Remember that time I had a three piece bathing suit and I though it would be funny to take off the skirt while I was in the pool and wave it around in front of my brothers and their friends Because I will never stop remembering every time I try to go to sleep
The Chair: A Novel (2011): A Painstaking Review, Part 1
James L. Rubart is an author of Christian Fiction. I have read his two prior works, Rooms: A Novel (2010) and Book of Days: A Novel (2011). They were both marked by awkward phrases, awkward insertion of name-brand products, and just general awkwardness. His novels are billed as Christian suspense and mystery. There is little of either of these present, however. I mostly read them for the awkwardness of the entire process.
This novel was less stunningly awkward than his previous attempts, but it was still formulaic, and at points infuriating for its inability to at any moment do something worth reading. And it had its bizarrely awkward passages.
Additionally, and this has been a trend in all three of the books of Rubart's that I have read, he has a strange fascination with male-male friendships and a distinct devaluing of male-female relationships, to the point that in his book Rooms: A Novel, the main character spent far more time, and far more emotional attachment, on his male best friend than he did on either of the girlfriend characters in said novel; I truly believe that the novel's subplot, one which the author is unaware of because he couldn't possibly write this consciously, is about the inability to live out a supportive gay relationship inside of an American evangelical Christian context.
This novel continues this trend, where male-male relationships are highly valued, and male-female relationships are destroyed; female-female relationships only occur in one instance, and the outcome is hatred.
Other common themes across his first three novels: Twenty-something male main characters who own their own businesses, and partake in outdoor sporting activities. Estranged family members. Supernatural artifacts that create more questions about their nature than anything else. A series of awkward conversations between characters. A strange spiritual mentor who refuses to acknowledge their true nature. The Western United States. Terrible character names. Conversion from Agnostic/Atheist to Evangelical Christian in an amazingly short space of time. Reconciliation between characters for little reason. Someone wearing Lee 501s. Title: A Novel.
Anyway, let's look at some quotes, because they're all. Words arranged into sentences.
Characters:
Nicole: An old woman who looks much younger than her age, she is a member of an ancient order dedicated to protecting a chair made by Jesus.
Corin Roscoe: The single, 30-ish owner of his own antiques store – Artifactions – that he has owned for several years (so, since he was ~24?? he opened his own very popular antiques store somewhere in Colorado Springs), who is our main character. He drowned in a lake as a child and was resuscitated. He has an intense fear of water and of tight spaces, but loves EXTREME SPORTS like cliff jumping.
Tori: A woman whom Corin is dating; she runs a dojo and is Asian because those things go together. She was scarred by Christianity as a child, after attending "healing services" for a family member who was never healed of his sickness.
Dominique "Shasta" Roscoe: The paraplegic younger brother of Corin who was hurt in a skiing accident on the day before his wedding. He has spent years loathing Corin because of this, and has not spoken to him since. His name is Shasta because of a can of soda.
Robin: Shasta's wife. She only exists to be an intermediary between Corin and Shasta; they have a son, although how this is possible, considering her husband's physical limitations, is never explained.
A.C.: Corin's best friend, a muscular, 30ish-year-old man who wishes he were a UFC fighter. He is married. His nickname stands for the "Aqua Cowboy."
Mark Jefferies: A California megachurch pastor (clearly some combination of Rick Warren and Mark Driscoll) who is obsessed with the mysterious chair of Christ, and tries to convince Corin to sell/give the chair to him.
Tesser: An eccentric professor whom Corin befriended in college who just so happens to be an expert on the mysterious chair of Christ.
The mysterious chair of Christ: A chair that Jesus made that grants healings (of a sort) for anyone who sits in it. The chair is given to Corin in the first chapter of the book by Nicole.
In the opening pages of the novel, a strange woman enters Corin's shop and gives him a chair. "She wore a dark tan coat that bounced off her calves as she strolled towards Corin, ice blue eyes full of laughter. She didn't look crazy." -- well, that's good to know.
"Her eyes seemed to settle on the pile of precisely stacked books from the 1700s." – EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BOOKS ARE NOT STACKED THEY ARE VERY CAREFULLY SHELVED WHAT SORT OF NIGHTMARE ANTIQUE SHOP IS THIS. HE'S INVITING DAMAGE TO COVERS AND DAMAGE TO WHATEVER BOOKS ARE ON THE BOTTOM OF THAT PILE.
The chair "was made by the most talented tekton craftsman the world has ever known." – oh thanks for using a word none of us know. It's Koine Greek for Carpenter.
Corin "slumped into one of the nineteenth-century black harvest stenciled Hitchcock chairs he'd restored four months back" – Welcome to this novel's obsession with name-brand antiques. Everything is a classy antique in this novel. Also, somehow he is slumping in a 160-year-old chair that looks like this.
Also, when things are not classy antiques, they're classy other things: "She took it and slid it under her Tech4o sports watch." "Are you thinking about stopping by Jamba Juice for a Blackberry Bliss" "Tori had crawled out of her sleeping bag and sat on a boulder next to the Soto OC-1R Micro cooking stove."
"To insanity and beyond!"
