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Title: Jesus Sound Explosion (Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction)
ISBN: 0820325546
Author:
Mark Curtis Anderson
Publicate Date: 2003-09
Publish: 2003-09
List Price: $29.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $11.99
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $1.27
Amazon Merchant Price: $26.15
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| Customer Review: |
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1: a dreary memoir of a rock-obsessed ex-Christian
This memoir is a sad story, manifestly a story of failure. The narrator's life throughout the book was wasted. Actually, it is Anderson's behavior and its results that are sad, but not really Anderson himself. He doesn't seem to feel great remorse or regret over his loss of faith.
It's well-written, if unremarkably so, with two manifest characteristics: an absence, or at least a rarity, of long sentences, and very heavy use of dialogue.
Anderson tends to overlay his current (adult) perspective on his youth experiences by editorializing, which was not very helpful or appropriate.
Because I perceive Anderson as drifting or going around in circles (although intermittently interested in being a Christian), I generally feel that there is no theme to this memoir, or to Anderson's life--no theme that he intended to express, that is. The one theme that I can identify is failure.
It is possibly befitting the story of a life spent going in circles that I neither particularly liked nor particularly disliked it. I can think of several books more unpleasant than this--although few, if any, left such a sense of waste.
Anderson's theology would seem to be represented by this statement from page 144: "Church taught me about a darkness called sin that originated with Satan, the King of Darkness. The one way to overcome darkness: become born again by asking for forgiveness of sin, by accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior."
However, that is what he understands of the church's theology; he either did not fully believe it himself, or had no theology of his own. If he has a theology now, it is more in the direction of secular humanism but may superficially resemble Christian teachings.
What went wrong? Anderson seems to have desired worldly music and worldly behavior more than he wanted to follow the Lord. It is very difficult to elaborate further on his failure, because he deliberately declines to identify a specific point where his faith was lost--which lowers the value of his memoir--let alone to explain himself what went wrong. I tend to believe that the problem of his being too enamored with the world was there all along, but that argument weakens somewhat in light of the fact that Marshall, his more Christ-like older brother, also lost his faith (after suffering from depression due to an unknown cause). In fact, so did his sister, although virtually nothing else is said to suggest what went wrong in *her* life.
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2: This book is tremendous fun
Mark Anderson's account of his life growing up in the 60s and 70s and his relationship to pop music, Christian music, God and teen sin is immensely fun and entertaining. I hope he writes another book soon!
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3: Be transported to another era...
I purchased "Jesus Sound Exposion" yesterday and became quickly captivated by Anderson's engrossing memoir of navigating his adolescence and young adulthood between the twin poles of Evangelical Christianity and Rock n Roll.Anderson transports his readers to a parallel universe riddled with dualisms: Heaven or Hell, Jesus or Satan, chastity or making out, etc. The book presents an honest look at the conservative end of the Christian spectrum and the narrow-minded worldview that accompanies it. Picture a typical 17-year-old boy compelled to share "The Four Spiritual Laws" with his high school classmates, motivated by visions of hellfire awaiting the unrepetant. But Anderson leavens the tale with humour and musical discoveries while dispensing grace to his parents, siblings, and Sunday School teachers. While no longer a believer per se, Anderson reveals a significant amount of personal growth and maturity, eschewing fundamentalism and black/white thinking for a catholic (little c) worldview that encompasses divorce, teaching, retail work, and the horns blaring out on Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run."
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