From Pilgrim\u2019s Progress, photo courtesy Revelation Media and Fathom Events<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>I\u2019ve never read Pilgrim\u2019s Progress.<\/p>\n
As a college English major, you think I would\u2019ve. And I should\u2019ve. At one point, pretty much everyone who could<\/em> read was reading John Bunyan\u2019s Christian allegory. The book has never been out of print since Bunyan first dropped it into the world in 1678. And while some consider it the English language\u2019s first real novel, it didn\u2019t stay strictly \u201cEnglish\u201d for long. Bunyan\u2019s seminal work (officially titled The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come<\/em>)\u00a0 has been translated into more than 200 languages. It\u2019s inspired everyone from Kurt Vonnegut to Terrence Malick to Sean McFarlane. Long before Harry Potter, this has been the very definition of \u201cmust read.\u201d<\/p>\nIf the book is anything like the animated movie\u2013now in the middle of a Fandango theatrical run\u2013I understand the fascination with it a little better. Bunyan\u2019s book is off-the-charts crazy.<\/p>\n
The story is a straight-up, on-the-nose allegory. Christian Pilgrim, living in the ironically-named city of Not Cursed, learns through a mysterious book of a much-better place called the Celestial City. He\u2019s determined to make his way there. But travel in those days was always perilous, and this journey particularly so. The Swamp of Despondency (called a \u201cslough\u201d in the book) is only his first challenge. He and his sometimes traveling compatriots must deal with all manner of trials. The Valley of Humiliation. The Castle of Despair. A well-dressed deceiver named Worldly Wiseman. (John Bunyan may have been many things, but he was not a master of subtlety.)<\/p>\n
Bunyan\u2019s goal was to write a \u201cguidebook,\u201d if you will, for Christians on their own Christian journeys, pointing out stumbling blocks and waypoints on the way to paradise. It\u2019s not easy, Bunyan told his readers. But it is worth it.<\/p>\n
The animated movie, naturally, has that same goal in mind\u2013while making Bunyan\u2019s Christian fantasy as kid-friendly as possible. This 17th-century tale is infused with a little 21st-century humor, and the story clicks right along. Also to be noted: Some of the book\u2019s grimmer moments are dealt with discretely. When Christian\u2019s traveling companion, Faithful, gets burned at the stake in the materialistic trap of Vanity Fair, only a bit of smoke offers a nod to Faithful\u2019s sad fate.<\/p>\n
While the movie\u2019s animation is pretty rudimentary compared to what we\u2019re seeing from Disney and DreamWorks these days (and it was made with a tiny a fraction of the budget typical for such projects, I hear), the images can be striking. I loved the scene in which Christian (off the straight-and-narrow path) is trying to scale the monstrous \u201cHill of Legality,\u201d with a Moses-like law-writer at its summit crafting ever-more edicts.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollow the instructions!\u201d the law-writer tells Christian.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich ones?\u201d Christian asks, as yet another tombstone-like tablet pops from the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of them, of course!\u201d<\/p>\n
Scenes like that lend Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em> an Alice in Wonderland<\/em> vibe, and really, that may be the closest comparison I can find for this very strange story. But when Christian and another traveling companion (Hopeful) run into a giant with narcolepsy and his rather shrewish wife, I was also reminded of the Monty Python-esque film Time Bandits<\/em>. It\u2019s reminiscent of fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, as well.<\/p>\nBut all of its narrative insanity serves a greater purpose\u2013the same purpose that Bunyan had so long ago. It reminds us that the Christian walk is hard and sometimes dangerous, but that help is always nearby if we need it. And the destination is oh-so-worth it.<\/p>\n
Pilgrim\u2019s Progress is a Fathom event, and will have its final showing (unless more are added) April 20. Click here<\/a> for details and to buy tickets.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve never read Pilgrim\u2019s Progress. As a college English major, you think I would\u2019ve. And I should\u2019ve. At one point, pretty much everyone who could read was reading John Bunyan\u2019s Christian allegory. The book has never been out of print since Bunyan first dropped it into the world in 1678. And while some consider it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":3952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,3],"tags":[35,52,6,51],"class_list":["post-3946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-choice","category-movies","tag-christian-movies","tag-christianity","tag-classics","tag-literature"],"yoast_head":"\n
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