The journey of Christian from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City has been written and dispersed for nearly 350 years. Debatably, The Pilgrim’s Progress was the first novel written in English, and it has had a huge cultural impact. It has been translated into more than 200 different languages and had multiple derivative works created from it. Now, Alan Vermilye is tackling yet another translation–from English to English this time. He has rewritten this classic in more modern language. Does it hold up to the original? Does it retain the linguistic beauty of the original?
I picked up this book to participate in a book study. I was tempted to stick with a copy of the original work, but I decided to see if this updated version was worthwhile and could introduce Christian’s journey to a new generation.
The Pilgrim’s Progress: A Readable Modern-day Version (hereafter abbreviated to The Pilgrim’s Progress) was written by Alan Vermilye (author’s Amazon profile with his other books) as a modern rewrite of John Bunyan’s original. Most of Vermilye’s authorial past has been in creating study guides for classic Christian fiction (like C.S. Lewis’ works) so he is quite familiar with the intent behind books like The Pilgrim’s Progress. This version is 236 pages long, and it was released on May 7, 2020.
Read on for a detailed breakdown, or click here to jump to the conclusion.
My name is now Christian, but my name used to be Graceless.
Purpose
Like my review of Mythos, I am going to stick to two sections for this review: purpose and prose. I will try to review both the original work and this particular adaptation–when it is possible to separate them.
The purpose of The Pilgrim’s Progress should be pretty obvious to most readers within just a few pages; it seeks to tell the allegorical story of a Christian’s (personified as “Christian”) journey to faith and subsequent sanctification. In telling this story, Bunyan is also trying to convey the steps to salvation from a Puritan perspective and warn against the dangers that may appear to distract from the Christian life journey.
Few have ever matched Bunyan’s ability to demonstrate the highs and lows of the Christian journey. For several decades now, since I first read this book, I have often thought of the burden dropping from Christian’s back when confronted by the cross and rolling to the grave. Such vivid imagery has simply not been copied. What a beautiful way to think of the moment of salvation!
Bunyan does not let up from there. Christian moves along the path to the Celestial City while encountering the same kinds of temptations and delights that would be familiar to modern Christians. I find the continued relevancy of a centuries-old story to be incredible. Bunyan fulfills his purpose of showing the struggles and triumphs of the Christian life.
Prose
The prose of the book is a little hard to review. The Pilgrim’s Progress does not follow modern styles. It does not spend a ton of time building connections with the characters or even follow the kinds of plot arcs that would be familiar to modern readers. These temporal differences, however, do not prevent the prose from being absolutely beautiful.
Bunyan can often prompt feelings in just a short paragraph that most authors cannot provoke with multiple pages of build-up. His writing is dense and punchy. He includes tons of scriptural references, and he assumes his audience will be familiar enough with the Bible to engage with them.
Here is where I can comment on Vermilye’s update. He manages to retain Bunyan’s style and feel despite updating the language. Even though he updates some of the vocabulary, he does not hold back from the dense, deep thoughts in the original; he simply replaces more arcane words with vocabulary that will be slightly more familiar to current audiences.
Vermilye also includes some footnotes pointing to the scriptural references to help those who may come across references they do not recognize (indeed, I found them helpful despite having a fairly deep knowledge of the Bible myself). I think any reader would be well-served by this modern update without missing out on the beauty of the original.
Conclusion
You should read this if …
- You are a Christian. Though it is centuries old, the insights are directly applicable to modern Christian struggles.
- You are curious about the Christian outlook on life. By allegorizing, Bunyan can clarify the Christian walk to those who are unfamiliar
- You want some encouragement. Christian’s many lows on his journey serve only to amplify the highs
