I AM LEGION

I wanted to like this novel a lot more than I did.  It was written by A.N. Wilson who is a very good writer and it was about the Christian religion, which is a topic that interests me.  But Wilson's I Am Legion published in 2004 just fell flat, and frankly, wasn't very good.

Some reviewers description on Amazon that influenced me to purchase a copy of the novel said that one of the main characters of the novel, Father Vivyan Chell, was a thinly disguised Thomas Merton. I confess that I don't see it.  About the only thing that Vivyan Chell and Thomas Merton have in common in that they are both priests and they both have trouble maintaining their vow of celibacy.

Father Vivyan Chell is a former British Army Officer who has joined an Anglican religious order and become a priest.  For many years, he has been running a mission in a fictional African country called Zinariya.  As a teenager, Lennox Mark comes to Father Vivyan's mission and is struck by his holiness and his work with the poor.

Lennox comes very near to dedicating his life to Christ and staying with the mission, but after living with the monks for several months, he goes back to his life of wealth and privilege.  When the novel opens, Lennox Mark is an overweight, middle aged millionaire who owns a muck racking tabloid newspaper called The Daily Legion.

One of Father Vivyan's former students in Zinariya, whom he had great hopes for, has become the dictator of Zinariya.  Like every other character in this novel, General Bindiga is little more than a caricature (think Idi Amin).

Turns out that Father Vivyan is not nearly as holy as everybody thinks he is.  For years he has been living in sin with a series of African women.  Finally, out of guilt he comes home to England and is put in charge of a slum parish which he opens up to the poor and destitute.  Once again, his libido gets the best of him and he has affairs with a series of women.

Author A.N. Wilson with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

One of the women Father Vivyan has sex with is Mercy Topling, who is a 2nd generation immigrant from Jamaica.  Mercy also once worked as Lennox Mark's secretary and also has a short affair with him.   When Mercy becomes pregnant she is not sure who the father is.  Mercy gives birth to Peter.

Peter, it turns out, has split personality disorder which gets worse as he gets older.  Peter's split personalities run the gamut from a highly intellectual English butler all the way to a retarded homicidal maniac.   It turns out that Peter has been sexually molested by his school counselor, which only makes his mental imbalance worse.

A.N. Wilson with his daughter

Lennox Mark is married to Martina, a former East German prostitute.  Martina's mother, who apparently is trotted out at dinner parties to scare the guests, is horribly disfigured having been shot in the face by East German border guards while escaping from the Iron Curtain.  Martina has only married Lennox for his money and influence and has had a long standing lesbian relationship with Mary Much, another former prostitute who is now a columnist for The Daily Legion.  When Peter, looking for his father, who Mercy has told him is Lennox Mark even though she thinks his father is really Father Vivyan, comes to the Mark's house and murders a delivery boy, Martina and Mary hide him out and make him the chief butler.  Martina  and Mary find Peter very attractive and it is strongly hinted that they begin a sexual relationship with him.

If this description sounds like this novel is a muddled mess, that just about describes it.  The convoluted plot also involves an artist supported by Martina and Mary who's new performance art is a glass toilet which is to be installed in the foyer of the The Daily Legion and which the artist himself will sit upon and take a crap, but is blown up by terrorists led by Father Vivyan who are rebelling against the British support for General Bindiga.

A.N. Wilson enjoys a libation

I have the overwhelming feeling that the hours I spent reading this thing could have been better spent doing something else, like watching re-runs of Gilligan's Island.   Wilson tries to make this mess a serious novel by discussing serious issues, like the existence of God and the nature of faith, but it just doesn't work.

Obviously, the title is taken from the demoniac in the Gospel of Mark, where the man possessed by demons tells Jesus "My name is Legion: for we are many." (Mark 5:9).  The demon possession theme is not only the boy with the split personalities but also the Fleet Street rag that prints lies and half-truths to sell newspapers.

Over all, although I generally admire A.N. Wilson's work, this just falls flat.  Two out of Five.

The Vicar of Sorrows

The Reverend Francis Kreer has a problem, he no longer believes in God.  However, he doesn’t find this to be too much of a problem in his job as an Anglican clergyman and in traditional British fashion he just gets a stiff upper lip and carries on.  Francis has other problems at home, though.  He is bored with his wife and bored with his life in general.  When his mother dies and leaves half of everything she owns to her former lover, this pushes Francis over the edge.  Francis suffers a nervous breakdown, has an affair with a hippie who is young enough to be his daughter, and gets fired from his job.

Author A.N. Wilson with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

This is the basic plot of A.N. Wilson’s 1993 soap opera The Vicar of Sorrows.  Although it had its moments, Vicar is about 150 pages too long.  Mrs. Kreer, the mother, gets mad at Francis for something he didn’t say and leaves half of her estate to a former R.A.F. pilot whom she had a passionate affair with during the Blitz.   Being an Anglican Church groupie, I liked all the long winded passages about the ecclesiastical politics of the Church of England.  Francis’ best friend Damien is a gay Anglo-Catholic priest who has lost his position because he was caught out in public in a compromising position with another man.   By the end of the novel, as Francis’ career as a clergyman has crashed, Damien has been rehabilitated.  The Archdeacon of the Diocese thinks Francis is a kook but doesn’t have a problem with Damien:  “(The Archdeacon) who derived most of his views from liberal newspapers, took a very lenient view of Damien’s proclivities: but one had to be sensible, and think of the ‘old dears’ in the pew, who might be slower than the rest of us to realize that fornication, when practiced by homosexuals, was no longer exactly a sin.”

A.N. Wilson

Overall, The Vicar of Sorrows was probably not worth the time it took to read the 391 pages of it.  It could have been a humorous little satire if it had been about 150 to 200 pages shorter.  Two out of Five.