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lynbrey's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
moirastone's review against another edition
2.0
Quite beautifully written and certainly not lacking compelling characters. But like a miscast play, there was no connection, no spark.
gilmoreguide's review against another edition
4.0
The Shelter Cycle begins in Boise, Idaho with the search for an abducted girl. After a day of helping with the search, Francine Davidson and her husband, Wells, are visited by a friend from her past, Colville. It is a strained visit, with partial reminiscences of their childhood and talk of the missing girl. As children, Francine and Colville lived with their families in Montana as part of a religious group whose beliefs harkened back to ancient times, when man believed the world to be filled with malevolent spirits and unknown entities were waiting to steal one’s soul. Their leader is known as the Messenger and she guides them in their mission, to survive a Soviet nuclear missile attack, which will arrive in the late 1980s. To this end they are building shelters far underground in the Montana mountains. In the meantime, they live in isolation: physically, mentally and emotionally off-the-grid. In order to protect themselves from the evil in the spirit world and to raise their consciousness to the next level, they employ chanting and rituals as well as tenets that detail almost every aspect of life from what colors to wear and what foods are safe to eat.
The day of the apocalypse comes and goes without change and the followers return aboveground and either stay within the group or leave. Both the families of Francine and Colville leave. Present day finds Francine in the real world,—happily married and expecting her first child. After the death of his brother in the Iraq War, Colville returns to the world of their religion, finding solace in the signs, spirits and hidden meaning. His appearance in Francine’s life is not a coincidence but something he believes to be part of a much larger plan.
You can continue reading the rest of this review at The Gilmore Guide to Books: http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2013/04/the-shelter-cycle/
The day of the apocalypse comes and goes without change and the followers return aboveground and either stay within the group or leave. Both the families of Francine and Colville leave. Present day finds Francine in the real world,—happily married and expecting her first child. After the death of his brother in the Iraq War, Colville returns to the world of their religion, finding solace in the signs, spirits and hidden meaning. His appearance in Francine’s life is not a coincidence but something he believes to be part of a much larger plan.
You can continue reading the rest of this review at The Gilmore Guide to Books: http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2013/04/the-shelter-cycle/
rettaroo's review against another edition
In the short documentary, Follow the Leader, Jessica Filipas interviews a couple that were once members of the Church Universal and Triumphant and examines their choice to move to Montana with the group to await a prophesied apocalypse. She is able to get very close to her subjects both physically and emotionally and we learn that the director/producer/writer, Jessica Filipas, is related to the couple. Filipas’s approach is thoughtful and yet clearly skewed ideologically to reveal this church as having a very negative impact on its congregation. It is, indeed, portrayed as a cult. Watching this brief documentary after reading Peter Rock’s Shelter Cycle, while fiction, underscores Rock’s much broader and more sympathetic approach to the Church and it’s true believers even as he delves into the cult-like aspects of the organization and particularly its impact on its youngest members.
One of the most overt and important narrative strategies Rock uses to explore the nature of faith and spirituality in his text is the slide between four different narrative perspectives. Three of these perspectives are told in third person and they are divided by chapters or section breaks. Each section is devoted to one of three characters. We are brought very close to the consciousness of an individual character and what is focalized is honed to one character’s world view.
Early on, the reader is introduced to Wells. He is a non-believer and has never been indoctrinated by in the tenets of the Church Universal and Triumphant. In another section, the focalization shifts to his pregnant wife Francine, an ex-member of the Church. The reader is privy to her conflicted feelings. She is not a practicing member of the Church. She experiences the alienation of once belonging to such a group. And yet, she is nostalgic about her years with the Church Universal and Triumphant. In a third perspective shift, we are also introduced to Colville who grew up with Francine but is still an active believer in the tenets of the Church. These narrative perspective shifts allows for a deep interiority of the consciousness of each character. In this way, the reader is brought close into a spectrum of beliefs and ideologies held people who are touched by this church and its teachings.
It is the fourth narrative perspective that deviates furthest from the others. It is written in first person and is marked in the text very explicitly by a different font. Although this perspective brings us once again into the world view of Francine, the reader is actually brought even closer into her consciousness. Rock does this by shifting these sections not merely into first person. They are also reflective diary entries. In the third person sections focused on Francine, the reader does not always know what she is thinking and what she desires. She is subdued, reticent. Often we see her acting or moving through her world without completely understanding her motivation. But in this fourth perspective, the reader is brought into this world and becomes privy not just to many of their strange practices but also how they perceived these practices – how normalized they were in the world of church members, particularly the youngest members.
