The Rapture of Canaan

Rating:
Summary: Mother + child
Review: Ninah's life in the tiny spiritual community is one full of prayer, doctrine, and storyweaving with her grandmother. When she becomes pregnant by her step-nephew and prayer partner, things shift not only in her life, but also in the community itself. Her son Canaan is born, and heralded as the new messiah by some of the community due to his birth defect (his hands are joined). Ninah struggles to bring true joy to her own life, her son's life, and to bring peace and truth back to her community. Reynolds challenges rigid, blind spiritual indoctrination in her second novel, using her crisp and evocative style. I was reminded of Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent" because of the strong feminine spirituality present, as well as the questioning of blind faith. This is the most well-known of Reynolds's books, but I feel it's not her strongest.

Rating:
Summary: I WAS ENRAPTURED
Review: THIS BOOK IS,ALTHOUGH FICTIONAL, A GOOD LOOK AT WHAT LIFE IS LIKE IN A CULT/COMPOUND. IT IS SO HEART WRETCHING TO KNOW THWE CHARACTERS ARE IMPRSIONED BY HAVING FAITH IN A PREACHER WHO BRAINWASHES THEM INTO LIVING HIS WAY. NINAH'S WILL POWER IS ADMIRABLE AND HER OPPOSITION TO THE COMPOUND LIFESTYLE DISPLAYS HER STRENGHTH.---------A VERY GOOD BOOK---------

Rating:
Summary: Not bad!
Review: This one was definitley not my favorite- but it was written very well. Once in a while kinda put you to sleep, but other times it sucked you right into it. I would recommend reading it for the realization of how lucky we are to make our own decisions.

Rating:
Summary: Growing up amidst religious extremists....
Review: THE RAPTURE OF CANAAN revolves around a young teenage girl, Ninah Huff and her life in the "compounds" of the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind. The church itself was founded by her grandfather, Grandpa Herman (her mother's father), and Grandpa lays down the law for all those who live within this rather extreme religious group.

She and all the others live a very segregated life, away from the modern world. They are not allowed to associate with others outside their faith, including other Christians who are not deemed as good and pure as they are. They live strictly by the bible as Grandpa Herman reads it, and are punished for the slightest "sin", no matter how little or trivial the sin is. They are not allowed to take medication or see doctors, they work in the fields and raise their own food,and they are not allowed to touch persons of the opposite sex, including their fiances, until they are married.

As Ninah grows older, she starts to question the practises of her group. She keeps these thoughts to herself, but confides a little with her prayer partner, James, who she has had a crush on for some time. He reciprocates her feelings, and soon they start to "sin" during their prayer time together, believing they are making love to Jesus through each other.

Ninah eventualy finds herself pregnant, and her world turns upside down. She is punished for her behavior (dunk under water in the river, irregardless of her being pregnant) and it is amazing that she and her baby arent' harmed by this treatment.

Soon the church is divided, with one side backing Ninah and appalled with the harsh treatment her grandfather instructs to be directed at her. She is not allowed to see anyone during the rest of her pregnancy, and without her permission her baby is taken away from her. The rest of the church believe that Grandpa Herman is doing the right thing by using Ninah as an example and showing the others how they should live without sin, else face the consequences.

I highly recommend this book. The content of the story may be a bit extreme for some, but I found that I could not put this book down.

Rating:
Summary: What happened here?
Review: I found the premise of this book to be quite unbelievable...but maybe I'm just a little too Roman Catholic. I did not identify with a single character and was frankly a little disgusted with the main character at the end. Only 17, she made the most un-wise choices I think a 10 year old would have handled the situation better. I would have quit reading without another thought about the story but had to complete it for my book club.

Rating:
Summary: One of My All Time Favorites
Review: This is one of the best books I've read - ever. It's rich in detail, the dialog is natural, the characters are complete. But more importantly, it's simply a good story and that's how all great writing should begin. The complex interactions and struggles of the main character with her community are poignant. This book receives my highest recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: I was very impressed by this novel. It really left me changed after I had finished. I've never been a very religious person, but you don't have a history of religious to be left breathless by this novel. The characters are so vivid and real. It deals almost with macrocosmic/mircocosmic worlds. Where a small part of society can reflect on society as a whole. This book brings out flaws in set ways almost like the novella "The Lottery." Tradition doesn't have to set our patterns for life and neither does relgion. It's a wonderful read, and since I do not want to ruin the book for you I'll just say read it. It's awesome and profound.

