When it comes to books, I’m not all that
adventurous. I don’t like to waste my
time on things I don’t think I’ll like, and so I usually stick to genres I’m
familiar with—wizards and unicorns, as my father used to say. But I do also try to educate myself to inform
my writing, and sometimes my writing informs my reading. For example, having been working on a blog
from the viewpoint of an angel for over a year now, I’ve started to pick up
anything that has to do with angels. I’ve
dug more deeply into the bible, kept pamphlets that Jehovah’s Witnesses push
under my door, and found myself reading fluffy articles written by spiritual
people on the internet. And at the
library the other day, when I saw a book called The Trial of Fallen Angels, I picked it up.
I
was a bit disappointed not to find a Miltonian novel about Lucifer and his followers
receiving judgment, but my disappointment did not last long. Written by James Kimmel, Jr., this book is a
story about a woman seeking justice, and finding something else entirely. At the beginning of the story, Brek Cuttler,
a young lawyer and mother, finds herself on the platform of a train
station. She is naked, covere din blook,
and though she tries for several chapters to deny it, she is dead. But her quest is not to find out what has
happened. Rather, she has been charged
with the task of representing the dead in the trials that will decide their
eternal fate. Divine justice is not what
she expected, and what Brek will have to do is the hardest thing she has ever
done, for her very first client is the man who killed her.
Kimmel’s
portrayal of life after death is original and imaginative, relying not on any
one tradition but instead presenting a new image of beauty and strangeness, of
the impossible made possible. Despite
this imagery, it was a bit hard for me to get into the book—I usually don’t
have a lot of patience for suspense or withheld information, and there was a
fair bit of it. But Kimmel does an
excellent job drawing in his reader, so before you know it you are in the thick
of the story. Each new character
introduced in this supernatural courtroom drama has something to add to the
story, until you realize that all of them are drawn together into an intricate
and complex history, full of family and tragedy and the importance of justice.
It
is justice that is the driving force of the book. Brek herself has always sought justice, from
the time of her childhood. It frustrates
her, therefore, that justice in the afterlife seems hurried, careless, blind to
aspects of the truth. She resolves to
bring true justice to this place, but instead she learns a deeper truth that
cut me to the heart. Kimmel’s own words
are best to describe it:
Terror
and murder are the way of justice, not the way of love. Every war waged, and every harm inflicted, has been for the sake
of justice. … He who seeks justice is harmed, not healed, because to obtain justice one must do that
which is unjust. … Not to seek justice
is to love those who harm us and
become victors. Love is not passive or
submissive. It is the determined application of opposite force to hatred
and fear, demanding the highest effort and skill.” (Kimmel 353)
To me, this was one of those passages that make you put down the book and close your eyes to absorb what you’ve just read. It had never occurred to me before to see justice and love as opposites. But it’s true that “justice” is the harsh cry that precedes some of the worst things mankind can inflict on one another. We demand blood, hardship, and cruelty in the name of justice. Justice calls for punishment, and it leaves no room for love.
In church on Sunday the pastor was talking about debts and how they must be repaid. He said that when wrong is done, someone has to bear the cost of it. Even if the debt is forgiven, that doesn’t erase the wrong, and forgiveness means that the one who was harmed bears the cost. Forgiveness is not justice; it is grace, a gift that we do not deserve. It is love, pure and simple.
This was one of those books that put into words something I’ve always felt. This was one of those passages that made me realize something I’ve always known. I highly recommend this book, whether you are someone who loves easily or someone who has cried out for justice in your life. It shows you that there are two sides to every story and many sides to every person, and sometimes justice demands that both opponents must suffer. But in the end, of the book and of our own lives, it is love that must carry the day.
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