That had been their catchphrase, inspired by seeing Toy Story when they were teenagers. Buzz might go to infinity and beyond; their taste for extreme sports had taken them farther.
Too far. -- No comment.
"There was something about Asian women that turned him into a moth, and Tori was the Queen of the Flame." – Oh okay great the main character is one of those guys. Also: For all of the supposed chasing he does of her, he actually does very little.
"You know, Spider-Man, Peter Parker. He has an Aunt May he lives with, or lived with, before he and Mary Jane got connected." -- This novel has a lot of superhero references sprinkled throughout it, but this is probably the most awkward. "got connected." What is this.
"Corin sat hunched over his desk doing a bill-juggling act and trying to ignore the article on the front page of the New England Journal of Medicine that kept screaming at him." – You know, like any good antique store owner, he has a subscription to a series of medical journals. "New Surgery Working in High Percentage of Spinal-Cord Injury Cases" – exactly what a title from an article from a professional medical journal would sound like, vague and click-baity.
"That evening Corin picked up the November 1963 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, brought it over to his couch, and escaped into its pages. Spidey versus The Lizard. Their first battle. Why did he still read these things?" – He enjoyed watching the CGC score plummet every time that he did it.
Corin has had a nameless ex-wife at some point in the past: "She never could understand his obsession with extreme sports. Every time he went skydiving she shouted, "You'll never fly like the Human Torch." -- WHO WOULD MAKE THAT REFERENCE? FLY LIKE THE HUMAN TORCH????????
"Nicole gazed into the bathroom mirror and stared at the old woman looking back at her. Inside she was still twenty-eight. Maybe not twenty eight, but thirty-eight at the most.
Certainly not the eight-eight years the calendar claimed.
At least she didn't try to wear clothes made for women in their fifties. Not a chance. She stuck with the clothes styled for women in their forties. Because she could pull it off." -- What. Seriously. What. What is this. Has this author ever met a nearly-90-year-old woman before? Ever?
"In unison they chanted, 'Some people snort for it, some people eat mushrooms for it, some people mainline java. All we gotta do to get that wonderful wired feeling is jump, baby, jump.'" – Make them go away. Make them all go away.
"Pastor Mark Jefferies tossed his black leather jacket onto the back of one of the two tan leather chairs in front of his cherry wood desk and checked his black hair in the mirror to the left of his office door. Not bad. Spike it up a little more. He massaged it with his fingers till it looked perfectly disheveled. Nice. He spun and strode to his desk.
Thirty-seven wasn't too old to go for the emo look. Besides, not only did he pull it off, YouTube hits had rocked up 17 percent per week after he adopted the new style." – CAN YOU TELL WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO LIKE THIS GUY????
"After he plopped into the chair in front of his desk, picked up his Bible, and kissed it, he pulled up his Facebook fan page. Sweet. Three hundred and seventy-two more followers since yesterday. Probably time to put up another post on how he loved taking his wife out on dates." – I give up.
"'Wait.' He went to his desk and slid open the top drawer. 'I'm booked tomorrow night, so I can't use these.' He handed Ben two tickets to the OneRepublic concert." – ONEREPUBLIC THEY'RE FROM COLORADO IT IS A GOOD REFERENCE.
"'Hey, I almost forgot.' Mark leaned back, hands cocked behind his head. 'Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue should be hitting our mailbox in the next few days. I don't need that garbage filling my brain.'
'True.'
'So I need you to make sure you pick up the mail for the rest of this week, and when it gets back here, burn it or toss it, whatever.'
'A lot of men would take that mag—'
'I'm not a lot of men.' Mark picked up his remote, turned on the TV, flipped to ESPN, and smiled.
'I'm grateful.' She walked over to Mark and kissed him on the cheek. 'I'll keep an eye out for it.'
'And burn in.'
'Don't worry; you'll never see it.'
'Thanks, gal pal.' – YOU CAN ASK THAT MAGAZINe TO nOT SEND YOU THE SWIMSUIT ISSUE. WHY IS THE SPORT'S ILLUSTRATED SWIMSUIT ISSUE THE ABSOLUTE HEIGHT OF CHRISTIAN TEMPTATION. I DON"T. UNDERSTAND. ALSO: "GAL PAL" WHO IS THIS MAN, LESLIE KNOPE?
It's here that I mention that this pastor goes to his computer at midnight to visit Sports Illustrated DOT com to look at pictures of women in swimsuits in secret. HE'S A FRAUD. "Instantly photos of stunningly beautiful women splashed onto his screen adorned in little more than inches of fabric, staring at him with eyes so provocative his pulse spiked.
He clicked through the pictures like popcorn popping. Just a glance. Nothing more. No harm, no foul, no guilt." THIS IS IT. THIS IS EVERYTHING. THIS IS THE WRONGNESS. NOT EVEN ACTUAL PORN. JUST SWIMSUIT WOMEN.
So anyway, we know that this guy is Not Good because he has spent fifteen minutes on the internet looking at photos of women in swimsuits. We're going to pause this adventure in Amazing Writing here, as I can't take any more of this right now.
I am like the most awkward person ever and snapchat is a terrible medium of communication and how would anyone ever be able to sleep with someone sober?
