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17 September 2026
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The MSLian is a series of studies of fiction books, attempting to answer the question "how would an MSLian enter the world?" (I think often, the world of the book studied, but possibly other parts of the real or realistic world.) MSLians are adherents of a religion that I am part of (and am so far the only member of). "MSL" is the name of a natural theology and can refer to the logical extensions of it.
(Maybe this is the first in a series. I'm unsure how much I want to go on with this.)
The studies could be seen as a form of literary criticism, discussing the genre of "the MSLian" (like "the Western" with its cowboys, or detective fiction with its detectives). The MSLian is generally professional, like a detective, and gets involved in a personal way with the lives of people around him or her. MSLians, by virtue of being part of a minority religion, are always at least somewhat in the situation of the missionary: alone or in small groups, vulnerable, influenced by and influencing the people they go to, misunderstood, belonging neither to the people they go to nor their sending culture, belonging in both places (do they have a sending culture?).
The book I have chosen for this installment of The MSLian is The Applicant by Nazlı Koca. I went to a bookstore looking for contemporary realistic fiction, and this seemed to be the most serious and realistic one I could find.
I read The Applicant once casually, and was able to see potential in it as part of this series. Then read it once again taking notes.
The Applicant is autobiographical fiction. Hopefully Koca described things fictionally but accurately. At least she knows the settings she writes about (at least Berlin and Turkey, not sure about Sweden). Koca and The Applicant's protagonist, Leyla, seem to be somewhat similar, which gave me some concern that I would accidentally write something too personal about Koca. I'm only trying to write about Leyla, as an exercise in speculative literary criticism. Perhaps Koca has distance on her past self, which Leyla resembles, and no longer too strongly identifies with her anyway. (This is how I feel about my own somewhat autobiographical fiction, all of it at least seven years old now.)
As I think will be usual with these studies, this study will to some extent spoil the plot of the book it's about. If this bothers you, I suppose you should read The Applicant before reading this.
You will get the most out of this if you read along in The Applicant, but still can get something out of this if you read it cold.
I didn't necessarily respond to every interesting element of The Applicant.
A very simple explanation of MSL:
God exists, is omnisubjective (experiences all beings' experiences firsthand) and thus is empathic, can be hurt, bears burdens, is powerful, is good, values us. MSL proves this ("MSL" stands for three theistic arguments).
Extended MSL includes VMH: 1. Everyone must become completely holy (in tune with God, no longer producing cognitive dissonance or other unbearable pain for God) before being with God forever (God can't escape anyone who exists, so those who harden themselves against finishing this process must be destroyed, to God's regret) ("holiness"). 2. Becoming holy is significantly up to each person to complete, up to their free will, and the free will of their future selves ("voluntary"). 3. There is not enough time to finish this task of becoming holy in this life, so there will be a long, finite time after this life in which to finish it ("millennial", after the Millennium in the Bible, the 1,000 year reign of Christ found in the book of Revelation, which could be identified with this time of completing holiness). Together, these three ideas form "voluntary millennial holiness" or VMH.
Extended MSL also includes ethical theism: just as there is such a thing as humanism, an ethical orientation toward human well-being and human significance, there is such a thing as ethical theism. "Ethical theism" to distinguish from the more usual meaning of "theism" (belief that God exists, which could be called "epistemic theism"). Ethical theism highlights God's struggle, frustration, how we reject him, how we have power over him by withholding our love, how God is hurt by our sin.
Extended MSL deals with the Problem of Evil by saying that God is unable to will our temptation (too good), temptation is needed for the perfection of our holiness, evil beings are willing to will temptation for God, but only at a price -- that the world be more messed up than God would want it to be, even more so than our bad decisions can make it.
MSL has elements that are suggestive of Christianity (lend some credence to the Bible being true) but is not based in the Bible and is not necessarily Christian (by some definitions of "Christian").
There is more to MSL. The most basic expression can be found in the MSL booklet and VMH booklet. More can be found on my two blogs, expressed in a disorganized way: Formulalessness and Following.
These are notes written as I re-read The Applicant for this project. Each chapter is named as in the book (e.g. "August 15"). Chapters for which I didn't think of notes are indicated as such.
These notes tend to be my reactions, thinking about how MSL and MSLians would interface with someone like Leyla in the real world. (In the next section after this, I will discuss how to write an MSLian novel, informed by material like this.)
[]s indicate notes that I added later. Page numbers are for the "first Grove Atlantic paperback edition" of February 2024 that I read (ISBN 978-0-8021-6271-7).
--
"August 15" -- how do you get to Berlin? To be a hostel cleaner? What character traits enable you to ask for, be hired for, keep a hostel cleaner job? (Big Q: how do we get the MSLian into Leyla's life?) Berlin: a low-rent place: affordable, somewhat dirty.
