The shack is a thing, in a place, where good and evil co-exist – if the reader wants to interpret it that way. Something happened at or around the shack – it could have been anything; but for whatever happened, a story wove through it and a set of conclusions to be deduced sat amongst the words of the story. Each conclusion involves or perhaps depends upon a reader’s approach to life, before life or after life, or ‘after-life’. A reader may decide not only to, reach a conclusion, but also to, not consider a (or any) conclusion(s)… Such is this novel: The Shack, a metaphysical novel.
The reader is invited in an abstruse or cryptic way to believe that the shack was real. After taking that large leap in logic in order to progress through the novel, the reader then has a choice of believing or accepting that the shack itself was inhabited or containing something metaphysical at the least.
At this point it would make sense to introduce the aphorism:
“Good and Evil are inextricably linked in a metaphysical battle across space and time.” *[see end note - 'JOB']
That will then allow the reader to be on two plains of either the empirically valid, and objective school; or, that of the subjective, emotional, and/or intuitive. I mention this because readers of the first school may decide at this point not to read the novel any further than where they are when the decision first comes to them. Personally, I think I sort of said to myself:
“OK, perhaps I’ll park my bias or disbelief and keep an open mind in order to allow in this story the growth of certain metaphors of which I see already open, or allegories yet needing a middle and an end – and see where it goes”.
I said something like that, I know, because I kept reading even when my eyes started to roll up and backwards out of their sockets.
Keep in mind this is a novel; it does not pretend to be anything else. It takes us wherever we want to go and leaves us to make choices in order to expand our thinking and cognizance.
I believe “The Shack”, the novel - hinges on our beliefs. This is to me a prime objective of the narrative; however it is not the objective of the novel overall – in my opinion.
We either believe in the metaphysical or we do not. We are face to face with the age-old philosophy where: Metaphysics has two main strands: “that which holds that what exists lies beyond experience (Plato), and that which holds that, objects of experience constitute the only reality (Kant)”. A reader could be missing the point if commencing the novel, or putting it down part way through (or even upon completion) muttering something about it being drivel or nonsense.
Of course it is… if that is what you want it to be. For heaven’s sake (no pun intended) God is drivel or nonsense if that is what we want God to be. On the other hand, Deities of the world, of all cultures, of recent history or antiquity, serve and have served a purpose; and have value, by bringing all people, who so desire, face to face with what they may call their soul, or with faith, or with any form of after-live, Heaven and hell or even by seeing the ‘other side’ as in another dimension.
This novel presents an opportunity for a reader to lapse into a metaphysical experience inside in a real, objective, Shack; or into a real, objective experience in a metaphysical Shack. The point is, it does not matter.
Is our Deity (if we have one) a woman or man? White, black or blue? Tall, midget or average six foot two? Pose these questions about our Trinity, Faith, Religious Leaders – the answers matter not. What matters is why do believe we have or need to have the metaphysically Platonic presences in our lives? I believe it is because symbolically when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit they were exposed to a feeling from which they had been protected at that time: guilt or shame. To fix a point in time where mankind had to be accountable for its own actions is not essential; however, stating it as the time of the apple-pinching-munching incident is as good as any. Up to that point there are those who believe that a Deity existed who had protected the two young 'buffs' from such emotions and feelings but post apple core-toss the protection was no longer afforded.
There are those who will have nothing of deities and all that hodge podgy and religious hocus pocus, multi-translated, revisionist type of beliefs. There still had to be a nexus in the life cycling of early mankind when the accountability for moral actions was assumed.
In the Shack, the protagonist, Mackenzie (Mac) faces a brutal reality that his daughter is dead and she died under his 'watch'. Like any parent in a similar situation, emotions set in and commence the insidious eating away of energy, time, caring for self, love for others close to him and compelling him to disown any moment as appropriately spent in anything other than guilt, victimization and blame. Mack can absorb the guilt by himself and within himself but if he is the victim – who is to blame? This is where the nadir of the story is reached and Mac comes crashing down, head first at torpedo speed into an immovable object of hard substance. The pain is overwhelming and having done it once he sees no option than to do it again and again until he suffers equal to or more than his daughter must have. Meanwhile as a strict Roman Catholic (nature of religion matters not – he is strictly religious and has been brought up, schooled and dogmatized by tenets of the Church that no longer reconcile with reality. The overarching question is 'why would God do this to my beautiful daughter?'
So who better to ask that question of? And the question is posed and the answer is given. Not once, not twice, but three times equal to the response of a Trinity if such a thing existed – which it did in the mind of Mac. Mac gained (hard earned win) a new perspective.
Mac may have learned that one cannot seek empirically valid, object conclusions to all questions. He may have learned that the subjective, emotional, and/or intuitive answer is not what he might have otherwise felt, now that he has a different framework or paradigm in which to search for answers. Mac did learn to understand that the narrow delimited interpretations of what happened, who was to blame, was there a victim, who was punishing, were all keeping him from seeing one important factor that was essential to his final resolutions on accepting the death of his daughter. That factor was that his other daughter was going through similar tribulations about her 'blame' for her sister's death. Mac and his wife had not been able to see what was in right in from of them because they were constrained by so much wrong feeling and emoting of their own. Mac found that he was doing in his world what his other daughter was doing in hers and he saw nothing of either world which was healthy or correct. If one believes in the Holy Trinity, it could be said that Mac or 'we' do not see what is right in front of us.
Mac brought faith into his world, faith that Aunt Jemima* was a God who could flip fortune pancakes where embedded words spoke volumes louder than the wailing inside of Mack after his daughter's death. For the reader, the challenge is there: does it matter if God is Buddha, Mohammed, Father of Jesus Christ, George Burns, or Aunt Jemima? As long as talking to that Deity will provide the opportunity to reframe and see anything as it could be rather than as it seems to be.
This is an excellent novel. I would challenge anyone who disagrees, to evaluate how much 'fear' they have in their lives. Fear of being ridiculed, made fun of, picked on… et-cetera. Allow your mind the flexibility to absorb all the metaphors and allegories told within and cast the imagination over the span of vast oceans of the unknown rather than limiting it to the small creek beds of common factual knowledge -- then you may find yourself free of a yoke that has keep you from being a free thinker. That is my opinion.
[end note JOB] *For those who did not notice the subtle irony: Jemima is the daughter of Job in the Bible and in Arabic her name means 'warmth'. This novel certainly does not pretend to hide the story of the Devil attempting to lure Job, although it is never mentioned directly; it is only hinted at through allegorical means.
