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Heart of a Pagan

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I, like many others, have been eagerly awaiting the publication of Andrew Bernstein's novel "Heart of a Pagan," ever since the first 3 chapters appeared in the "Atlantean Press Review" in 1992-1994. Dr. Bernstein has a well-deserved reputation as a brilliant lecturer and educator, and he raised great expectations with his story of a free-spirited sports superstar who descends upon a backward college town in Iowa with the boast that he will take their team of losers to the top.

Those chapters were written so vividly that even I, who am totally bored by sports, found both story and characters fascinating. True, there were a couple of warning signs that all might not be well: some of the dialog was stilted, and at least one of the characterizations (that of Kathy, the love interest) was unclear. But the figures of basketball superstar Swoop and the crippled team trainer Duggan were so incisively drawn as to be unforgettable.

But now that the entire novel has been published, I am bitterly disappointed to see what Dr. Bernstein has done with his original idea. He has sabotaged his opening chapter. Gone are the vivid characterizations. Gone is most of the excitement and adventure. For some reason, he has cut fully a dozen pages of beautifully-dramatized interaction between Swoop and the other team members, in which he developed their characters and created a sense of expectation. Where he once dramatized, he now narrates-in a hurry to get to what appears to be his real interest: preaching to the reader.

The irony is that Dr. Bernstein, the individualist, has neglected his characters as individuals. He has replaced his incisively fleshed-out portraits with cardboard figures, going through their paces in a pre-ordained morality play. The result is almost unrelieved dreariness.

So much has the emphasis changed that when Duggan, the crippled narrator, overcomes his handicap and becomes a jock with rippling muscles under Swoop's tutelage, the other characters hardly even notice! (If they were individuals in a real story, you'd think they would notice, wouldn't they?) They are too busy with religious, economic, political and cultural issues.

Added to that, is an almost unrelieved heavy-handedness, an amateurish lack of subtlety. This is astonishing, in a writer otherwise so intelligent and talented as Dr. Bernstein.

True, we (the better of us) do want to read about heroes, and be inspired by them. But does Swoop really have to organize a Society of Heroes who meet in Sunday morning worship services while Swoop (believe it or not) actually prays to the sun god?

When Christian fundamentalists burn a cross at one of his meetings, Swoop's followers burn a basketball in front of a Christian church. Dr. Bernstein has tacked on to his story not one but two prologues, telling the reader that there are conflicting versions of the sacred and of heroism (as though his story itself was not sufficient illustration of that), and that shadow once lay over the land; and two epilogues, telling the reader that the shadow was lifted and things were never the same again. The villain is named Judas. (Judas. Get it?) The chapter titles are as subtle as a sledge-hammer: "The Spirit ... and the Flesh," "The Pilgrimage," "The Crucifixion" (the chapter in which the hero is crippled. Get it?), "The Resurrection," "The Genesis," "The Second Coming," "The Armageddon," "The Redemption."

I'm sure Dr. Bernstein is aware, on an academic level, of the principle that a story's plot must not be overloaded with ideas it was not constructed to hold-or it will collapse into preachiness. Putting that principle into practice, is where he's fallen down. Perhaps it would help to look at Ayn Rand's classic novel of ideas "The Fountainhead," a book both Dr. Bernstein and I revere. What would he think if Ayn Rand had taken her story of an individualistic architect's struggle against society-and cut out most of the characterization? What if she had scrapped half of that stuff about architecture, and in its place had Roark organize a Society of Individualists who met in Sunday morning worship services to pray to the sun god? What if she tacked onto her plot (as Dr. Bernstein does) the issues of abortion clinics, and censorship in schools, and Sunday blue laws? What if she had Roark burn a t-square on the lawn of a housing project?

Dr. Bernstein's story cannot sustain the weight he wants it to carry. It is a basketball story-and a story about a free-thinker whose attitude, if applied to every area of life, would indeed have far-reaching repercussions. But it's not his job to belabor every application of that attitude, and try to drum it into his readers-at least, not in a novel-needed as that message may be in a world where presidents worship sacrifice and think it's inspiring to have everyone work in a soup kitchen. We should not confuse the roles of fiction and non-fiction.

The irony is that Dr. Bernstein would inspire many more readers if he kept the focus squarely on his characters-treating them as individuals, as he did in the earlier version of his book-and on basketball.

I urge everyone who wants to read a good story, to seek out the original version of "Heart of a Pagan" in the "Atlantean Press Review." And I urge Dr. Bernstein, with respect, to give us back the Swoop and Duggan of the earlier version. He could be a great story-teller-if he made story-telling his focus.