Leyla's family background, parents' marital strife. How will the MSLian relate? Also from similar background, got over it -- or didn't fully? What about Leyla's Turkish background? Could there be a Turkish MSLian? One who had lived in Turkey or spent time with Turks? What would have prepared that MSLian to live in Turkey or spend time with Turks? Perhaps a general "cross-cultural mindset" is needed.
Leyla as young person, particularly a young creative. Precarious, intense life, but buoyant and resilient. This is a work of autobiographical fiction. Koca is more or less OK, so Leyla is more or less OK -- going to turn out OK. But a life that can be really dangerous. How would the MSLian relate? A fellow young, precarious creative? A survivor of such a youth? What traits allow young, precarious creatives to survive? Where does their resiliency come from?
"August 18" -- Leyla does drugs, which must be bought from dealers. Perhaps this would make some people uncomfortable. Could an MSLian be successful as a missionary while being uncomfortable with someone? General "cross-cultural mindset" skill: hiding feelings, feeling but not feeling them. Yes, look at people as having their own culture using one's rational mind. (Like an anthropologist taking notes on people, for instance a tribal culture that engages in revenge killings.) But the irrational tastes and appetites of the MSLian are not so tractable.
Leyla's friend Mona conceals her depths, her secrets. How many people reveal themselves? Or have no hidden depths? How will the MSLian allow that these secrets may exist, search them out, and yet not presume? Is there any kind of education that can prepare someone, apart from experience itself?
Cleaning seems to be a job that does not take space in the brain, lets someone be creative (or intellectual) in their spare time.
Missions idea: put down roots: in a job (like cleaning), in a person or scene, in a country or subculture. That is the center, and secondary roots can be formed that go with the primary roots.
Cleaners in Berlin might be artists, but cleaners elsewhere might not be.
These questions and thoughts may apply to any missionary. But what are the uniquely MSLian considerations? The MSLian seeks for each person to freely choose God and freely choose against all sin. This process must be completed 100% in order to be with God forever. This life is not long enough for it. If you completely harden at your current level of holiness, you are lost, must someday be annihilated, to protect God from you. How can Leyla (or other characters) end up in the right place at the end of time? How much can their positions be good (move closer to God), and their velocities be good (they continue to move toward God) and their "accelerations" (that which determines their velocities) be good? Perhaps through adopting MSL beliefs, or in other ways. In what ways might Leyla be sympathetic to MSL already? What might she find distasteful? These are considerations for the MSLian character.
"August 23" -- Leyla sounds like she may have a drug problem. What does a drug problem look like in real life, not just to think of a label? What appearances call for the label? Leyla certainly seems able to make ends meet (is not homeless). But what effect do the drugs have on her ability to get ahead financially? How did they affect her ability to write a really excellent thesis, allowing her to stay in Germany? That's thinking in terms of conventional secular well-being. Is Leyla subconsciously rebelling against secular well-being? From my experience of hypomania (perhaps not unlike cocaine, one of Leyla's drugs), I would say that if I sought it out, I would probably be seeking escape, not transcendence, but hypomania is a state of transcendence, of a sort. I don't like it, but if I did, I might fully inhabit that transcendence, buy into it. (Might there be an MSLian who knew what it was like to take cocaine or another of Leyla's drugs, ketamine? Would it be good to take drugs to understand a drug user?) Is there a meaning to life that Leyla would hold on to to give her the strength to finish her thesis well? Drugs offer the feeling of reality without a worldview, and/or the feeling of meaning without a roadmap and end goal to action. [However, hypomania (and cocaine?) can supercharge one's mind with visions of success, even with plans, some of which can remain after coming down. I don't remember Leyla having that from her cocaine use, though.] They make people active in the short term, but passive for the long term. Does Leyla need that? Drug use may be a protest against a spiritually vacant world, but it may not help you find reality, except by burning your bridges to mediocre comfort. (Forces you into the recovery culture, having, like Job, met God in circumstances you wouldn't recommend to anyone.) Leyla may be looking for something outside mediocre comfort (foreshadowing...), yet drug use might really be the pursuit of mediocre comfort, an adult looking for childhood fun, but too knowing, managing too well to be an innocent child. Yet there may really be the child in Leyla, who wants to decide to feel good, and wants to decide to not face the consequences.
[A danger of mediocrity is that you settle at a comfortable level of holiness, and then harden on it, rather than truly becoming morally excellent.]
Leyla's approach to sex seems somewhat nihilistic. In many ways, hypomania is nihilistic. Sex in the club (something in this chapter) is just hedonism, as is everything else there, including the toilet where the drugs are dealt.
Can Leyla stand up for herself, and have a strong will, and a strong direction? Who will encourage her?
"August 25" -- notice Leyla's insecurity. Is this a major part of her personality?
