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Lydia: Seller of Purple
Book by Faid, Robert W.
345 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1991
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
Robert W. Faid
9 books1 followerAmerican author, numerologist and former nuclear engineer.
Faid was an agnostic in his early life and converted to Christianity after recovery from cancer.
One of his theological theories is that Mikhail Gorbachev is the anti-christ.
Faid holds 2 patents relating to the construction of nuclear plants.
Faid was an agnostic in his early life and converted to Christianity after recovery from cancer.
One of his theological theories is that Mikhail Gorbachev is the anti-christ.
Faid holds 2 patents relating to the construction of nuclear plants.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 24, 2019
I don't know why I'm bothering to write a super long rant review of a book that only a dozen other people have read. Ever. (If Goodreads is to be believed.) I think it's mainly for me, to get all my angry thoughts about this book off my chest. But hopefully y'all can enjoy it as well - I actually like reading detailed negative reviews of books, even if I've never read them. I can't be alone in that.
So.
BACKSTORY
I bought Lydia, Seller of Purple at a thrift store recently because I enjoy reading old Christian novels and I figured I'd never find it again. WORST MISTAKE EVER. I should have left it on the shelf. In fact, I should have actually bought it and then burned it as soon as I got home. Or in the parking lot of the thrift store. Or something. (Note: this is the second of only two books that I've ever ripped up in rage upon finishing. Just so you know.)
WARNING SIGNS
The synopsis on the back made me laugh. After vaguely describing a bit of the plot, it said "This expertly crafted book does everything a good novel should." Like, HOW MUCH HUBRIS DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO SAY THAT??? (Spoiler alert: it did nothing a good novel should.)
Another warning sign was the first few pages because, right away, the writing was bad. Nothing you could really put a finger on, but it was super easy to tell that the author wasn't a good fiction writer. He's written at least one non-fiction book about the Bible, so maybe his non-fiction is better. (I kinda doubt it though.) There were some anachronisms (I felt) in the dialogue. Like Lydia's slave calling her 'honey', someone referring to a pregnant teenage girl as a 'tramp', and someone telling someone to 'shut up'. It made for very uneven dialogue.
THE CHARACTERS
Flat. So flat. I never got a sense of who Lydia was, what made her tick, anything. The Roman soldier she kind of falls in love with was completely bland. There could have been juicy conflict between them, a crisis of conscience, and so on (because Lydia is a Christian and he's not) but there was nothing. I mean, yeah, there was conflict but it basically devolved into the soldier asking Lydia to marry him every few months, her saying she couldn't marry him until he became a Christian, and then they're both completely content to be friends after that. Until the next time he asks, I guess.
The villain, Vestus, was SO cliched. He says "I'll get my revenge on you, Lydia, if it takes me whole life" TWICE. That's two times too many.
And then there's the more established biblical characters.
First, Silas was portrayed as this whiny, complaining, fearful Christian. He doesn't sing songs in the prison - Paul just sings and Silas is all "Why are you singing???!!!" Luke is perfect and very man-splainy to the female characters (especially Lydia).
And PAUL. This is probably what made me angriest. Ever since writing a dystopian retelling of the life of Paul, I've become kind of (and this is going to sound bad, but-) ?proprietary? of him? Or at least of his portrayal in fiction? I actively seek out novels where he's a featured character to see how he's portrayed and usually the results are...meh. But in this book, it was AWFUL.
First of all, this is kind of beside the point, but he's literally described as 'chubby'. Um...no. Paul was extremely active, was often in prison/tortured, was poor - there's pretty much no way he was chubby, okay? Then, in his very first scene, he's thinking all these angry, crude (he literally uses 'a**es' to describe the church members back in Jerusalem) things about the church in Jerusalem not letting him go into Asia. NO. It was the Holy Spirit that held him back from going into Asia. Not some church board or something. Ugggggh.
Paul also seems to teach throughout the book that salvation comes through belief in Jesus AND baptism. Which he didn't teach or believe at all. And this is a bit off topic, but different characters took the Lord's Supper twice during this book and each time they felt 'something very deep and mysterious'. The Lord's Supper is about remembering, not receiving some spiritual experience? Idek?
THE LOVE TRIANGLE
ACK.
I CAN'T.
There is a stupid LOVE TRIANGLE between Lydia, Marcellus (the Roman soldier), and PAUL. WHAT. Okay, I totally get that Paul was human. He wasn't a god. He was a real person with faults and flaws. But the whole love triangle thing was icky. Paul was completely unaware of it, tbh, because it was all in Lydia's mind, but when you get lines like "But why, when Marcellus kissed me, was it Paul's face I saw?" you have SERIOUS problems as an author.
(My blood pressure has to be sky-rocketing as I type this.)
THE ENDING
The ending was a no from me. So, Marcellus is tasked with rounding up Christians after Rome burned down. And I thought "Great, now we're finally going to get some emotional grip". But no. Marcellus vacillates between doing it and not doing it. Lydia's slaves are killed unceremoniously. Then Lydia is captured and Vestus (the villain) suddenly kills her because he's mad at her for stealing his customers. She doesn't get a martyr's death. She just...dies. Marcellus holds her as she dies and "looked again into her glassy, staring eyes. And he could see through them into the terrifying void of his eternity."
Which is then followed by a quick cut to a cringy scene of Lydia in Heaven. Literally in Heaven.
So no closure for Marcellus, no nothing. Completely unsatisfying ending to a wretched book.
Gag.
Please don't ever read this. EVER.
[EDIT: Forgot to mention that you can sooooo easily tell this book is written by a man because Lydia rarely has any thoughts/conversations that aren't focused on the men in her life.]