This is the kind of passion and exhilaration you'll get from reading Heart of a Pagan. I'm reading it for the second time and am enjoying it even more than the first.

For those who want to truly feel alive and healthy, maybe for the first time in your lives, read this book. For those who want to know what it means to make your value-pursuits a grand and sacred cause, read this book. For those who want to live with passionate physical and mental intensity, read this book. For those with no religion who desire a benevolent and spiritual approach to life, read this book. For those who need the courage to say "yes" to themselves everyday, to their dreams, values, and desires, well, you know what to do!

The pace of this book doesn't slow down. I knew little about basketball or kinesiology, so it's good that it's written clearly and was easy to understand. The juxtaposition of religious meaning is brilliant and very inspiring.

The narration is led by Digs, a crippled trainer for the basketball team, and carries us through his struggle to understand the worth of physical exercise and winning his one true love. Swoop, the hero of the novel, is relentless in creating a winning team. When those in the story want to crush him, he uses his intellect and cunning to overcome. The deeds and daring are very original.

The messages in the book are primarily driven by the plot. I was shown (through the experiences of Digs) rather than told. If this book is at all "preachy," I wish more books had the same great "sermon" in them - we need to hear it and be reminded more often!

Heart of a Pagan is a very exciting read. I read this in less than three days, and could barely put it down. You will read this and say to yourself, "Wow, I've been living a not-so-fulfilling life up until now. I shall run my life at full-throttle now and forever!". So don't just sit there and collect dust. Click that Buy button and go higher!

This is a postscript to what I wrote about this inspiring novel 6 months ago.

Since then, I've carried the image of Swoop and Digs aspiring for their values as I start a body building program at 48. After several months of intense effort, I already see good results and feel the benefits, quashing any notions I might have had about being "too old" to take on such a challenge.

Swoop is in my life in the form of the best ideas available on modern fitness integrated with the best ideas available in philosophy -- e.g., the ancient Greeks, the Renaissance, and, most of all, Objectivism, the moral philosophy of Ayn Rand.

My trainers arm me with the modern fitness knowledge, inspired by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenneger. I arm myself with the rest, loaded with a wealth of rational philosophic ideas, reveling in the opportunities to integrate my knowledge with the intense, reality loving principles of body building.

Thank you, Dr. Bernstein, for the inspiration that shines in Swoop.

*Heart of a Pagan* is not Ayn Rand's novel. It is not Victor Hugo's novel. It is not Mickey Spillane's novel. *Heart of a Pagan* is Andrew Bernstein's novel. If you have heard Dr. Bernstein lecture in his fields, philosophy and literature, you know he is a passionate valuer. That is the theme of the story, setting objectively high goals and taking action to achieve them, here on earth, in this life. The narrator, who is also one of the characters in the story, is a mental and physical cripple at the beginning of the story. As it progresses, he faces both handicaps (they are connected). He sets his goals, takes action, and pays a high price. The central character is a young man who pursues intellectual and physical goals with zeal. He reads Greek and loves playing basketball, always to win. As a student crusading in a small town, he aims to restore the "pagan" virtue of striving for excellence, despite opposition from the Christian community's on-going campaign for pity, humility, and self-denial. Beyond its vivid characters and accelerating plot, the novel's strong point is thematic integration. A few examples are: changing oneself and changing society too; seeking the physical and mental heights of one's capabilities; defining dreams and facing realities. When I received the novel a few weeks ago, because of a short-term personal need, I promised myself that I would read it slowly, savoring it day by day. By the third day, I had forgotten my promise. I read at full speed. This is Dr. Bernstein's first published novel. It is semi-serious fiction in that it deals explicitly with fundamental ideas, but in the manner of a philosophical swashbuckler. For some elements of style, it has rough edges and room for growth. However, in its essentials, it is superior to the stories of other contemporary writers such as pop-fiction writer Robert Parker, whose "Spenser" novels I have collected, read several times, and recommend for their sense of life, not always their ideas. *Heart of a Pagan* is Andrew Bernstein's novel. It shows his interlocked world of sports *and* philosophy, his exuberance, and his passionate pursuit of values. As myself the author of a nonfiction, intellectual adventure story, *The Aristotle Adventure: A Guide to the Greek, Arabic, and Latin Scholars Who Transmitted Aristotle's Logic to the Renaissance*, I know the personal value of writing and reading such stories. They sustain and inspire. For those benefits, in the category of first novels, *Heart of a Pagan* deserves five stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed Heart of a Pagan. It taught me that "religion" is valuable, where the object of worship is one's own highest potential, and enjoyment of life here on earth.