"August 26" -- An adverse situation that spurs Leyla's associate Eve to vlog leaves Leyla unable to write for some time. Some people are motivated by adversity, but others are disabled by it. But to what extent? (Eve is four years older than Leyla. Perhaps confidence will come to Leyla as she ages -- perhaps a number of her problems will be solved just by aging. If you stay out of prison, don't get hopelessly addicted, don't commit suicide, don't get murdered or die in an accident, as you mature, your problems will "magically" "resolve themselves". Mature people might forget their youth, and dismiss the terror of youth, but that dismissiveness is connected to "regression to the mean", a magical property of mathematics, that avoids looking at the specifics of reality (there are many randomly specific ways to the mean). How would the MSLian think of risk, suffering, and times of life?
Eve makes it seem like she is living in London when she isn't. Fraud to survive? What is the effect of this? One might forgive it on consequentialist grounds -- it might be the right thing to do, even. But it could erode the strictness that enables the pursuit of a goal, and to hold to a worldview.
What is the spiritual effect on Leyla due to Germany's legal process for immigration, and its unofficial attitudes, falsely or accurately intuited by Leyla (p. 30)? How does this affect how much she loves and respects the law (thus, maybe, morality, the good, God)?
Is Leyla in Berlin to be a writer? What is it that will actually get her to sit down and write? Apparently her diary works. The discharge of a day's energy. Some minds lack direction but have a kind of creative energy anyway. A diary may be fudged to make it readable in public, but has an artlessness that a deliberately designed novel can't possess. Formless honesty. Perhaps this is both a strength and a weakness of Leyla.
"August 31" -- Leyla remembers her job filtering content, on an online platform, things like nudity, terrorism (e.g. beheading) and child sexual abuse. These lead her to do more drugs in response. How might an MSLian have responded to her if they knew her at that time in her life? Raw psychological evil can produce nihilism and the desire for escape. It traumatizes. So much of trauma is seeing things, and seeing them as they are.
"September 1" -- Leyla has friends, but feels like she doesn't. Does she lack real friends? What is she missing?
Leyla is afraid of being normal, more so than of a list of things that might be summed up as "threats to secular, temporal well-being".
Leyla faces an unexpected financial squeeze. How might an MSLian who knows her respond?
"September 7" (no notes)
"September 11" -- Leyla is (perhaps only in part) attracted to Berlin because of an account of a child prostitute who, to young Leyla, seems to have an enviable life. What is the meaning of these visions we see in childhood and adolescence which have so much power over our lives? Fate? Chance? Providence? How much respect should we have for their power? Even of the power of Providence -- does God like speaking so loudly to our wills? But the result of Leyla living in Berlin and (somewhat) emulating the child prostitute role model is ambiguous in value. The call is so clear, qualitatively, but it's not so clear to evaluate its trustworthiness. Perhaps Leyla's Berlin life at least prepares her to help younger versions of herself, when she is older and more stable. (Or of course to write something, perhaps a book, the natural function of a writer's instincts and faculties.) One could ask why there needs to be a new generation of Leylas, new material for Berlin to ferment. Perhaps from an MSLian perspective, the world needs horrors, a variety for different types of people, and thus there is a place for Berlin and those who find it desirable.
[Horrors might be overlapping or identical with temptations, needed for complete holiness. We only fully choose to do good, or not to do bad, when the choice is difficult.]
The ambiguity of "is it prostitution, or sex work?" (Leyla mulls over whether prostitution/sex work is OK.) This confusion lets gravity rule, makes strict purpose-seeking more difficult. What does MSL say about prostitution/sex work? How would an MSLian talk to someone who hadn't ruled it out as a life option? (Is there anything worse than sex work? Well, certainly suicide is. So sex work can't be completely bad.)
Mona sees Leyla as beautiful, and then Leyla does as well. Those whom we trust can pattern our perceptions.
"September 14" -- The horrors of Turkey haunt Leyla. How can we be horrified enough to act and bear witness to the truth and not be traumatized and disabled by it? What horror-seeing is signal, and what is noise -- perhaps compellingly loud noise?
"September 17" -- Obligations to parents -- how would an MSLian respond? To strongly familial cultures, the obligation and coerciveness of them?
"September 18" (no notes)
"September 23" (no notes)
"September 24" (no notes)
"September 26" (no notes)
"September 27" (no notes)
"September 30" (no notes)
"October 3" (no notes)
"October 5" (no notes)
"October 8" (no notes)
"October 9" (no notes)
"October 11" (no notes)
"October 13" -- Leyla numbs herself, her past, a sense of guilt, with drinking and drugs.
