Reviewed by phyllish on
The Fate of the Watchman is like looking into a mirror reflecting my soul. Seeing things through Lester’s eyes and knowing that I want to be oblivious to the world around me as he was is a little painful. I know that I’m not as bad as he is in some areas, but not as bad doesn’t mean that I don’t have a long way to go.
The language used is simply beautiful. Having read the author’s bio, I know that he is an English teacher and imagine the continual exposure to the Classics has influenced the way he converts his thoughts into stories. Be sure to take a look at the preview of the book below to get a feel for the way each chapter begins. Wonderful!
This is a challenging book. In a Christmas Carol-ish manner, Lester gets a glimpse of people and events around him. Yet instead of watching with a view of how people perceive him, as happened with Ebenezer Scrooge, he sees the calamities in the world he has shut his eyes against. Things that are hard to look at. Things we all wish we could ignore so they would simply go away.
I like to think of myself as a compassionate person, yet reading this story has me re-evaluating my response to pain and evil around me. Hiding and pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t make it disappear. I appreciate the way the author showed some ugly things and yet didn’t dwell on them so much to make them impossible for me to read. He handled this with tact and discretion. I was also so thankful for the way I was not left without hope or feeling depressed. I became introspective about my need to be more extrospective. There’s some irony for you!
The Fate of the Watchman shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to finish. I read it more slowly than some other stories of similar length as I read and re-read passages to absorb what was happening. My recommendation is to find a day you can spend a few hours reading and go through it all at once. Leave some time for contemplation when you are done, then pray and ask the Lord what this means in your life and what, if anything, He would have you to change. This is a great book!
This review was originally posted on Among the Reads
I was given a free copy of this item. This gift did not influence my opinion or review.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- Finished reading
- 26 October, 2018: Reviewed