Chris Seay

"The Gospel According to Lost" is not normally a book I would blindly pick up. I am not a major fan of any of the "Gospel According to" books. To say that Chris Seay pleasantly surprised me would be and understatment. As an avid viewer of LOST, I generally enjoyed this spin on the show.

The book begins by explaining how LOST is different from other shows and why it has become an import influence to the people who watch it every week. After this introduction, each chapter examines a specific character by looking at the main philosophical theme they represent and how their character changes throughout the show in regard to their theme. He then compares the LOST narrative to stories found in the Bible.


I often found myself making the same connections that Seay did:


* Eko with his bible-stick of scripture
* Sawyer's bad-boy-seeking-redemption story
* Locke with his insistence on faith
* Shephard's stubborn anti-supernatural stance




On the negative side, Seay often took the easy road when reflecting on the characters--there are a lot of deeper connections that could have been plumbed. Also, the structure of the book was quite scattered. There was no unifying arc to the book as a whole. This book provides a great review of certain characters and mysteries the show has created, which is especially useful before the final season this spring.
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With one exception, I got no new insights into LOST, it's characters, or the Gospel according to Chris Seay. The one exception was Seay's take on the love of Penny and Desmond, comparing it to the type of love that our Creator has for us and I think he does a more than fair job of explaining it. There is actually just about the right amount of Christian theme to this book which keeps it from becoming a sermon or too preachy (much like the show itself). Most of it is in the form of quotes from the Letters of Paul. He also adds in an adequate amount of quotes from other philosophers and writers that help to understand where a character is mentally or spiritually. Most of the chapters of the book are devoted to the main characters of the show though they don't seem to me to be in any particular sensical order.

Keep in mind that this book/CD was written/recorded after season 5 so he is a little off in his "understandings" of the characters but not by much. Some things, no one saw coming in the final season. Still, I can't get enough of anything LOST, one of the greatest works of art produced by modern man, so instead of three, it gets four stars.… (mehr)