Leyla, in her imagination, has never-ending abusive Turkish men ruling Turkey. This is an oppressive thing, a construct in the spiritual/imaginal world. What effect might this have on her agency? Could it be "exorcised"? Would it be good to say "Maybe, maybe not" to "this is how things will be"? (Maybe it's the honest truth.) What resources might an MSLian have to deal with this mental construct and the underlying reality it is drawn from?
"October 14" (no notes)
"October 20" (no notes)
"October 25" -- Eve comes over crying, she and Leyla drink, Eve talks a long time. Can MSLians do this? Who do they go to? Maybe another MSLian, if they are in the same area. (Are all MSLians trustworthy?) MSL (maybe) selects for emotionally self-reliant individuals. Can such individuals relate to those hungry for human connection? Maybe some can, some can't, some find it difficult.
"October 27" -- Eve leaves a mess. MSLians may have to clean up after grown children who use them when in crisis. Leyla sees Eve's note of gratitude -- maybe Leyla is in the wrong for being annoyed with Eve over her self-absorption? Or maybe Eve really is in the wrong and Leyla could only talk herself out of understanding this by blaming herself? What kind of answer can there be, to establish what is the case? MSLians may share this dilemma.
"November 11" (no notes)
"November 20" -- The Swede and Leyla have a lot of sex, do a lot of talking, open up to each other quickly. A sign from God that they belong together? Or the emergent property of instincts and the hunger caused by their life situations? An MSLian perhaps could not know for sure which it was.
Maybe the intuition that draws the Swede and Leyla together is the instinct for happiness. Something the Swede sought in being a husband and father. Is romance, human connection (sexual or conversational), marriage, parenthood "the answer"? It can feel that way, but is the feeling trustworthy? Does our culture have anything outside feelings? The feeling of "this is the answer" -- on what basis can it be questioned? The MSLian questions it with philosophy, natural theology, religion.
Suppose an MSLian were in Leyla's life, and then the Swede entered? What does the Swede represent to that MSLian? Perhaps an expansion of the social graph of Leyla, and thus of the MSLian, and thus of the MSLian's potential responsibility. Perhaps there is some potential danger in the relationship between Leyla and the Swede, one which can't be fully articulated initially. "Happiness", perhaps, will bless Leyla and the Swede, at least initially. But is Leyla truly the person the Swede "is looking for" (as though the looking is a trustworthy voice?)? Might the Swede be a temptation for Leyla? A teaching in MSLian culture is the Hierarchy of Betrayal. Like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the higher levels of trust (and thus of betrayal) are inaccessible unless the lower levels are satisfied. The violent, glowering man in the alley can stab you, but never break your heart. Heartbreakers have less opportunity to (subtly or not) shift your values away from excellence than a real sweetheart. Could the Swede be a dangerous sweetheart?
Leyla may feel the Hierarchy of Betrayal, in the Swede's confession of being a conservative. Care about the political (perhaps) is care about the highest from a secular perspective (i.e., there being nothing more important than what humans do to each other on a massive scale).
"November 25" -- Leyla is given the idea to read her diary at a bar. Now, like with the Swede, she has a new relationship open up, or perhaps an intensification, of the writer with her audience and her own work. Perhaps a less solid affirmation than a romantic partner. But perhaps more faithful to whatever values Leyla already has, to herself, her taste and conscience, particularly her relationship with her work. Is this relationship entirely trustworthy, from an MSLian perspective? Insofar as it strengthens Leyla's self-trust, it's a good thing, because Leyla has to trust herself for her to see MSL as true. At any rate, it could provide a counter-weight to the Swede, a source of psychic food if she has to turn him down for reasons of conscience.
"November 27" -- Leyla reads My Brilliant Friend hungrily, with absorption. Like an amateur, or child. Would MSLians read books like professionals? Would their professionalism sink in that far?
"November 30" (no notes)
"December 1" (no notes)
"December 10" (no notes)
"December 13" (no notes)
"December 14" -- Leyla (I think) finds German misunderstandings of her, her Turkishness, irritating. They say things that would arise naturally to the minds of Germans, ones who were not running the program in their head of how Turkish immigrants feel. Immigrants too, may simply want "a better life", and not care how they destabilize the politics of their host countries. Often people are quite understandable from their own points of view, but the behavior following the point of view of one has as the negative exernality some kind of evil in another's life, from the victim's point of view, or in ways that many or most points of view recognize. They are understandable by others -- of course Germans wouldn't trust Turks, of course Turks would want to live in Germany and be trusted. Yet, as understandable as they may be, as much as I understand, when the externalities hit me, I must stop them. If I perform some kind of self-abnegation, and, at some expense, run the program of the other's point of view, I might put up with or even positively welcome the person whose point of view is a stranger to mine. But why wouldn't the other person, the one pushing the negative externality in my life, against my will, do the same? Why should I go out of my way to accommodate someone who wouldn't go out of their way to accommodate me? Given this, maybe it's remarkable that we're as tolerant and accepting as we are.
