{"id":12023,"date":"2012-01-29T15:46:27","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T20:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=12023"},"modified":"2012-01-29T15:46:27","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T20:46:27","slug":"christopher-a-novel-by-david-athey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2012\/01\/christopher-a-novel-by-david-athey\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher a novel by David Athey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Three years ago I received the first novel by David Athey, Danny Gospel a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2008\/04\/danny-gospel\/\" target=\"_blank\">novel I thoroughly enjoyed<\/a>. \u00a0His new novel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1933184825\/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=thecurjes-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=1933184825\">Christopher<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thecurjes-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=1933184825\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><br \/>\n explores some similar themes, but not a repeat in any way.<\/p>\n<p>The story follows Christopher starting at the age of eleven. \u00a0Christopher is a lover of nature and does more than to stop to smell the roses, but to really look at a rose. \u00a0His parents are a sort of hold out from the sixties with his mother being into alternative therapies and vegetarianism. \u00a0Christopher comes to meet a young girl from a Catholic family whose Catholicism is quite fervent.<\/p>\n<p>This basic plot sounds like \u00a0a setup of sort with a critique of the sixties and what will obviously happen with Christopher contact with this Catholic family. \u00a0Though this is not how this story really plays out at all and transcends a setup plot to be something much more fulfilling. \u00a0The story really kept me guessing and invested into it. Christopher is sort of haunted by contact with a series of Catholic girls in his young adult life and struggles between seeing the theological reality of something and seeing himself in that theological reality himself. \u00a0His introduction to stories on Grail Knights spark his imagination, and while the novel refers to him as a young knight, he is not a young knight without struggles or temptations. \u00a0The novel is very frank about these struggles which go beyond silly teenage angst but speak more of the human condition and specifically the struggle towards manhood.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed the characters throughout the novel and Christopher&#8217;s parents are not simple stereotypes, but fully fleshed characters that contribute to the story. \u00a0A well told novel that while having a good amount of Catholic red meat in it is enjoyable on several levels.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=thecurjes-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=1933184825&#038;ref=qf_sp_asin_til&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;m=amazon&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three years ago I received the first novel by David Athey, Danny Gospel a novel I thoroughly enjoyed. \u00a0His new novel Christopher explores some similar themes, but not a repeat&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12023"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12026,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023\/revisions\/12026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}