The first time I was given a link to this memoir by Finis Leavell Beauchamp about his conversion to Orthodox Judaism from evangelical Christianity, and I saw the cover and the title, I wanted to keep the book at arm’s length. It just seemed too intense.
A few weeks later, I read the summary version of the book on Aish.com, and the whole time I was reading, I was leaning back inside to remove myself from the fire of the writing.
The title on the Aish story was “The Christian Defector.” I had never thought about leaving Christianity as defection. I thought about Cold War spies leaving the Allies for the Soviet Union as defectors. This is a story of life on a whole new level.
When I read a book, I imagine myself in the place of every character, particularly the protagonist. In this story, Finis begins with an exorcism. This rings a bell. I also had Christians close to me suggest I was demon-possessed and that perhaps an exorcism with a Catholic priest might be just the thing I needed most.
I’ve never encountered a Jew who worried much about demons and the devil.
Finis describes his grandfather Landrum Pinson Leavell II as so “forcefully erudite and intellectually creative, that over his career he was elected president…of one of the largest Christian seminaries in the world.” This reminds me of my dad.
I Google my dad and the first Google suggestion next to his name is “theology.”
Finis writes: “I was heir to the great princes of our faith, the one predicted to rise to my grandfather’s place.”
I know the feeling. I was the child most like our father.
“And it was whispered in my ear by my mother, and teachers, and even by strangers on those trips, that… I would be far greater than he. I would be the last hero of our faith, one sent by God to gather up the last souls before the judgment.”
Like Finis, I too developed a crippling narcissism.
With phrases such as “evil sentient metaphysical entities,” Terrible Beauty is the most over-written book I’ve read since Look Homeward Angel. It is southern gothic.
According to Wikipedia: “Common themes in Southern Gothic literature include deeply flawed, disturbing or eccentric characters who may or may not dabble in hoodoo,[1] ambivalent gender roles and decayed or derelict settings,[2] grotesque situations, and other sinister events relating to or coming from poverty, alienation, crime and violence. While the tales in literature can be set among various classes, the decay of the southern aristocracy and the setting of the plantation are the usual settings for southern gothic tales in the popular mind.”
Finis’s dad learned his oratory from Adolf Hitler. When Finis would cry as an infant, his dad would suffocate him with a pillow. His mother beat him several times a day.
In eighth grade, Finis makes the common mistake of asking his mom what a clit is and whether it could be six inches.
I race through his book, enjoying the story but hating the writing. What type of person inflicts this on an innocent reader? “Certainly I, a mere freshman in high school, though resilient, could not forever withstand the myriad horrors that seemed structurally integral to my every waking hour.”
When the author tells his story, I love it. When he gets literary, I hate it.
Finis careens from disaster to disaster, much like I did in my 20s. An older Jewish man befriends him, just like Jules Zentner did to me. The older Jewish man attempts to have sex with him, just like Jules attempted with me.
I finished the book in one sitting of seven hours, skimming the philosophical and literary bits.
Here are some sharp comments on amazon.com:
* His writing style is a bit show offish to me, like constant big words he uses for no other reason than to show that he can write big words.
* Also, why is there zero online trace of him other than his book? A little peculiar.
