defense of humanism, does Silverman question his own motive to proselytize, knowing his stated belief in accepting others and their points of view in a multi-valued society?

No, this book is a gem, both in humor and in social thought. What Thomas Kuhn calls normal science and Foucault calls normalizing, Roszak captures in the somewhat cowardly thoughts of Daniel Silverman. Only in the courage Silverman shows in drawing context [or, should I say, a grammar of motives] does the paradigm shift and take on what Kenneth Burke would call the comedy of life.

It can be read on both levels and I enjoyed it on both levels, the metaphysical and the social satire.

I vaguely remember seeing one novel, "Pontifex," a long time ago, but I've only known Theodore Roszak as a non-fiction author, from "The Making of A Counter Culture" and "Where the Wasteland Ends" to "Ecopsychology" and "America, the Wise." I didn't know he'd been writing novels all along, and this is his fifth. Judging by its merits, I've been missing something.

The subtitle/blurb is "A Wickedly Funny Novel about an Outraged Liberal Trapped in a Fundamentalist Bible College." So in this "high concept" (which is mogolspeak for "obvious cliché") era in which the trailer is the movie, I'm expecting a lot of fish-out-of-water scenes. This novel is a lot better than that. Daniel Silverman (who is gay as well as Jewish and liberal) is a more subtle character, more individualized, who finds himself forced to confront some transcendent issues, even if he'd rather not. Without spoiling the story, I can say I was impressed by how he changes within the main action (though to become more of himself, so to speak) which is itself not as predictable as the title and blurb led me to believe.

This is the kind of contemporary novel that should be part of our popular fiction today. It deals conscientiously with important social issues but it's full of humanity and it's very entertaining, with elements of suspense, humor, and refreshly honest intellectual debate.

Sure, there's enough irony and puckish literary allusion for David Lodge fans, maybe even for devotees of Delmore Schwartz. But even the fundamentalist characters have dimension, life and a weird sort of sympathy. The all-too typical bicoastal portrait of the frozen and hearty Midwest, and all those tall, toothy folks who actually say, "you betcha," yields after the first pages to a more nuanced though no less paranoid portrayal. It's just that the paranoia gets more and more justified, even as the characters get more and more human. The exegesis of fundamentalist beliefs is thorough and thoroughly frightening, but Silverman's suppression of hysteria for an anthropological analytical calm is both effective in engaging these doctrines, and funny in a spooky, edgy way, so as readers we may find ourselves freaked by our own suppressed hysteria.

A couple of Roszak's previous novels have been opted for film and you can see why---even in this era when it's extremely hard to get a good script made, especially if it's about contemporary American reality not involving serial killers, his writing is cinema-sympathetic. And in this novel there's a terrific central scene that plays awfully well in the cinema of the mind.

Anyway, there should be more novels like this one, and this one should be read. Now I am going to read previous Roszak novels? You betcha.

The Devil and Daniel Silverman is a fun read, and not meant to be taken seriously. Yes, of course it's implausible that a Jewish humanist would be invited to speak at an ultra-conservative Bible college, but if you read the book all the way through, you'll find out the real reason he was invited. Though the plot does contain other impossibilities, the main reason this book is a worthy read is because it couples light-hearted humor at the expense of bigots with a deeper historical and theological understanding of the motivations behind the Holocaust-denying bloodthirsty homophobes Silverman finds himself trapped with. In the end, the book will make you smile.

A "bigot" is defined as one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

Then there are the uber-bigots.

And there are the faculty and staff of author Theodore Roszak's fictional Faith College, a small "liberal arts" college located on the northern border of Minnesota (motto: "Excellence in All its Diverse Glory"), and supported in large part by the Free Reformed Evangelical Brethren in Christ Synod of North America.

