Sorry LaHaye & Jenkins: You're "Left Behind" Series Certainly Isn't Shakespeare!

     As I settled down to read the second of the Left Behind books, Tribulation Force, way back in 1999, I had this to say, and it wasn't all that flattering, I'm afraid:

     In the continuing saga of those Left Behind, the anti-Christ himself, Nicolae Carpathia, begins to heat things up by starting World War III, the “red horse” of the apocalypse.  Although there are some tense and chilling moments, and [SPOILER ALERT] it ends with the tragic death of the beloved Pastor Bruce Barnes, the book felt more like a transitional piece than an actual novel in its own right.  Left Behind is the exciting beginning, and the third novel Nicolae will focus on the anti-Christ, I’m sure, and this novel, Tribulation Force, kind of feels like the attempt to get from point A to point B.

     And one other very important thing:  As good as these novels may be, I also realize that they are straight forward storytelling at its most simple.  There are few artistic flourishes, if any; just basic narration that lacks any kind of creative poetry.  The number one tenant for fiction writers is not to tell, but to make the reader FEEL.  I guess one reason I’m not just devouring these books like my sister-in-law and my friend Kary have is because the writers haven’t really taken this story and these characters and delved into their psyches and the situations like they could, or like I could.  If this story were a swimming pool and the writers were swimmers, it feels as if they are merely skimming over the surface of the water, rather than exploring and diving into the depths of their expansive tale.  As a reader, I feel like I am on the outside looking in, whereas a really good writer has the ability to grab me and set me right in the middle of all the action, making me feel a part of it rather than some outside observer, even taking me inside the body and mind of the characters so I feel what they feel, and know what it is to be them.  I don’t get that from these books.  The story and characters are so fascinating, I want to get to know them better than I do, but this story is written at almost a grade-school level.  To put it another way, I did not find any writing here that is as colorful or as passionate as what I have just written myself!

     Compare these guys to someone like William Shakespeare, and there is no comparison!  Shakespeare is full of passion and poetry, and that is why he is still loved and performed even to this very day and age, 400 years later, and why Hollywood is constantly making new films of his works, as well as countless independent filmmakers and theaters.  It’s because his plays contain what good drama should, and what the Left Behind books seem to lack:  Emotion, humor, drama, passion…and poetry!  Who would have thought that Shakespeare would be as popular now as he was then; perhaps even more so.  It’s due not only to the quality of the stories themselves, but of his writing of those stories, and the language he used.  Would they be making films of these plays if he had devised the basic structure and characters and then handed them over to the stable boy to write?  I don’t think so!  In the decade before the millennium, while countless renditions of his works have seen the bright lights of theaters around the globe or the enjoyment of audiences in movie houses or gathered around the TV, a fictitious film about the writer won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1998!  I sincerely doubt that Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye will be remembered in anywhere near this fashion in another 400 years… that is, if the rapture and tribulation haven’t already occurred!

Book image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulation_Force