The contemporary setting of the plot was right-on: the struggle between religion and its anti-life, anti-pleasure, anti-success hair-shirt versus living as pleasure-seeking humans according to our own potentials. Religion, with all its ugliness, is trying to make a comeback in America (and the world). I enjoyed seeing Swoop challenge that orthodoxy in a very real, concrete and believable way set in an American small town.

Although I enjoyed seeing Christianity on the run, I mostly enjoyed seeing the positive ideal of a Greek hero in Swoop. Noble in body and soul, by living for himself, he lives for the best within all of us. That is an ideal I want to live up to, and feel more inspired to do so by this book.

Congratulations to Andrew Bernstein for an excellent first novel. I can't wait for the next one!

Heart of a Pagan is masterfully crafted story of a young man (Swoop) who, inspired by the pagan virtues that focus on personal excellence in both body and mind, sets out to lead a rural Midwestern college town's (Hoppo Valley) basketball team to a national basketball championship. Swoop has molded his body to physical perfection by studying the physiology of the human body. And he had become a superior high school basketball player by applying principles he has gleaned from the Greek Classics. Forgoing opportunities to play with any of the leading college teams, he sets his goal at propelling Hoppo Valley to the national championship. But in order to do this he must bring about a renaissance of glorifying excellence in accomplishment over pity at failure. Thus, the story develops as the conflicts inherent between Christian virtues and pagan virtues clash among the team's players and, also, among the religious factions of the town and those supporting Swoop. Just when it appears Swoop will achieve success, he suffers an injury diagnosed by the best sports medicine expert as putting an end to his basketball career.
But will he let that happen? Are humans capable of creating their own miracles? What does it take to defy the experts? Bernstein's answers to these questions are what make Heart of a Pagan a compelling story.

The theme is the greatness that is accessible to anyone who is willing to focus on his or her personal values and who refuses to be distracted by the unhealthy appeals to pity so typical of Christian morality. And this theme is developed by a plot that is a tightly bound integration of philosophical principles with basketball. The plot is action driven and I found myself unable to put the book down until the final pages. As its theme develops, one can't help but find the story to be an inspirational treasure. If you enjoy stories about heroes as much as I do, then Heart of a Pagan is a paean to the heroic that you don't want to miss.

Victor H. Miller
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Citrus College, Glendora, CA
Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Mt San Antonio College, Walnut, CA
Riverside Community College, Riverside, CA
Lecturer in Engineering Ethics
Cal Poly, Pomona, CA

As an expert on the works of the author Ayn Rand, for years Dr. Andrew Bernstein has been entertaining audiences with his heavy New York accent while discussing the ideas and values of the characters of Rand's novels in great detail. His understanding of the fundamentals of Rand's works was always excellent and his comments profound.

Unfortunately Dr. Bernstein's own work, Heart of A Pagan, doesn't quite meet the level of quality of his lectures. What Heart of A Pagan is, is an Ayn Rand-flavored story about how Swoop, a natural at basketball, goes to a small college in the American bible belt to attempt to turn its basketball team from a third-rater into a national championship winner. Most of the book focuses on the differences in attitude between Swoop and the other team members and administrators at the college. Swoop has the rational worldliness of a Greek God while the others have a small-minded, dogmatic, Christian-revivalist view of the world common in the rural American South and Midwest.

Naturally, it would be expected that these two extremely divergent world views would butt heads, and on this Bernstein doesn't disappoint. For having clearly defined goals to better himself that he pursues ruthlessly with absolutely no humility, Swoop is regularly abused, ostracized by the bible-belters, and even attacked physically so brutally during a game by the other team that he suffers a serious knee injury that would have ended the career of anyone else. But not Swoop - he has the dogged determination to play again, and come anything short of his own demise that's what he's going to do.

Unfortunately, where this book suffers most is in the character development of Swoop. Too often he comes off as a phantasmic archtype rather than as an actual person. For example, there is one scene where Swoop and his friend Duggan are climbing a church steeple to place a banner on top. Swoop basically climbs it with one hand, while holding the banner and helping Duggan with the other. I'm not sure if this can be done in real life; if so, I needed more detail in the story as to how. The book is too full of scenes like this, bringing Bernstein dangerously close to arbitrariness and making Swoop look less like the great-souled, yet still very realistic, characters of Ayn Rand such as John Galt, Howard Roark, and Dagny Taggart than he resembles Superman (which leads me to thinking, maybe Swoop's full name before his great-grandparents reached Ellis Island was 'Swooperman'?).