Daniel Silverman, a "Jewish humanist" and novelist living with his partner in San Francisco, is invited to give the inaugural lecture of Faith College's new religious humanism program. This isn't Silverman's preference, who really is mystified why he, in particular, was invited (his novels, measured in both quality reviews and sales, have been going south for years). But the speaking fee and perks ($12,000 up front, with first class plane tickets), is a godsend for Silverman and his partner, Marty (yes, pun intended). He'll be missing New Year Eve celebrations with Marty, but the money is so good. "It's in and out," Silverman reasoned. Marty doesn't have high hopes. "But you will bring me back a souvenir, won't you honey? I'll bet there's a nifty gifty shoppe that sells these charming little mementos of Gypsum Hump."

Silverman never gets the opportunity to even THINK about selecting a souvenir, gypsum or otherwise.

Silverman is a bit more than a Jewish humanist and novelist. He's a gay man living in a long-term, monogamous relationship, in Sin City, with the traditional liberal attitudes toward abortion, gender relationships, the Holocaust, evolution, and education.

And, contrary to Silverman's initial plans, the students and faculty of Faith College get both barrels of Silverman's worldviews during his lecture. What does he care about their unease? For Silverman, "It's in and out." Except...

A mother of a storm traps Silverman at Faith College, and the remainder of the book is really about his pleas and attempts to escape, and the fixation of the faculty and students on his sexual orientation. It goes from being pitiful to dangerous, very fast. And when you read the real reason he was invited...

Roszak doesn't attempt to be "fair" to the various issues raised in The Devil and Daniel Silverman. This is Faith College through the lenses of that Jewish humanist.

"Of course most of the people he knew - those who weren't Jews - were probably some kind of nominal Christian. Or so he assumed. He never asked, and they never told, but Christianity was the country's default religion, wasn't it?" (p. 71).

"He had learned during his early years of travel that nine out of ten people he met on the road regarded his visit as an opportunity for them to talk, not him. They had hired a listener, not a speaker. So he did have the choice of laying back and letting his hosts hold forth. Any little question would do to elicit a disquisition on their project" (p; 94).

[Regarding the lesson from Sodom and Gomorrah] "Silverman felt his anger rising, but quickly backed off. What was there to argue about here, after all? Some lurid piece of mythology that probably never happened? Women turning to salt, cities destroyed by fire and brimstone. Arguing about such things was like arguing about Jack and the Beanstalk" (p. 181).

"He was touring the inside of an alien intelligence" (p. 188).

The ending surprised me. Roszak's ability to connect all the dots in this story was really a plus. I enjoyed the "philosophical discussions" throughout, and the growth of Silverman's apprehension, as well as the hidden support he received from some sources.

I'm going to pass on my copy of The Devil and Daniel Silverman to a religious studies faculty member, who I predict will find it more interesting than any faculty member of, say, Faith University.

The Devil and Daniel Silverman by Theodore Roszak is truly disappointing. It takes the enticing premise of putting an unabashed liberal trapped by weather with a group of hard core conservatives in a rural backwater college and proceeds to efficiently kill off any elements of intrigue and interest in no time flat.

The big problem is the characters-the problem being that there aren't any. All that fills these pages are unpersuasive caricatures. There is not a scintilla of genuineness hovering about anyone in this book.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the college is question is drawn not so much as a college as a cult lacking any sort of believability.

This is doubly disappointing as Roszak has a fairly engaging wiring voice and a nice ear for dialog. Unfortunately, given that none of his "characters" really has anything remotely interesting to say, the latter skill is pretty much wasted here.

I really liked the premise of this book and the come-on description on the back of the book caught my fancy-I wanted to really like this effort. In the end, it was all I could do to finish it. I didn't even bother to ditch it by giving it to the local library-I simply threw it into the recycling bin for the garbage men to pick up.

Give this one a pass.

I agree with most of the editorial reviews for this book. One would expect soem social commentary -- even a lot -- but this book just wasn't that interesting. I thought the farsical parts of the book actually outweighed the more "serious" parts.

A decent read, although not a light one.

After reading a review in the L.A. Times and the Publishers review, my first question would be in regard to plausibility: why would a christian college invite a secular humanist to lecture at their college?