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A Young Calvinist In Love
| Article
# : |
10488 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1993 |
1,879 Words |
| Author
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Gregory Wolfe
Gregory Wolfe is the founder and coeditor of Image: A Journal
of the Arts and Religion, and a frequent contributor to The
World & I. |
PORTOFINO
Frank Schaeffer
New York: Macmillan, 1992
248 pp., $15.00
Frank Schaeffer's Portofino is an understated, painfully funny tale of a boy's initiation into manhood--with a twist. For this novel not only takes us on a witty and, at times, poignant tour through some of the universal travails of a boy's life but also provides a fascinating window on a familiar but little-known American fundamentalism and see it anew, beyond the clichés of the televangelists and the stereotypes of secular liberals.
Schaeffer's mordant but ultimately forgiving viewpoint, born of personal experience, reveals the comedy, pathos, and contradictions of Christian fundamentalism. The result is a novel that is sardonic without being condescending, avoiding the pitfalls of angry, mindless rebellion. Portofino ends as any comedy--divine or human--should: with a sense of reconciliation and understanding. And since Schaeffer has been a leading activist in American evangelicalism, Portofino, his first novel, is itself an intriguing sign of some profound changes that are taking place in this wing of American's religious life.
The novel opens in 1962, with ten year-old Calvin Becker and his family returning for their annual summer vacation to the Italian Riviera town of Portofino. Calvin's parents are American missionaries who live in Switzerland, devoting their time to converting Roman Catholics to true Christianity, Calvin's father, Ralph, is a moody, temperamental preacher given to fits of depression and rage, especially when tried by his wife, Elsa. She, on the other hand, is a compulsively cheerful woman, happiest when praying out loud, at great length, in public; at times, however, her social snobbery gets the better of her. Calvin spends his time dodging moral and physical reproofs from his older sisters, the angry fifteen-year-older, Janet, and the meek thirteen-year-old, Rachel.
The very location of these vacations sets up a comic opposition between the uptight puritanical righteousness of the Becker family and the sensuous, quasi-pagan languor of the native Italians. The Beckers enjoy the sights and smells of the sun-drenched Mediterranean, but they refuse the glorious wines of the region and all alcoholic beverages. Even mineral water is too worldly for their ascetic palates; they prefer to drink tap water, to the astonishment and disgust of their Italian hosts at the pensione.
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