Review of The Gospel of Rutba

On August 24, 2012, the Englewood Review of Books featured a review of The Gospel of Rutba by Paul Chaplin, who had this to say about the only veteran-character in the book;

Before finishing, I want to highlight one curiously poignant passage in the book, perhaps easy to pass by, in which Logan Mehl-Laituri (Iraq veteran turned conscientious objector) confronts his desire to talk about his experiences as a US combatant. Travelling with the group he is asked to keep quiet about his past – it might endanger others in the group, Iraqis may not be ready yet to be meeting US military personnel. He aches to talk about the struggles he has experienced during his service, and to apologise as well, but the chance never arrives. Barrett has a tendency to romanticise some of the characters of the book, occasionally almost embarrassingly so, but here a complex moral quandary reveals to us the challenge of reconciliation. Logan wants so much to lessen his own burden, but the reader is asked implicitly whether he has a right to “impose” his own needs on the broken landscape in Iraq. It’s a fascinating discussion-starter for the ethics of reconciliation and peacemaking.

The reviewer privileges civilian story telling without questioning whether Barrett is a reliable narrator. Perhaps more problematic, Chaplin claims knowledge of a character’s inner disposition and interests (“He aches” and “wants so much”) based on a secondhand account. The credibility of the reviewer is therefore bound up in the same problems of narrative authority Barrett avoids in the book.