Customer Reviews

The Unspeakable: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a novel about faith, friendship and forgiveness, compelling subjects all. I thought Calia was on to something in the early set up of The Unspeakable, for the first 50 pages or so make very taut reading. Pretty quickly, however, the two protagonists grow wearisome in their cat and mouse dialogue about their shared histories and the healings taking place in a parish that ministers largely to the deaf. Also, Calia cheats too often by withholding key bits of information, trying to make them more significant or surprising than they are. Sub-plots -- both in the present and the past -- abound, way too many for a novel barely 200 pages long, and many of them play out too patly and abruptly. Not sure I'd want either one of these guys for my priest. And why, I wondered throughout, is the Church's hierarchy so determined to discredit the faith-based healings that the mute Father Maybury seems to inspire?

For a much better rendering of the mysteries of faith and its effect on those who witness its workings, check out Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hanson.

Calia is a masterful wordsmith. Admittedly, however, this work is not meant for all (therefore may not become overly popular) Its profundity may not be picked up by readers who have not witnessed or experienced some of the internal conflicts and reconciliations presented through the characters of Marbury and Whitmore. Like Wagner's "Ring", I predict we'll find many subtle and interlacing themes, barely connectable by readers who look only for the obvious in writing, but there for those that don't, in future works by this writer.

The book deals with two priests, one (Marbury) who has become mute after an experience in a Pennsylvania snow storm, the other (Peter) sent to investigate reports of healing in Marbury's congregation.

I found the concept interesting and thought this could have been a great story, but was very disappointed. The possibility of doing something very interesting with signing and deaf culture was lost. Calia constantly allowed to us forget that Marbury was mute, or reminded us in clumsy fashion ('His voice trailed off, or rather his signs'). All the conversations were stilted and obvious. I wonder if Calia really has any experience with deafness.

The depictions of poverty were shallow. The writing was often self-conscious. But what I most found disappointing was that I felt no faith from either man. I have read books where the faith of the characters was evident. This was not one of them. If I am to believe that Marbury's experience in Pennsylvania changed him, Calia needed to make me believe that Marbury had a deep faith. I didn't.

with all the dribble out there, I read this book and it is a gem. It's well written, complex, and deals with faith and parable. I just checked amazon to see whether the author had written any more novels... sadly, he has not

A riveting and beautiful tale. The plot is engaging and compelling, but the way this novel explores the tension between spirituality and organized religion lifts it far beyond a good story. The imagery is rich and haunting. I read this book with no expectations and was well rewarded.

The book would make a good movie. It is the period of the Vietnam war and some of the resulting instabilities have affected the students at a Catholic seminary near Decorah, Iowa. An approximately eight year attempt by a priest, Marbury, to feed the hungry, house the homeless has left him on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Traveling in Pennsylvania he experiences a sort of epiphany, emerging without a voice, but with the power to heal. A church investigator, Peter Whitmore, a fellow seminarian twenty years earlier, undertakes an investigation for the Bishop. Marbury is about to be defrocked, it would seem.

The story concerns moral obtuseness and spiritual blessedness in a mix of past and future events in the parallel routes of the investigator and the investigated. The condition of muteness underlies the theme of indeterminancy comprising the plot.

I say reluctantly, because the ends of sections and paragraphs were so formulaic in their withholding of information that it got a little too predictable in style; nevertheless, the content was indeed always unexpected and interesting. I was drawn to this book when I heard a review of it on NPR mainly because of the topic of sign language. Unfortunately, however, the author lets you forget that the main character's friend is signing when they communicate, using the words 'he said' instead of 'he signed'. Not that I think this should be easy, I was just hoping for more description of the visualness of his words, or its affect, and not a constant translation into English. I am curious about what Calia's experience is with Deaf culture, the real 'owners' of sign language, and what drew him to create a mute character who signs. Overall, this book was of course a good read, but I was reluctant to recommend it to my boyfriend (a sign-language interpreter). Aside from the this, I found Calia's depictions to be wonderfully mysterious and very intriguing and was unable to put the book down.

I really want to write a good review for this book, but I cannot. I heard some very favorable talk about it and perhaps I expected too much.

The book is underdeveloped and reads like a first novel (maybe it is). There are some elements that would have been interesting to develop. One of the key protagonists -- Marbury -- has a secret in his past that could have been more developed in the context of his later role as a priest with a "special" talent. In both cases he's a kind of facilitator or conduit that operates against (or hidden from) authority. Marbury really acts most efficiently by choosing not to act (symbolized, I suppose, by his inability to speak). There's something about authority -- religious or otherwise -- that works this way, i.e., works best when it stands on the sideline. This personification of inactive, but effective, authority in Marbury's character could be more thoroughly developed in interesting ways -- I thought. Anyway, this is just one example that I'm afraid I'm not doing a very good job describing. Let's just say I thought the book lacked sufficient development to justify itself. I kept searching for the point.

You might want to try this novel. It's a quick read with hints of bigger and better things. In that way the book is good "food for thought," I suppose.