While I think the shifts in focalization do give the readers a more global perspective on the Church and its lasting influence, the teetering back and forth between the three characters occasionally creates confusion in the chronology of the story. I believe the confusion is most prevalent in the sections that focus on Colville. While I find Colville to be the most interesting character, he is also the one with the least consistent narrative logic. He is so insular and alone that the time the reader spends with him becomes blurry.
The temporal confusion I felt seems to be executed with a great deal of intent. And, it does allow the reader insight into a very insular world without casting a great deal of judgment on the characters. Rock, himself, explains, “I think I realized at a very early state that the easy or expected take on a church like the Church Universal and Triumphant would be a parodic or somewhat condescending one, a critical one. I had a desire to tell a happier story, from the inside, which seemed like it would be more unexpected and productive” (Barbash n.a.). He does succeed at avoiding parody and condescension. But this novel did not feel happy or productive. And, I wonder if the same focalization shifts and restraint might keep the reader from completely understanding what these characters desire in the wake of their disillusionment.
One of the most overt and important narrative strategies Rock uses to explore the nature of faith and spirituality in his text is the slide between four different narrative perspectives. Three of these perspectives are told in third person and they are divided by chapters or section breaks. Each section is devoted to one of three characters. We are brought very close to the consciousness of an individual character and what is focalized is honed to one character’s world view.
Early on, the reader is introduced to Wells. He is a non-believer and has never been indoctrinated by in the tenets of the Church Universal and Triumphant. In another section, the focalization shifts to his pregnant wife Francine, an ex-member of the Church. The reader is privy to her conflicted feelings. She is not a practicing member of the Church. She experiences the alienation of once belonging to such a group. And yet, she is nostalgic about her years with the Church Universal and Triumphant. In a third perspective shift, we are also introduced to Colville who grew up with Francine but is still an active believer in the tenets of the Church. These narrative perspective shifts allows for a deep interiority of the consciousness of each character. In this way, the reader is brought close into a spectrum of beliefs and ideologies held people who are touched by this church and its teachings.
It is the fourth narrative perspective that deviates furthest from the others. It is written in first person and is marked in the text very explicitly by a different font. Although this perspective brings us once again into the world view of Francine, the reader is actually brought even closer into her consciousness. Rock does this by shifting these sections not merely into first person. They are also reflective diary entries. In the third person sections focused on Francine, the reader does not always know what she is thinking and what she desires. She is subdued, reticent. Often we see her acting or moving through her world without completely understanding her motivation. But in this fourth perspective, the reader is brought into this world and becomes privy not just to many of their strange practices but also how they perceived these practices – how normalized they were in the world of church members, particularly the youngest members.
While I think the shifts in focalization do give the readers a more global perspective on the Church and its lasting influence, the teetering back and forth between the three characters occasionally creates confusion in the chronology of the story. I believe the confusion is most prevalent in the sections that focus on Colville. While I find Colville to be the most interesting character, he is also the one with the least consistent narrative logic. He is so insular and alone that the time the reader spends with him becomes blurry.
The temporal confusion I felt seems to be executed with a great deal of intent. And, it does allow the reader insight into a very insular world without casting a great deal of judgment on the characters. Rock, himself, explains, “I think I realized at a very early state that the easy or expected take on a church like the Church Universal and Triumphant would be a parodic or somewhat condescending one, a critical one. I had a desire to tell a happier story, from the inside, which seemed like it would be more unexpected and productive” (Barbash n.a.). He does succeed at avoiding parody and condescension. But this novel did not feel happy or productive. And, I wonder if the same focalization shifts and restraint might keep the reader from completely understanding what these characters desire in the wake of their disillusionment.
purlscout's review against another edition
2.0
Rock is clearly a gifted writer, but the work feels unfinished, characters not fully defined, and a past of great importance to its characters without any emotional pull for the reader. Like Rock was too afraid of offending his (based on real events) subjects to examine and portray this cult and many of the book's themes with true grit.
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