So.
BACKSTORY
I bought Lydia, Seller of Purple at a thrift store recently because I enjoy reading old Christian novels and I figured I'd never find it again. WORST MISTAKE EVER. I should have left it on the shelf. In fact, I should have actually bought it and then burned it as soon as I got home. Or in the parking lot of the thrift store. Or something. (Note: this is the second of only two books that I've ever ripped up in rage upon finishing. Just so you know.)
WARNING SIGNS
The synopsis on the back made me laugh. After vaguely describing a bit of the plot, it said "This expertly crafted book does everything a good novel should." Like, HOW MUCH HUBRIS DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO SAY THAT??? (Spoiler alert: it did nothing a good novel should.)
Another warning sign was the first few pages because, right away, the writing was bad. Nothing you could really put a finger on, but it was super easy to tell that the author wasn't a good fiction writer. He's written at least one non-fiction book about the Bible, so maybe his non-fiction is better. (I kinda doubt it though.) There were some anachronisms (I felt) in the dialogue. Like Lydia's slave calling her 'honey', someone referring to a pregnant teenage girl as a 'tramp', and someone telling someone to 'shut up'. It made for very uneven dialogue.
THE CHARACTERS
Flat. So flat. I never got a sense of who Lydia was, what made her tick, anything. The Roman soldier she kind of falls in love with was completely bland. There could have been juicy conflict between them, a crisis of conscience, and so on (because Lydia is a Christian and he's not) but there was nothing. I mean, yeah, there was conflict but it basically devolved into the soldier asking Lydia to marry him every few months, her saying she couldn't marry him until he became a Christian, and then they're both completely content to be friends after that. Until the next time he asks, I guess.
The villain, Vestus, was SO cliched. He says "I'll get my revenge on you, Lydia, if it takes me whole life" TWICE. That's two times too many.
And then there's the more established biblical characters.
First, Silas was portrayed as this whiny, complaining, fearful Christian. He doesn't sing songs in the prison - Paul just sings and Silas is all "Why are you singing???!!!" Luke is perfect and very man-splainy to the female characters (especially Lydia).
And PAUL. This is probably what made me angriest. Ever since writing a dystopian retelling of the life of Paul, I've become kind of (and this is going to sound bad, but-) ?proprietary? of him? Or at least of his portrayal in fiction? I actively seek out novels where he's a featured character to see how he's portrayed and usually the results are...meh. But in this book, it was AWFUL.
First of all, this is kind of beside the point, but he's literally described as 'chubby'. Um...no. Paul was extremely active, was often in prison/tortured, was poor - there's pretty much no way he was chubby, okay? Then, in his very first scene, he's thinking all these angry, crude (he literally uses 'a**es' to describe the church members back in Jerusalem) things about the church in Jerusalem not letting him go into Asia. NO. It was the Holy Spirit that held him back from going into Asia. Not some church board or something. Ugggggh.
Paul also seems to teach throughout the book that salvation comes through belief in Jesus AND baptism. Which he didn't teach or believe at all. And this is a bit off topic, but different characters took the Lord's Supper twice during this book and each time they felt 'something very deep and mysterious'. The Lord's Supper is about remembering, not receiving some spiritual experience? Idek?
THE LOVE TRIANGLE
ACK.
I CAN'T.
There is a stupid LOVE TRIANGLE between Lydia, Marcellus (the Roman soldier), and PAUL. WHAT. Okay, I totally get that Paul was human. He wasn't a god. He was a real person with faults and flaws. But the whole love triangle thing was icky. Paul was completely unaware of it, tbh, because it was all in Lydia's mind, but when you get lines like "But why, when Marcellus kissed me, was it Paul's face I saw?" you have SERIOUS problems as an author.
(My blood pressure has to be sky-rocketing as I type this.)
THE ENDING
The ending was a no from me. So, Marcellus is tasked with rounding up Christians after Rome burned down. And I thought "Great, now we're finally going to get some emotional grip". But no. Marcellus vacillates between doing it and not doing it. Lydia's slaves are killed unceremoniously. Then Lydia is captured and Vestus (the villain) suddenly kills her because he's mad at her for stealing his customers. She doesn't get a martyr's death. She just...dies. Marcellus holds her as she dies and "looked again into her glassy, staring eyes. And he could see through them into the terrifying void of his eternity."
Which is then followed by a quick cut to a cringy scene of Lydia in Heaven. Literally in Heaven.
So no closure for Marcellus, no nothing. Completely unsatisfying ending to a wretched book.
Gag.
Please don't ever read this. EVER.
[EDIT: Forgot to mention that you can sooooo easily tell this book is written by a man because Lydia rarely has any thoughts/conversations that aren't focused on the men in her life.]
September 11, 2014
Poignant tale of the first Christian convert in Macedonia, a woman who was truly the embodiment of her faith,. It is a wonderful story of her encounters with Paul, Luke, Eudioa, Clemments, Epaphroditus, Jason, etc and the first pioneers of the Christian faith. You feel for her as she loses a child, marries the town hunk who does not love her, loses her father and then goes on with his father's purple cloth business. She knows the secret to maintaining beautiful hues of the purple dye and struggles to keep her business afloat. She provides financial support and hospitality to Paul and his friends and is a witness to the cruelty of the Roman Empire, its persecution of the first Cristians and the trials and tribulations experienced because of her faith. She never loses ger vision and never lloks back after accepting Hesus as her Lord and Savior. She was faithfull until the end...when she meets her Lord...great book...highly recommended!!!
December 31, 2012
very good
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews