Ship of Fools: August book group-A Vicar Crucified

Thread: August book group-A Vicar Crucified Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

This month we will be reading and discussing a book recommended by our Simon, A Vicar Crucified by Simon Parke .
Please post if you will be joining in.
I'll aim to start the discussion off around the 20th.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

Just finished reading it today, so interested...

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

I finished it yesterday. I await the questions!

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :

I started it last week, and can't say I liked it much, but I'll give it another go.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I'm afraid I'm going to have to call it a pass this month. Good luck!

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :

I've just finished it and am lookign forward to the discussion.

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

I've finished it too and have drawn up a few questions.
Shall I start the discussion early or is anyone still reading?

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

Please start, my dear!

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :

It would be good to get going on the discussion, before I forget the plot!

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

OK then.

1. As a murder mystery, did the story keep you guessing?

2. Did the chapters following Gurdjieff's adventures advance the plot?

3. Did you know about the Emmeagram? What's your opinion of its psychological theory? Did you identify yourself?

4. Were you convinced by the ecclesiastical set-up?

Any other comments or questions ?

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

quote:
1. As a murder mystery, did the story keep you guessing?

I didn't particularly care, and the final revelation did not strike me as particularly surprising.

quote:
2. Did the chapters following Gurdjieff's adventures advance the plot?

I was oh so tempted to skip them.

quote:
3. Did you know about the Emmeagram? What's your opinion of its psychological theory? Did you identify yourself?

I'd heard of it. I quite like the idea of a system that focuses on your besetting sin (A door into ocean anyone?) From a psychological point of view, it sounds rather dodgy. I have at least three possible candidates for my own "type". (And, as a bonus, struggled with deciding between types for a couple of the characters despite them being caricatures).

quote:
4. Were you convinced by the ecclesiastical set-up?

Do I believe such a dysfunctional set-up could exist? Oh yes. But there are much better fictional treatments of it than this.

quote:
Any other comments or questions ?

Intrigued that Anglicanism seems to remain the default church setting for fiction in the UK.

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :

I enjoyed it as a murder mystery, though I didn't try particularly hard to work it out. It struck me from the outset that Anton must have been at least partly willing.
I found the chapters about Gurdjieff slightly irritating. I thought I knew that he was a 'real' person, but the slightly Indiana Jones feel to those chapters made me wonder if he was character in some other novel I should have read.
Again I'd heard of the Enneagram (it seems a favourite topic for retreat hosues) but I was far from convinced by it from the descriptions in this book. I did vaguely try and match the characters to their number, but gave up after a couple.
Bits of the ecclesiastical set up seemed convincing. I was a bit worried by the assumption that Anton got a free pass to becoming a vicar because of his colour - is that really likely? As Garasu said there are much better novels with this sort of setting (including a lot of detective ones)
As I've siad it worked as a light-wirght detective novel, but I thought the writing was dire (almost on a par with the Dan Brown I'm reading at the moment) and the characterisation dodgy. Abbot Peter I couldn't beleive in at all. I also wanted more of his backstory, an Anglican monestry in the desert - are there such things? The humour seemed a bit off to me as well, I nearly gave up after the risable phone call that opens the book.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

1. As a murder mystery, did the story keep you guessing?
It sure did, though I had some ideas early on and suspected the curate who seems to have had an affair with the dead vicar and parted on bad terms.

2. Did the chapters following Gurdjieff's adventures advance the plot? They were mildly interesting, but I thought they were overly long.

3. Did you know about the Emmeagram? What's your opinion of its psychological theory? Did you identify yourself? I did not know about it. I think the psychological theory is malarkey and has no relation to real life. I thought it was just some pagan superstition and could not identify with it at all.

4. Were you convinced by the ecclesiastical set-up? It seemed more than a bit unrealistic. This is nothing like Dame Agatha Christie would have written, though the author has probably read Father Brown stories by Chesterton as well as her writing.

Any other comments or questions ? It was a page-turner, though I am not likely to read it again like a book that was actually good! That said, I never did guess the murderers. Not likely to read something by this author again: the book was too long and too grisly!

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :

Did anyone actually like this book?

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

Simon did .

As for me, as a murder mystery I found the plot preposterous and couldn't believe in it. The crucifiction itself was far fetched and other elements such as the council worker who killed himself for feeling guilty over manipulating the waiting list for a beach hut.

I was frustrated each time we were taken back to old Gurdjieff. It really slowed the story down.
Once the Enneagram was introduced, I found it interesting and identified both my husband and myself.
As a plot device - each person at the fateful meeting representing each personality, it had promise which wasn't lived up to.

I don't know enough about the organisation of the C of E to know if it was convincing.

So all in all it was a disappointing read.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tree Bee:

I was frustrated each time we were taken back to old Gurdjieff. It really slowed the story down....

I don't know enough about the organisation of the C of E to know if it was convincing.

Being a former Anglican, I thought I knew a bit about C of E, but a bishop giving a ride to an ordinary parishioner does seem a bit preposterous. I did not like the 9-point chart and did not believe in it. I did not try to locate myself on it. I would prefer to read no more books by this author, though the ending was a bit of a surprise.

At the end of the day, I did not like this book. If Z says she does not wish to read it, I shall donate it to the local library branch or perhaps to the university library if they will have it.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

I did feel that the concentration on the enneagram rather diminished the plausibility of Abbot whatsits (incidentally, is one still an abbot if one's monastery has been disbanded?) psychological insight... As witnessed by his need to be rescued at the end.

Having said that, I might read the next book in the series...

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

OK , that was short and sweet and disappointingly we broadly agreed.

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