MSLians have a point of view foreign to most or all. They create tension like an immigrant (or colonizer). Their existence, their innocent living out of their ethics, can render them obnoxious, bad surprises, unpleasant mysteries, to non-MSLians.
"December 15" -- Leyla talks to a friend whose boyfriend was beaten unconscious by anti-immigrants. Immigrants seek happiness: free and prosperous Berlin to live in. Anti-immigrants seek happiness: a pure and familiar Germany.
"December 18" (no notes)
"December 26" (no notes)
"December 27" (no notes)
"January 3" -- Defne is driven mad by her job, Leyla thinks. How would MSL or an MSLian help, in this situation of being trapped in a job -- if you quit, you have to search for a new job, which will likely be just as bad for you. To what extent do bad jobs keep people stuck in the class where they have to do bad jobs? If the bad jobs have to be done by someone, who has to do them? Defne's job is to filter objectionable content on an online platform. Is there a way to reduce rates of people posting that material, that MSLians could pursue?
"January 6" -- Leyla tries writing a story about someone living too nice of a life to write anymore, and can't write it. Maybe this is our future curse as a society, that if we ever fix it, we'll lose our voices. What does making art do for Leyla? If it's something she has a passion for, it's probably a load-bearing part of her life. Therapy? But also, a participation in reality? (The Real, and truth?) Is there a way for life to be real when all the problems have been solved? In MSL, the problems will never be solved in this life and will always be solvable, will need to be solved someday. [Because it's 100% holiness that's needed, there's always a danger of stopping too soon, even at 99% or 99.9% holiness (and no one can know that they've reached 100% holiness in this life) always a sense that people's thoughts and interactions with each other have potentially great significance.] Perhaps this will allow art to be made perpetually? An MSLian might be aware of this and be able to have a conversation with Leyla about it. Is Leyla aware of the threat the Swede may pose to her writing life?
"January 7" (no notes)
"January 8" (no notes)
"January 9" (no notes)
"January 10" -- Leyla writes repeatedly that she likes her job (the same sentence repeated 40 times). Maybe like someone forced to write an improving phrase on a blackboard? Or maybe sincere, effusive? What if Leyla likes her job? It doesn't sound terrible, not like Defne's. Could she hang on to her Berlin life?
"January 11" -- Leyla sees feminist empowerment in being a prostitute. Are there limits to what we will consider good if it empowers women? Perhaps in a world where there are no worse victims than women (perhaps some on a par with them but not on a worse tier), and where victimhood is the measure of morality, there's nothing. But MSL says that God is our victim. God is victimized by lust, and thus lustful sex. Some sex has a redeeming value (if a child is born, that would generally redeem it). Does prostitution redistribute wealth? It can, but there are other ways to redistribute wealth. So MSLians would generally be against prostitution, as something which harms God.
[See "Omnisubjective Sexuality" for an MSLian view of sexuality.]
An MSLian might look like a controlling, disapproving conservative (from the old, disapproving days of the wrathful, judging God, the old theocentrism) if they bring this up, to a person belonging to humanist culture, as Leyla seems to be (a culture from the days after we rejected the old theocentrism). Maybe it's impossible to bring this up, or only at the right time. But the truth remains, for the MSLian to know.
Leyla sees capitalism as having done as bad to workers as driving them into prostitution. Should people be proud of doing what capitalism forces them to do? If capitalism is so degrading that it makes prostitution look good by comparison, maybe that is to capitalism's discredit and not to prostitution's credit. In a way, finding prostitution empowering could be a way to find capitalism acceptable. Or accepted, even if officially denounced, what people would say if in low-key despair. Perhaps MSL offers a way to de-emphasize this life (i.e. "birth to ~80 years, before the Millennium and heaven", not "the life of prostitution") that allows one to have hope and do something about what is wrong with it. Being proud of being a sex worker (rather than being ashamed of being a prostitute) may be a way to get something -- the feeling of pride -- that makes life more bearable.
MSL also teaches that we not bring into our identities what is not, or not from, our free choices. So if forced into sex work / prostitution, or a job like Leyla's, or Defne's, it's nothing one needs to be ashamed of, and thus nothing to need to be proud of in compensation.
Mona sounds like someone a person (including perhaps Leyla) could classify as a "bad influence". If an MSLian knew Leyla around the time Mona entered Leyla's life, or after, how would they react to Mona being in Leyla's life? Bearing in mind that (maybe) Leyla is the "good influence" in Mona's life.
