Monday, September 5, 2011

Godless by Pete Hautman

Module 1 - What is YA? Classics & Awards

"Read one of the following recent award winners:"

Godless

Plot Summary

Jason Bock, already agnostic and nearly atheist, has a so-called religious experience when he is knocked down under a water tower by a school bully. As a result of his encounter he begins to create a religion based on water-tower gods. By pulling his friends and enemies along for the ride he creates a steady following of acolytes for his new religion. During their first Midnight Mass at the top of their godhead, they engage in a ritual baptism and then disaster strikes. Relationships change and falter throughout as a result of the events of that night.

Critical Analysis

Several days after reading this book, what sticks with me is the turn-around in the antagonist character of Henry and how he has influence upon our protagonist Jason. The complex interplay of character types is what pushes this book forwards. There's the average kid - Jason, the over-zealous nerd - Shin, the love-interest - Magda, and the unpredictable bully - Henry. As the four of them interact, the plot moves forwards. Henry pushes all of them to behave in ways they wouldn't otherwise, but it is within the framework of the new religion which Jason has conceived. In a way, Henry is the primary force within the book and Jason is another unwitting victim of his influence. However, throughout the book the adults warn Jason that his friends listen to what he says and he has great influence. Because of that, the book comes across as just a hint didactic.

The religious aspect of the book comes across as a joke, as the narrator, Jason, intends it that way, so it is a little unbelievable when Shin begins taking it so seriously. Jason's family adds an interesting background for these religious undertakings, as his father is an overly-religious lawyer who tries to get Jason to read more about Catholicism. Jason is able to make a few jabs at the absurdities of religion through his required Teen Power Outreach meetings at the church, and his promotion of Chutengodianism is yet another larger jab.

The first person narrative from Jason's perspective is engaging for the reader. Conversations come across as genuine, and we see just enough of Jason's thought process to make everything he does believable. The religious themes, since they are based on the author's own dalliances, are completely authentic. Pete Hautman says on his website where he discusses his book Godless:
Then I remembered something I hadn't thought about for more than 35 years--a brief teenage interlude when I and a few of my friends devised a mock-religion worshipping the St. Louis Park water tower. It was a summer goof, a way to be irreverant and...well, teens are easily bored, y'know? Anyway, we had this whole epistemology, a pantheon of water tower gods in which the towers belonging to other cities were lesser deities, and so forth. It was something I did for a few weeks one summer and then forgot about.
So it makes complete sense for Jason in the story to make this religion up on a whim. It's the influence his ideas have on others that make the events happen, just as his parents and the adults keep telling him. However, Jason does not take an active enough role in guiding the others, so they mostly end up following Henry, with disastrous results.

Any teen questioning the legitimacy of religious beliefs can find comfort and reassurance in reading Godless. There are many other teens out there who have had these same thoughts, and this is one variation on the theme.


Connections


Awards/Reviews

National Book Award for Young People's Literature 2004

From Publishers Weekly:
Many teens will likely recognize or identify with Hautman's (Sweetblood; Mr. Was) religious critiques; others may be offended (discussing Holy Communion, Jason describes the host as "a sliver of Jesus meat. But they make the host as different from meat as they can, so that even though communion is a form of cannibalism, nobody gets grossed out"). However, while Hautman pushes his satirical story line to the limit, he doesn't bring to it the depth or subtlety of his previous works (for example, Jason's dare to others to disprove that the water tower is God doesn't elicit the obvious response that the tower is man-made). The result is a provocative plot, but not an entirely challenging novel.
From School Library Journal:
These are fun, wacky, interesting characters. While chuckling aloud may be common in the early chapters, serious issues dominate the latter stages of the book. The rivalry between Jason and Henry for the attentions of Magda, Jason's unrepentant certainty that doing what he sees as right is more important than following his parents' rules, and Shin's apparent continued belief in the tenets he helped create are thought-provoking and disturbing. Jason is left to ponder the meaning of a religion that has only himself as a member.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
From Booklist:
In a smartly structured narrative that is by turns funny, worried, and questioning, Jason watches as his once-cohesive little congregation starts wanting to worship in its own ways, some of them deadly. Not everything works here. Shin's meltdown doesn't seem real, even though it has been thoroughly foreshadowed. But most scenes are honest and true to the bone, such as the one in which Jason and Harry agree that their dangerous stunts are worth their weight in memories. Anyone who has questioned his or her religion, especially as a teenager, will respond to Jason's struggles with belief. Many individuals, upon reading this, will consider their own questions once more. --Ilene Cooper
From Kirkus Reviews:
Jason's explorations of faith, belief, and religion, told in a compelling and imaginative voice, will leave him a solitary, ostracized prophet. Thought-provoking and unique.
From Voice of Youth Advocates:
Readers will find Jason's first-person narrative compelling and provocative. Although Hautman chooses an atypical subject for a young adult book, he succeeds in creating a flawlessly paced and painfully realistic tale of the power and influence of religion.-Jamie S. Hansen.

Bibliography

Hautman, Pete. Godless. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005. ISBN 9781416908166.

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