The cottage

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The Hut - A Weekend With God is a novel by the Canadian author William P. Young . In 2007 he was self-published by Windblown Media in the USA as The Shack . By March 2009, over six million copies of the original edition had been sold almost entirely through word of mouth. The New York Times bestseller had a worldwide circulation of 22 million copies by the end of 2016.

content

The hut takes place in the USA . The main character is Mackenzie Allen Philips, known as "Mack". He is married to Nan and they have five children, to whom Mack is a loving father.

Four years before the actual action, Mack and the three youngest children go camping at Wallowa Lake, a lake near Joseph, Oregon . When the older two capsize in the canoe and the son is trapped under the water, Mack jumps into the water and saves him. Back at the campsite, it turns out that six-year-old Missy has disappeared within a few minutes. A witness saw her in the passenger seat of an off-road vehicle. The police are turned on and find evidence that Missy was kidnapped by an already known serial killer. Like the other four victims, Missy remains missing, but high up in the mountains, first the kidnapping vehicle and then, in an abandoned hut, Missy's dress is found, tattered and soaked in blood. Mack collapses under the tremendous pain and sinks into depression and feelings of guilt, he himself calls it "the great sadness" that now rules his life.

At the beginning of the main story, Mack receives a letter, the sender of which asks him to meet him at the same hut on the weekend. The letter is only signed " Papa ". Mack's father was a church elder and alcoholic who badly abused his family and in particular beat 13-year-old Mack on one occasion so that he tried to poison his father and left his parents' home forever. Mack now wonders who the letter is from: from his father? Missy's killer? Or even from God himself, whom his wife Nan heartily calls "Papa", but with whom he has no real relationship?

Expecting a bad joke, Mack hides the letter from his family and goes alone to the snowy and deserted hut. The blood stain is still visible where Missy's dress was. The sight triggers a fit of anger in him, in which he cuts the facility and shouts out of himself his hatred of the god who did not prevent Missy's death. Frustrated, he wants to leave again, but suddenly the surrounding winter landscape is transformed into a warm, paradisiacally beautiful environment. In front of the hut, which is now an inviting, cozy log cabin, he encounters embodiments of the three persons of the Trinity . God the Father appears as a caring African American woman who lets himself be called “Papa” by him and works in the kitchen, Jesus Christ as a Hebrew craftsman who often has to do in his workshop, and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman named Sarayu (“ Wind ") who takes care of the garden.

The main part of the book reproduces the numerous long conversations that Mack had with "Papa", Jesus and Sarayu over the course of the weekend. He was deeply impressed by the extremely loving and respectful interaction of the three God Persons with one another. The conversations initially revolve around the nature of God and his relationship with humanity in general, but later increasingly around Missy's fate and Mack's personal relationship with God. Mack gets an insight into God's perspective on the world and begins to understand why it is an expression of God's love not to simply prevent all evil. He also meets Sophia , the wisdom who shows him the consequences of sitting in judgment over other people or God, forcing him to exemplarily judge his own children as God in his view of God to judge people. Mack then meets Missy, who lives in the hereafter, deeply moved; she is fine and looking forward to him.

Later, under God's influence, he can bring himself to reconcile with his own father and on the last day even forgive his daughter's murderer after a long spiritual battle. "Papa" then shows him the cave in the mountains where Missy's body is hidden, which they bring to the hut together and bury in a beautiful coffin that Jesus built over the weekend according to Missy's own ideas in the chaotic, colorful garden that Mack learned to represent his own soul.

Mack is finally given the choice of whether he wants to go into the afterlife with God and be with Missy right away, or whether he wants to return to earthly existence with his family. He decides for his family, whereupon he wakes up alone in the now wintry hut again, as if he had just dreamed it all.

On the way back, Mack was seriously injured in a traffic accident and was passed out for four days. He then learns with astonishment that the accident happened on the day he drove to the hut, that is, he cannot have spent the weekend there as far as humanly possible.

However, he can later lead the police to the cave with Missy's body. The perpetrator is caught based on the traces found there. Mack no longer hates him and wants to meet with him. The "great sadness" has disappeared from his life, deep love now shapes him.

Emergence

William Paul Young wrote The Shack in 2005 as a Christmas present for his six children, some of whom were already grown up. Friends who read the story urged him to publish it. Since no publisher could be found, Young founded Windblown Media with two partners with the sole purpose of bringing out this book. In the book, Young works through his own experiences with abuse, suffering and life as a missionary child; the hut serves as a metaphor for the "house that you build out of your own pain".

The novel The cottage - A weekend of God appeared on 15 June 2009 in the German to the Ullstein publishing group belonging Allegria Verlag .

effect

The book was # 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for 70 weeks . At the beginning of 2010, over 10 million copies in 30 different languages ​​had been sold worldwide. In 2018, 23 million copies had already been distributed in 51 languages.

Due to the surprising sales success and the message that was inspiring for many readers, the book received a lot of positive feedback. Criticism comes from theologically conservative circles e.g. B. because of the representation of the Trinity or from literary circles because of textual inadequacies.

The criticism of conservative Christian theologians is not only directed against the representation of the Trinity . Georg Walter draws up a list of 20 points of criticism. Among other things, according to Walter, the feeling is overrated and the mind is undervalued. This also leads to an undervaluation of every theological truth. A New Age religion with pantheistic ideas is conveyed. The Bible and Christian churches would be devalued.

filming

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The plot was filmed in 2016 under the same title (orig. The Shack ); a trailer was released on December 1, 2016, the film release in the USA was on March 3, 2017, in the German-speaking area on April 6, 2017.

The film was released as a directorial work by Stuart Hazeldine in German cinemas. Sam Worthington as Mack, Radha Mitchell as his wife and Octavia Spencer initially as a supporting neighbor and later as "Papa" play the main roles .

Differences between film and novel

In the film, Mack and Nan don't have five children, just the three they live with or with whom Mack drives to the campsite. In the film there is only the reference of the hairpin with the ladybug to Missy's kidnapper. Mack gets the vehicle on loan instead of taking it while his friend fetches fishing gear. In the film, Mack does not lead the police to the cave with Missy's body. The recap of the abduction of Missy takes place at a different time in the film than in the book. The ending is also different.

occupation

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Author of 'The Shack' discusses book's success, painful past" ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Christian Examiner Online (March 2009) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.christianexaminer.com
  2. ↑ About . In: The Shack - Faith Resources Website - In Theaters March 3 . ( theshackresources.com [accessed December 3, 2016]).
  3. ↑ "Aim at 'spiritually interested' sparks 'The Shack' sales" USA Today, May 1, 2008
  4. ↑ "The DREW MARSHALL Show - audio download of two interviews with Young April 5 and 6 December 2008".
  5. ↑ Ullstein Buchverlage: "The hut - a weekend with God"
  6. ↑ Georg Walter: God to touch? - The hut and its "New Spirituality". Christian literature distribution, Bielefeld 2010, p. 12
  7. ↑ The hut "live" . An interview with William Paul Young about shame, abuse, and the masculine and feminine in God, AufAtmen, Witten 4/2018, pp. 14-19
  8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Interview of the Christian media magazine Pro with Young. Summary of the origins and previous reception history. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jesus.de
  9. ↑ Georg Walter: God to touch? - The hut and its "New Spirituality". Christian literature distribution, Bielefeld 2010, pp. 95-107. [1]
  10. ↑ Trailer on the film website
  11. ^ The hut - website for the film. Retrieved April 15, 2017 .
  12. ↑ The Shack. IMDb , March 3, 2017, accessed April 15, 2017 .