Leyla builds up feminist reasoning during her days under Mona's influence to justify sex work. Now under the Swede's influence, what does that reasoning mean? Is it still objectively correct? Well-formed reasoning that was originally uncovered for motivated reasons is like a contract. Hard to get out of? An MSLian might offer MSL to someone like Leyla, choosing between people like Mona and the Swede (and the lines of reasoning associated with them), to help them sort them out. Is MSL something adopted for motivated reasons for a particular phase of life? It could be. I hope it's robust enough to work in different life phases, or flexible enough to be adapted to them, without excusing what is actually bad.
"January 14" (no notes)
"January 21" -- Leyla doesn't seem to trust her new relationship with the Swede, that seems to make her happy. Not naive anymore, but maybe as desirous of things working out as a naive person naively expects them to. Romantic love has the power to offer credible salvation which can then be doubted as false salvation. She's becoming significantly closer to the Swede. Can anything compete at this point? Will Leyla go from Mona to the Swede as influences -- that kind of falling in love energy (though Mona isn't really a romantic interest, still that energy)? Can an MSLian compete, or will they always be on the sideline?
"January 26" (no notes)
"January 27" (no notes)
"January 28" (no notes)
"January 29" (no notes)
"January 30" (no notes)
"January 31" -- The immigration / education system in Germany puts constraints on Leyla's life -- driving her toward Sweden? If she became an MSLian (or even a "practical MSLian", someone who lived, felt, and acted significantly like one without believing MSL consciously), she could be MSL's representative in the Swede's town. A lonely but meaningful life. Constraints fuel creativity. Social ills may be elements in life stories, which launch people in specific directions. Limitations may be too limiting -- someone's life story may be to remove them (but we hope (better?) limitations come in their place, to keep life stories rich).
"February 1" (no notes)
"February 5" (no notes)
"February 14" (no notes)
"February 18" (no notes)
"February 23" (no notes)
"February 24" (no notes)
"February 25" (no notes)
"March 6" (no notes)
"March 7" (no notes)
"March 9" (no notes)
"March 14" (no notes)
"March 15" (no notes)
"March 17" -- The hierarchy of betrayal: the people who are trustworthy on a lower level can be with you, and betray you on a higher level. The Swede offers Leyla safety, quite a lot lower down on the hierarchy. Three futures: he tempts her, slowly waters her down on a higher level of her being; their honeymoon fades and their differences (which perhaps neither will give up), creates an undercurrent of conflict and toxicity; they can compartmentalize their differences, focusing on their mutual relationship of love. Perhaps this life is just as dangerous and challenging, and to pursue it as adventurous, as a life as a writer in Berlin. Its danger, challenge, and adventure not as apparent, like an artwork that doesn't make sense without cultivated taste.
"March 19" (no notes)
"March 20" (no notes)
"March 22" (no notes)
"March 27" (no notes)
"March 29" -- Life doesn't always work out. The mechanisms of redemption (prison for Leyla's father, Mona's au pair job in "March 27"), sort of work but the story doesn't become happy and smooth from them. How can we bear life when it does not reward our turns to redemption, and still say to Life (or some other audience) "I will do the right thing."? MSL offers some comfort (this life isn't all there is, the story of redemption may be continued in the next), in compensation for it urging us to say "I will do the right thing."
"March 31" -- Everyone has to grow up and be boring, run out of energy, stop being idealistic, make money. How could things be otherwise? What would make Leyla (or Victor, or Mona, etc.) different than anyone else? If you really want to stay young in soul, you need more discipline than adults have. MSL, ideally, offers a culture that supports this greater-maturity-than-adulthood, akin to idealistic youth, something needed to end up in heaven.
For some people, it is impossible to do anything other than what life makes them do, but in moments of freedom, one can affirm the truth.
"April 2" -- I notice I don't write as much about Leyla's family. Berlin is the field of Leyla's action (and Gothenburg). Leyla's mother and sister are "off-camera". Leyla has to deal with her father, who exists in the past. Overall, does MSL have anything to offer to help people deal with the past? Some recontextualizing. In my head, MSL is about the present and future, what you do in this moment and where you end up at the end of the Millennium. The past is a dream that is vivid and haunting, but not the point of life. Except in heaven, becoming will be less, and remembering more, as the most crucial acts will all be in the past.
"April 5" (no notes)
"April 8" -- Leyla faces being with the Swede. What if she traded left-wing artistic idealism (leaving as pungent a residue on culture with her personal story and work as Kathy Acker, a rebellion against society and death, perhaps?) for MSLian idealism? Would her thoughts about marrying the Swede be any less disturbing, or sobering? Marriage is a solemn thing to enter, you promise to be limited by, and support, the other. The MSLian must watch their spouse (particularly but not only if the spouse is non-MSLian) make one free-willed decision after another, still not ready for heaven, the MSLian only able to say a few things, say yes, or no, on a few occasions, to affect this, stuck in this particular religious relationship, likely enough although not certainly, to the end of life on earth (perhaps longer). For the MSLian who marries a non-MSLian (especially, but also potentially the one who marries an MSLian), marriage involves being an exile in your own home, forced to keep secrets even with the person with whom you share so many confidences. The MSLian may get from MSL the sense that this is necessary, your job, something that must be and can be. A grim faith.