Rating:
Summary: Oprah, redeemed!
Review: I read this book without realizing it was an Oprah Book Club Selection, and loved it. I have read most of those on her list, some I liked, some I didn't, but this story was one of my favorites. The author writes a tale of a girl who is brought up with a very religious, often fanatical, family. Her grandfather is the founder of the Fire and Brimstone church and nobody goes against his rules without paying dearly for it. The children in the church work long hard days in the tobacco fields and during the school year attend school with others who are not in their church. Ninah, the main character, is a young girl who is beginning to question the strict rules and punishments. Her main ally is her grandmother, Nanna, who is often brought up as an example of a terrible sinner in her grandfather's sermons. When Ninah and James become attracted to each other, it is Nanna who suggests they become prayer partners so that they can spend time together. At first it is only holding hands, but eventually Ninah figures out she is pregnant. She keeps it to herself for quite awhile, but eventually tells James, who knows he will be punished terribly. James ends up killing himself and Ninah is left alone with her secret. Eventually Ninah's pregnancy is out in the open and her first punishment is to be dunked in the river while sitting in a small cage. Then she is banished to her grandmother's house for the remainder of her pregnancy. I was so afraid that Grandpa Herman would kill the baby after it's birth, and was relieved that the baby was spared, though Ninah wasn't allowed to raise him. I really enjoyed the whole story, and knowing that the wild beliefs held by the church aren't all fiction, made it even more interesting. This was the first book I've read by Sheri Reynolds, but immediately got another, "A Gracious Plenty" and think it is great, too. I will highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to enjoy a fairly short, entertaining novel.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening!
Review: The religious sect described in this book IS true! I was brought up in the same type of religious community where my parents were the leaders! Though I no longer practice EXACTLY what was preached to me growing up, I am still a very religious individual. And this is almost a description of my life! I could greatly associate with this book. Readers must understand that there are societies like this that do exist. Keep that in mind when reading this book, don't just believe that it is all FICTIONAL!

Rating:
Summary: rugs not rules
Review: I'm always amused by author's who set out to denounce traditional religion, but have no form in which to do so other than to reproduce Biblical myths with their own twists. Even more amusing is when they then seek to replace the tenets of the old religion with their own new ones and, in almost every case, manage to come up with a religion of mere spirituality, devoid of morality. Todays case in point is Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds.

Ninah Huff is the 14 year old granddaughter on Herman Langston, patriarchal founder and pastor of the fundamentalist and Pentecostal "Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind." Grandfather dominates their isolated South Carolina community of believers, enforcing rigid behavioral laws and meting out harsh punishments for transgressions, including dunkings, partial burials, and solitary confinement, while waiting for the imminent Rapture to come.

Meanwhile, Ninah finds herself strongly attracted to her prayer partner, James. Soon they are doing more than praying and while Ninah is convinced that Jesus is speaking through them (it's not made clear precisely what teen sex communicates), James is consumed with guilt, even going so far as to don a crown of thorns, but in his case it's barbed wire and he crowns his other head (ouch). As the outrage of the community descends upon them, James kills himself, but when Ninah bears a child, Canaan, who is born with the palms of his hand fused together, he is accepted as a miracle and the New Messiah. Ninah and the other women of the group begin rebelling against Herman's rules. James's spirit visits Ninah to tell her she's doing fine.

Eventually, Herman nearly dies of a stroke, then disappears, convincing the flock that he's been summoned in the Rapture, but that they've been left behind. Instead he turns up buck naked after wandering around in the woods, but Ninah, finally convinced that the group's belief in Herman's teachings and in the miraculous is unhealthy, snips through the flesh that binds Canaan's hands.

As the story ends, Ninah's religious beliefs appear to be vested in the rugs that she weaves, into which she incorporates items from every day life :

When I've used up all my rags and lies, rope and hair, fabric and love, when I'm out of twine and my loom is broken and there's still a story in me, that's when I unknot and begin the unraveling.

My rugs are never finished. I use the same materials to make them over and over again, featuring something new each time and hearing a different tale. But sometimes they speak the most wisely when they are heaps of fibers on the pack house floor, intermingled and waiting.

If I sit with them silent for long enough, they will talk. Just listening, I can give them tongues. They will speak like prophets.

Just in case you were having trouble following all that--Herman having stood for the Old Testament God and James and Canaan for Christ (even down to crucifixion imagery and James's resurrection)--Ninah who started out as Mary has now actually become her own god. She is the Creator, World Weaver, Tale Teller, Prophecy Giver in her own world of ruggery.

Of course, the main trouble with that is : what does she stand for other than opposition to Herman (God)? Sure it's difficult living up to the high moral expectations which traditional religious beliefs impose, but is her new world a better one? In an afterword, the author says that she drew the punishments which Herman orders from various medieval sources and, as intended, they shock our modern sensibilities. But perhaps a world where sin is punished so harshly has something to be said for it.

For all the antiquated rules and penalties, the worshippers at the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind formed a vibrant and loving community and shared a special cohesion precisely because deviance from the moral norm was taken seriously and dealt with firmly. This helped to make the behavior of others predictable and coherent. Ninah (well, Reynolds) is arguing for a world without any restraints on behavior, one in which human behavior is totally unpredictable and one in which the trust between individuals is inevitably destroyed. The book ends, unintentionally, on a perfect note : Ninah sits in silence with her rugs, assuming herself a god, freed from any constraints, the absolute ruler of her own totally atomized world. Alone. But, are we each truly sufficient unto ourselves, each of us making our own rules? I think not.

GRADE : D