Think of the Earth

I picked up Bertram Brooker's 1936 Think of the Earth because it won the first Governor General's Award for Fiction in Canada, and I'm hoping to read through the GG's during the next couple of years. I was pleasantly surprised by the book - I think I was expecting a good helping of boring but instead was entertained and enlightened.

Think of the Earth is about a man, a wanderer, who feels a deep tie with Christ although they live continents and centuries apart. In fact, he becomes caught in a web of over-identifying with him and is convinced he is meant to become a sacrifice of the sort that relieves people of the guilt they carry around with them. It is this that gives his life fulfillment until he meets a preacher's daughter and feels the stirrings of love for another in his heart.

The reason I liked this novel so much was that it went overboard where religion was concerned and then pulled itself back. Nowadays a person doesn't read novels that deal with Christianity and heretical opinions unless they are in the religions aisle in a big book store or in a Christian media store looking at nonfiction. The book surprised me for where the philosophy went and where it ultimately ended up. It was a nice change. Eight out of ten bookmarks.