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48 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
BRILLIANT WRITER MAKES ENORMOUS MISTAKE, May 30, 2002
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.
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by Edward Cline
by Edward Cline
by Edward Cline
by Edward Cline
by Edward Cline
