Whispers of Adventure, by Matthew Burden (pub. 2015)
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Caution: potential spoilers. (But probably not.)

(This book is apparently similar in theme to John Bunyan's 1678 book The Pilgrim's Progress, which I haven't read.)

My cousin Matt has published several novels, though so far I've only read two of them. (I think the first one he published was "Tactus: A Quest for Truth," which came out in 2001. I must have read it around that time, which was before I started writing book reviews, so I never reviewed that one.) Matt's main vocation is pastor, so it's not surprising that his books are of a Christian bent. But he's also a fantasy fan, so it's no more surprising that his books fall within that genre. This one reads, I'd say, like something aimed at... well, pretty much all age groups, but I'd say it seems like it has adolescents in mind, since it's told from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old boy named Tom (and it certainly wouldn't be too mature for a reader like Tom's eleven-year-old brother, Eric). Anyway, the book as a whole is an allegory for a Christian's journey through life, but each chapter is also a self-contained allegory relating to various tenets of Christianity. At the end of each chapter, the author provides a note about that chapter's specific allegory (or allegories). I think they were generally easy enough to figure out while reading the story, but Matt's notes certainly helped flesh out the ideas beyond the degree to which I understood them. So... that's nice.

The story begins one afternoon when Tom and Eric are playing in a swimming hole near their house. This familiar old pond somehow, quite unexpectedly, transports them to another realm. They'll take a journey there, which serves as the aforementioned allegory for the Christian journey. But in a sense (which is made more clear at the end of the book), that world is supposedly more "real" than what we normally see as the real world. (That's because of the notion that our spiritual life is more real than our physical life, I guess.) Anyway, immediately after arriving in that world, they spot a castle, which Tom feels drawn to. So the brothers enter the castle, only to discover that anyone who goes there can never leave. So they're basically prisoners of the "Governor" (who represents Satan), though we never get to see him, in the story. But they're rescued from without by someone called the Pilgrim Knight (who I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying is an allegorical version of Jesus Christ). Soon after they get away from the castle, the Pilgrim Knight leaves Tom and Eric with a band of pilgrims who have been following him, while he himself goes on ahead. (They won't see him again until the end of the book.)

The group the young brothers join turn out to be Robin Hood and his Merry Men (who call the Governor "the Sorcerer"). They've all been invited to a great banquet at the King's City, an invitation which is also extended to Tom and Eric, who now become pilgrims, themselves. To reach the city, however, they must travel along the King's Highway, which will be a long and perilous journey. And in fact, "highway" seems a misnomer, as sometimes they can hardly tell that there's a path at all. But it's not the King's Highway itself that's dangerous. Rather, the greatest dangers come when the pilgrims stray from the path. (So, the King's Highway is an allegory for the way Christians are meant to live their lives, and the King's City is an allegory for Heaven.) Along the way, the pilgrims are joined by various well-known historical and fantastical persons. (I won't say who any of them are- other than the Merry Men- but I will say I managed to guess most of the newcomers' identities before they were revealed by name.)

The book is divided into four parts, each of which includes several chapters. (There are also two "interludes," one between parts 2 and 3, and one between parts 3 and 4. Each interlude is a dream Tom has, during the journey.) The first part of the book is about the earliest part of the Christian journey. This includes Salvation, joining a community of faith, and the first battles against one's own sins. The second part is about the Seven Deadly Sins (which were reasonably familiar to me). The third part is about four "cardinal virtues" and three "theological virtues" (which were not so familiar to me). In this part of the book, the pilgrims begin traveling by sea. I don't want to spoil any details of their adventure, throughout the book. But I can't help but mention that Tom's second dream interlude put me very much in mind of an event from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." And of course they eventually do reach the King's City, and later Tom and Eric return home. (They suppose they'll get back to the City someday, by some other, better, means. Personally, I'd say the way they got there the first time was better, both because fantastic adventures- allegorical or otherwise- tend to be more exciting and interesting than real life, and because I expect they'll have to die to get there, next time.)

Anyway, I kind of want to say that I don't normally have much interest in religious allegorical stories, but that's probably not entirely true, now that I think about it. What I actually mean is, if I'm going to read such a story, I want the allegory to be so subtle that it would be easy not to notice it at all. And that's certainly not the case with this book. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the story more than I might have expected to, given the theme. (Which is not to say I doubt my cousin's writing ability. On the contrary, I fully expect that if he wrote a straight-up fantasy adventure story without any sort of allegory or real world religious themes, I'd like it a lot.) Still, Matt does say, in the foreword, he thinks the adventure is worth enjoying for its own sake, and I have to agree. While the allegory is impossible to ignore (even if you choose not to read the notes at the end of each chapter), I did enjoy the story.

But what's surprising to me is that I also enjoyed the allegory, for the most part. I need to mention that I was raised Baptist, and went to church throughout my childhood, but I've never really been a student of religion, and it's never been of particular interest to me. (Though that may be surprising to anyone who's aware that religion plays an important part in my own as-yet-unfinished book.) In fact, these days I think of myself more as an agnostic than a Christian. And I can't say I necessarily agree- even theoretically- with everything in this book. (Like, the whole "no straying from the highway" thing was really hard for me to reconcile with real life, but perhaps I just had trouble separating some of the metaphors from... the things they were metaphors for.) But in real life, as in the book, there are sometimes things Christians are supposed to believe, or ways we're supposed to act, that don't always make sense to me and I can't always agree with (hence my agnosticism). Still, I think most of the tenets of Christianity make sense regardless of what religion you belong to, or even if you're an atheist. (The tenets that aren't specific to Christian dogma, I mean.) And one thing I've often thought is that, for the most part, my family (with rare exceptions) tends to be more the sort of people I would consider "good" Christians, as opposed to a lot of the overtly bigoted assholes you see in the media who represent themselves as Christians. And even if I still don't necessarily agree with every detail of the Christian faith (in real life or in this book), I do think the book does a pretty good job not only of making those ideas both entertaining (in a family-friendly kind of way) and easy to understand, but also it does a good job of portraying a proper Christian lifestyle and attitude toward one's self and others. The kind of portrait of Christianity that is often missing from mainstream media, these days. It still may be a bit heavy-handed (or cloying) for some secularists' taste, but I think if everyone who called themselves "Christian" adhered to the true values of the faith, as presented in this story, the world would be a much better place. (There'd still be problems with some Christians, of course, but at least they wouldn't be so overt or hateful.) Anyway, that's one of the main things I liked about this book: it reminded me of the appreciation I have for the majority of my family being my kind of Christians.

So... good story, good guide for living a truly Christian life, and... good PR for Christianity, I guess. (I mean, I'm not interested in proselytizing, or anything. But I really don't want non-Christians basing their view of Christianity on the so-called "Christians" they likely see in the media.)