Theology after Reading: Christian Imagination and the Power of Fiction by Darren J. N. Middleton (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 317 Theology after Reading: Christian Imagination and the Power of Fiction. By Darren J. N. Middleton. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008. ISBN: 20080008640. Pp. x + 298. $49.95. As noted by Marilynne Robinson in The New York Times Book Review (December 25, 2011), when fiction alludes to the Bible, its references draw from "a well of special meaning ... that can make an obscure death a martyrdom and a gesture of forgiveness an act of grace" (1). The well Robinson refers to sustains fiction that attempts, in her phrase, "to put flesh on Scripture and doctrine, to test them by means of dramatic imagination" (10), as well as to fiction that does not directly explore theological matters. In either case, the sole criterion for access to this well is seriousness: when fiction is serious, it gestures toward mystery; it illuminates, on the page, Faulkner's conflict of the human heart; it leads us to engage with life rather than to seek escape from it. Darren Middleton's excellent new book, Theology after Reading: Christian Imagination and the Power ofFiction, examines five modern novels that meet this criterion of seriousness. None are overtly theological, yet because all examine the complexity of experience, all straddle the capacious, fertile ground upon which the aforementioned well of special meaning is built. The novels examined are, in order, Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, Toni Morrison's Sula, Nikos Kazantzaki's The Last Temptation ofChrist, Earl Lovelace's The Wine ofAstonishment, and Paul Thigpen's My Visit to Hell. As Middleton notes, these writers to varying degrees violate "the so-called permissible bounds of traditional Christian speculation:' and all have "once lived on the borderland between belief and unbelief" (2-3). This selection of writers is intentional, for Middleton's approach is to first examine the fiction on its own terms, and only then to examine how the fiction informs or speaks to theological issues. In this way,Middleton avoids the more common approach of seeing how the fiction does or does not conform to a systematic, formulaic theology. By drawing from the well of special meaning, these writers gesture toward mystery-an act that opens up rather than closes off, pressing beyond doctrinal boundaries about what can and cannot be said about life and God. In this way, Middleton says, "language and story offer theology a return to humility" (5), a sentiment that echoes contemporary critical theory in asserting our inability to attain absolute knowledge or to claim unmediated access to the world's facticity. Ultimately, the aim of Middleton's approach is to see how fiction and theology "come together and stimulate, perhaps even provoke, theological reflection" (6). For this is not secular textual analysis in disguise: the writers discussed here are part of what Middleton calls a "graced tradition:' writers who do not ignore historicity and contextuality, but who whose investigations are a "graced search for theological meaning" (3). 318 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE Each novel is examined in a separate chapter, one through five, and each chapter follows a similar format. First, Middleton provides general remarks about an aspect of the book pertaining to a specific theological issue. An overview of the theological issue is then provided, including discussion of figures or events relating to the author's investigation or life,as wellas to the issue. Then Middleton provides a theological reading of the novel, which is followed by a discussion about how the theological reading opens up questions pertaining to Christianity as a whole. Each chapter ends with a short conclusion, followed by references for further reading, as well as a list of pertinent websites. The book also contains extensive endnotes as well as a thorough bibliography. In the first chapter, examining Greene's The End of the Affair, Middleton explores the novel's focus on the existence and nature of God. The main character, Maurice Bendrix, struggles with, and is repulsed by, the shift from atheism to theism by the woman he is ending an affairwith, Sarah Miles. Ultimately, Bendrix is slowly"purified" by a God who, Bendrix feels,uses underhanded methods in order to bring him around. The God Bendrix conceptualizes is an ironic one...