[MSL so far does not have a teaching on marriage as such. Marriage seems like an expedient institution if you're going to have children (a way to try to make sure both parents are present for the kids). Given this institution, MSL threatens to introduce some skew or shear to the marriage, which MSL helps to encourage the MSLian to endure.]
Sidebar: Can God act in an MSLian book, in an unambiguous way? Would non-theists think such a book was unrealistic, and thus not apply it to their lives?
Sidebar: Is there an MSLian community to support Leyla if she converts? The self-indicating assumption (a not 100% reliable one) makes one think that the MSLian has co-religionists -- if there's one MSLian, there are probably others -- at least available online to help Leyla. But what if the MSLian in a book is the first to discover MSL? There could be a subgenre of the MSLian genre for "first contact" stories, of the first MSLian and their discovery of the first person who will listen.
"April 10" (no notes)
"April 27" -- The end of the book to me seems a bit unclear. I think Leyla has to go back to Turkey, and then eventually go to Sweden? How would she be an MSLian in Turkey, if she converted? Perhaps she could pass as Muslim (feel less cognitive dissonance than as "secular Leyla"?) I can't imagine life in Turkey as well as I can Berlin and Sweden -- more foreign to me. What dangers and opportunities might there be there? Leyla could keep her head down, live in Turkey like she didn't live there fully, not engage, until she could start her "real life" in Sweden.
[I seem to assume that she will choose to be with the Swede, which feels like the way things will be from how the book is written -- Leyla can't stay at her current phase in life, and the Swede offers her her best path out of it. And I think emotionally, Leyla and the Swede are the kind of people to be together -- at least, until some future phase where they're not?]
--
Summary: Leyla makes some poor decisions over a period of time, damaging her ability to stay in Germany. A Swedish man offers her a kind of salvation, but she is afraid that it will take her away from her ideals. It's unclear exactly what she will choose or what will happen. My burning question is "what will she choose?"
A final thought: Leyla's life is hard. Are the hard things of life things that bring you closer to God, closer to doing what is right, or are they things that pull you away? Do you have the filter to turn bad into good? MSL is intended to be a filter, teaching you to seek God when times are hard (something Christianity and I think other religions also teach).
In this section, I think in a more literary way, how to construct a novel out of the intersection of MSL and someone like Leyla. I also give some thought to the MSLian genre as a whole.
If an MSLian is in Leyla's story, it's interesting and fortunate in a way that Leyla's big concern ("will the Swede take away my authenticity or something like my authenticity?") is one that the MSLian and an MSLian author of an MSLian book would have in common with her. The Applicant was a fortunate first book for me to review for The MSLian, perhaps, for framing things in such an MSL-friendly way. The author of MSLian literature (the "author" from now on) might start with that structural element in place: how do secular and MSLian takes on happy, healthy mediocrity converge? Or diverge?
Another approach would be to write from life, similar to how Leyla does, a naive reaction to what comes up. In a way, the "Notes" section of this study is that, could be used then as material for an MSLian novel.
The trick of "becoming Cervantes in order to write Don Quixote" (referenced in Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"), could be used. Absorb The Applicant, forget it, go live life as an MSLian, out of that produce a novel as reflection of what life has put into you, remember and maybe re-read The Applicant, see connections, borrow ideas and elements, to put in your MSLian novel.
I'm not sure I have much to say to people following the unplanned, naive path -- they just have to do what they feel like. So I will continue here addressing the more calculating writers.
There are some practical questions for crafting an MSLian. Here I will discuss two approaches to plot and characters, giving basic sample plots.
Will we go the "Mary Sue" route, or the "soap opera hero" route? These are two extremes, possibly to be mixed. The "Mary Sue" route (author insert of the most effective MSLian conceivable) has the virtue of showing the MSLian reader all the right moves to make. To make the Mary Sue less offensive, we should punish her with a difficult life. (One would expect no less from someone sold out to a hardcore religious life.)
I think it is best for the Mary Sue to be a woman, because it's probably wiser to send a woman as a missionary to Leyla. Leyla and a man would just get mixed up in something sexual and/or romantic. This Mary Sue must have some kind of interest in art. Maybe she's German, lives in Berlin anyway, and gets into art? So that she is not there for the mystique of Berlin, or to advance her art career, may not be primarily and wholeheartedly an artist. Perhaps she was raised Christian, liked to draw, became disenchanted with German Christianity, found MSL, wants to go explore Berlin's art scene. Her boyfriend (perhaps later husband), is a sweet, stable man, and the two aspire to be a refuge, or shelter, for those in the Berlin art scene -- still with their Christian roots, but trying to be MSLians, where Christian culture diverges from MSLian culture.