A major reason why Swoop appears as foggy as he does is because the story does not focus on any particular virtues of his character other than his persistence and productiveness at basketball. Objective virtues such as rationality, honesty, integrity, justice, independence, and pride are all swimming around in the back court, but they rarely if ever come out front and center in profound dialogue. Consequently Swoop's successes appear to result less from his character than they do from his natural ability, making this a story more about someone with a dry personality who is genetically good at basketball than about someone who succeeds as a result of the volitional decisions he makes in his life, and removing from it a lot of the character development that made Ayn Rand's novels like the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged so fascinating.

The book has other problems, particularly with the character development of the other heroes. While the book's bible-thumping villains seem real and believable, the heroes seem preachy and dogmatic at best and totally unsophisticated at worst, as if they aren't at home with (or don't even understand) their professed this-worldliness. For example, near the end of the story Swoop's friend Duggan talks about his plans with his girlfriend, giving away just too much information (use your imagination).

Having said that, however, there is much to like about Heart of A Pagan. The conflict between Swoop and his friends and the book's villains is engaging, and Bernstein certainly shows he has a well-developed understanding of justice because both the good and bad guys get what they give. The detailed narratives of the basketball matches are stimulating, giving the impression that Bernstein really loves basketball and had his heart in writing those passages.

Overall a pleasant read but don't go out of your way. If you're interested in Andrew Bernstein get instead his lectures on Ayn Rand's works, which are far better.

Heart of a Pagan by Dr. Andrew Bernstein is an excellent novel that portrays the best hero literature has seen since John Galt. His name is Swoop and he is a college basketball player and revolutionary thinker from New York City. Instead of turning on its ear the rural town of Hoppo Valley, Iowa, he decides to "stand it upright."
In a clear contrast between those who combine faith and force as compared to reason and freedom, it is relavent to the problems of today's world.
"Inspiration is what I do," proclaims Swoop. He inspires a cripple to run fast, a basketball team to reach its potential, and a small town to glorify their own achievements. In all these cases hard work and thinking, not prayers, lead to success.
This book is perfect for the athlete who wants to think and the intellectual who wants more control over his body.
You will be drawn in from the first chapter onward.

There is a distinct joy in interacting with the world - in thinking and acting. It's why we fall in love with basketball, architecture, gymnastics, programming or any other life-pursuit. It's a purely selfish pleasure. We get it from the knowledge of our own power to achieve something, to make something of ourselves by working our minds and bodies, by applying them to whatever undertaking.

We don't do it for God. We don't do it for others. It doesn't lift our spirits when we see people achieving things because their achievements are sacrifices. We do it for the best within us. We do it to make it real. We love it in others because they make it real, because that is the proof - yes, it can be done. We *can* achieve the best within us.

Swoop, the hero of Andrew Bernstein's _Heart of a Pagan_, is bent on making it a reality. And he's going to bring his reverence for life and achievement to Hoppo Valley. He'll give them a hero and a hero's spirit. Every last man-hating original-sin-toting bible-thumping medieval fool be damned.

"It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own." -Ayn Rand, _We, the Living_.

To start with, the book has flaws, such as too much narration instead of dramatization, as well as others.
But these are minor compared to the book's strong points. I grew up in Dallas, the daughter of a man who was fanatical about the Cowboys, and I don't even like sports, but this book transcends that. Swoop is much more than an athlete; he is a man on a mission who experiences profound meaning in life. He inspires the narrator, the members of the Swoop Troop and, ultimately, the reader.
I have an M.A. in Literature, am a former high school English teacher, and a lover of Ayn Rand's novels, but reading this book made me appreciate fully for the first time my lack of physical fitness. I am exercising now, developing my body, as well as my mind, just like Digs and Swoop.
Swoop's intoxiaction with life is exhilarating. It makes you realize how much is possible to human beings. It makes me wish I were still teaching English, because this is a book that could reach students and change their lives.
I would give it 4 1/2 stars if that were an option, reserving 5 stars only for Ayn Rand, Hugo, Dostoyevsky and the elite writers. This is a book you should read immediately and savor perpetually. Its combination of riveting story and positive theme makes it unique among contemporary novels.