January selection: The Once & Future King, by T. H. White

We won't be meeting again until January 20, so that gives us plenty of time to read the 639 pages of T. H. White's classic Arthurian tale.

This is, according to The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, actually a "quartet of novels ... published in a single volume in 1958. The quartet comprises The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Queen of Air and Darkness -- first published as The Witch in the Wood (1939) -- The Ill-Made Knight (1940), and The Candle in the Wind (published in the composite volume, 1958). The series is a retelling of the Arthurian legend, from Arthur's birth to the end of his reign, and is based largely on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur." It was also the basis of the play, "Camelot." And, we're reminded by Wikipedia, the Disney animation, "The Sword in Stone." We get to read the real thing!

The Canopy, by Angela Hunt

While I didn't think the writing was particularly fine, it is a good story and we enjoyed a good discussion about it. The story takes you into the Peruvian rainforest and into the lives of natives and explorers. Sadly, most of the characters are not well developed, so other than providing background information, there's not much to say about anyone but the two main ones -- Alex and Michael.

Alex is a skreechy, high-strung woman, too intelligent for her own good. As Michael constantly ruminates about her, at least she's good to her daughter. To everyone else, she must be moodily enigmatic. He is strangely drawn to her.

Michael has been in South America for several years and hasn't bothered to learn the language. He's there on a part humanitarian, part personal quest -- to get over the loss of his wife. Up until the crisis point in the story, he hasn't seemed to integrate his Christianity with his medicine, but when the shaman asks him to give his tribe the Gospel, he steps up in a marvelous way.

I'm always wary of how this is going to get done. In many Christian novels, the author's fear of dogmatism or preachiness (or just plain ignorance) gets in the way and you're left with a fog of vague statements about God's love and our need of . . . something.

Angela Hunt does a fine job here. Not only was the Good News clear, but so was the Bad News. In the mouth of Michael, who doesn't seem to have given cross-cultural communication much thought prior to this point, it is a powerful and simply spoken revelation.

Of course, in a novel like this, (spoiler alert) you know the main characters are going to get together. The question here is, how will Alex the Agnostic come to agreement with Michael about Christianity? Will it be believable and biblical? This was the topic of much of our discussion, and I think we left a little up in the air on both points.

I guess we could say, if you suspend all critical judgment, it was believable. It fell out much the same way that The Shack handled disbelief. It was believable if that's what she experienced. There's no other way she would have accepted it. Okay. But it's only biblical in the sense that this is the kind of thing that happened when Jesus was around, healing and saving all in one motion. It's not what we would say was "normative" for all, for today. Okay.

And then there's the matter of this tree and total healing, and faith. It leaves one with the idea that healing is dependent on your degree of faith, and faith is in . . . what? Lots of questions.

So, we're left with a good story, interesting facts about plants and bugs in the rainforest, anthropological information about tribes in the jungle, and a wonderful moment when the tribe as a group accepts Michael's word. Fabulous. But still maybe not recommended for those without faith. I don't know.