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Lion Eyes ReviewI wanted to like this book, but after plowing through 415 pages of tedious repetition I found I did not. This will not be a favorable review even as I so wanted it to be. I know, however, that there are many out there who would not mind the repetition and the questionable writing. To them I say, "Buy it, read it, enjoy."
There is some puzzlement as to who is doing the writing. Victor, whose name is on the book as the author, sets the book out to be written/spoken in the first person by 3 people, Jan, his wife and his son. And yet, how did this happen? Were they tape recorded? Wrote in a journal that was then translated to paper? What? I bring this up because taping people's statements and then setting them down in print is NOT being a writer. It's being a recorder. Apparently, Victor exercised little or no editing authority over what these people said. Therefore, I hope he shared the profits with them equally for they are the true authors and did most of the work!
First of all, this is NOT a mystical book or even an Indian book; it is a Christian book, despite lions helping Jan. After all, Daniel was also helped by lions in their den, so . . . Jesus is found aplenty and either the Bible is referenced or he is on almost every page.
Second, the repetition is egregious as is the hyperbole. For example, within the first 30 pages you hear the lion story FIVE times. How many times do we need to hear it? And must we read that Jan is noble and kind over and over again? There is fatuous self-promoting with very little humility, unless you count someone saying, "I am a very humble man" as taken.
Third, I must protest to Hay House who published this mishegas. I read a great deal (7-8 books a wk sometimes) and I'd say roughly 8 out of 10 of them are bady in need of editing. And the darndest thing is that many times those authors who so profusely thank their editors on their acknowledgement page, are the very ones who are in most grievous need of editing! A tight, thrilling, cohesive story could have been wrested from this book if pared down to around 250 pages. It is an outstanding bad example of poor or no editing! Life is just too short for all that repetition.
But it isn't just the length that bothers. Scenes are not fleshed out, tales are left half-told, endings peter out, meanings left unexplained. One example: Victor tells Jan that he will not take on this project until he has a dream about it. Now here is potential mysticism, Spirit at work in our lives! But we never find out if he had the dream, or what it was if he did. However, we do get two paragraphs of unnecessary promotion of Victor's previous books along with quotes from an LA Times review which interrupt the flow and add nothing to the story.
Lastly there is an acute aroma of lack of verisimilitude to this story. Over and OVER and over, Victor and the people bring up how "others" have doubted the truth of this tale, and then go on to swear and insist on its veracity until you just shake your head and mutter,
"Methinks thou doth protest too much." Which is to say, there is little spiritual authority going on here and much inner conflct. The story is told in a way that sounds like Hollywood is imagining it -- with all its sentimentality, loose ends and inaccurate depictions. I'm not saying it's a lie; I have no way of knowing. I'm only saying it sounds frequently untrue, and if it isn't then we must lay the blame right at the feet of Hay House who should have had an editor who whipped this book into a well-told, easily belevable whole.
So what is the ultimate message here that Victor and Jan want to get across? It can be found in the totally unnecessary Preface: "we ordinary people, educated or not educated, aren't helpless once we are connected to our God Spirit." Fine, as far as it goes. But unfortunately, God also created a brain for us and Spirit is in that, too.
Jan, who often idealizes "the way it was" in the "old days," when he says the Indians lived full of faith for the miraculous, and indicates he feels we need to return to that way of living, explains, "we (indigenous people) lived each day not full of thinking, but instead reaching up for the sunlight of God as naturally as a weed, a flower, or a tree." That's so lovely. The thing is we aren't flowers, weeds, or trees. We're human beings who, while having connection and communication with those things, nonetheless also have a brain through which we think. Thinking, we learn to speak. Speaking, we learn to write. Writing, we learn to be clear, accurate and truthful to the best of our ability. Victor's ability is not of the highest in this book.
Since Indians are among the poorest and most exploited of people, it appears their faith and miracles do not help them live and eat well. Can Victor and Jan not see that it is a combination of faith and the power of the mind that is called for? That, it seems to me, is what Jan is all about. But I'm not sure he realizes the thrilling possibilities that come with integrating and giving life to the best and most meaningful of two dying religions: Christianity and Native.
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