reviewed by Rae Stabosz
I must confess a weakness for fiction about mysticism and spiritual warfare, especially that featuring angels and other such ethereal creatures. This predilection made me eager to read David B. Harrington’s book Inclinations, whose cover blurb promised “… angels and mythical creatures….a strange and allegorical mixture of poetry and prose. Based on a series of mystical and esoteric visions, this collection of short stories and poems covers a wide variety of themes including faith, judgment, mysticism and spiritual warfare.”
Sadly, the book disappointed me. The chapters are not short stories, nor are they poems. The author has made an effort to create a work of apocalyptic literature. Each chapter describes a vision using the language of apocalypse. There are seals to be broken, fates of doom, an Altar of Fire, a Holy City and a Holy Mountain, Seven Creative Powers of God, Seven Divine Reflections of God, cosmic plagues, golden harps, holy angels of heaven, stars falling from the heavens, streams of water, brilliant rays of light, saucer-shaped objects turning like pinwheels, Agents of Hell, dragonslayers, the Sungoddess, the Throne Room and the Ancient and Living God. In a more disciplined hand, these images could startle and pique the reader’s sense of mystery. Here, they are just imitative of the images in the Book of Revelation. Grammatical errors throughout the text distract the reader from the sense of the writing. There is little continuity between chapters or visions. There is no plot, and very little sense to be made from the individual visions. The cumulative effect is exhausting.
Inclinations, written in the style of the Book of Revelations, fails to bring any new insight of vision or beauty of language to elucidate the original. And so ironically, more than anything else this book makes the reader want to take up Scripture and read the Book of Revelations itself.
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