Perhaps they seek something in the art world, some of the hardcoreness, that they know is part of MSL, but which they don't have as naturally, and which Leyla has plenty of in her life, and some of in her character. They see her as a means of their salvation as much as they see themselves as means of Leyla's salvation. Part of holiness is being willing to give up everything for the good. There is that note of heedless self-giving in Leyla, which they may lack. (Could the Swede feel any of this? Subconsciously at least? Does God enchant him with Leyla because he needs to learn the lessons encoded in her and her life? In MSLian culture, there's the idea that God and the evil beings negotiate various features of reality. Maybe God and the evil beings produce something as ambiguous as the Swede's and Leyla's relationship, something so ripe for the practicing of Leyla's discernment.) (This MSLian protagonist has turned out a bit less than superhuman, not the best Mary Sue, but she's still a wise and well-behaved MSLian.)
But now to introduce the "soap opera hero" MSLian, in an alternate telling of "the MSLian in The Applicant". The idea is to increase drama with a flawed character. He does the things you're not supposed to do as an MSLian, and the things he tries to do that are good fail. He should be a man, to maximize sexual/romantic problems. Let's say he's an American, who deconstructed from evangelical Christianity but is still basically an evangelical minus the evangelical beliefs. When he was still an evangelical, he saw a Turkish woman in the news, in a TV show, something like that, and liked how she looked. But the way she looked seemed spiritual to him, and he was genuinely but superficially attracted to Turkey and Turkish culture. He thought that God was calling him to go to Turkey, so he started learning Turkish. Then he deconstructed. For years, with half his brain still running the evangelicalism program, half his brain hating evangelicalism, he still had an attraction to Turkey (and Turkish women).
He gave up on going to Turkey at some point (maybe when the political situation there got worse), but he thought of going to Berlin because of the Turks there. So he figures out a way to get to Berlin, goes there, and is sort of lost for a while. Then he chances on some art event at a bar, and drifts into the art scene. Not many Turks there, but it's something to do. While he's there, he meets an MSLian, an avant-garde artist with a different, MSLian, style. She introduces him to MSL, which seems to be the right mixture of evangelical and ex-evangelical. They don't date -- she's not his type, and anyway, they're both trying not to be sexual, so no casual sex is on his horizon as it might have been in the gap between his evangelical and MSLian years. But she has feelings for him, which she grimly resists. They spend a fair amount of time together. She converted from the Internet, and he's the first MSLian she's known in person.
Then he meets Leyla. Instantly falls for her, the Turkish answer to his prayers, a clear sign from Providence, Chance, or Fate. Leyla finds his solicitousness attractive, and they start a relationship. He feels conflicted both over withholding sex from her, and then over having sex with her once he gives in to gravity. The MSLian woman is hurt by what he's doing and tries to get him out of it, but with no success. He loves Leyla. He experiments with drugs with her at some point but is terrified once he comes down off them, over what they might do to him. His life is already a mess. But eventually his relationship with Leyla calms down, reality sets in, they start to argue, and he comes to see her as not taking him down the right path. Not ultimately as compelling as her Turkish facial features made her seem to him initially. He unwisely tells her this when drunk (he gets drunk anyway, despite his resolutions to not use drugs), and she feels that he is being racist. She's tired of him anyway, and he's tired of her, so they have a fight, and a falling out, break up. But they're still both in the art scene and see each other (but avoid each other) at art events.
Eventually Leyla meets the Swede. Leyla being with the Swede awakens Soap Opera Hero's jealousy. He tries to get in a fight with the Swede at an art event, but the Swede is too nice to take the bait. This only makes Soap Opera Hero hate the Swede, with his "fake goodness". (Somehow Soap Opera Hero manages to have something like the right view of the Swede, but for the wrong reasons, in the wrong spirit.) Soap Opera Hero feels that he needs to buy two dozen roses to impress Leyla, along with a speech he rehearsed about why the Swede is wrong for her, and she should be with him. He brings the roses to her door, rings the bell, and she opens. He begins to speak and she says "I'm sorry [Soap Opera Hero], it's over. Please go." He does, still angry, still wanting to fight, like a good son of evangelicalism, but restraining himself like an adult and like an MSLian, eventually realizing it's over, like Leyla says, but never completely realizing it, ever after. (Leyla, for her part, feels guilty for rejecting him, and while in time she succeeds in not thinking about him, his memory is still with her, buried inside her mind.)
Now back to the Mary Sue story: Leyla meets the Swede. The Mary Sue is concerned about what will happen to Leyla. She feels a greater urgency to talk to Leyla about her life, about MSL, increasing as she sees Leyla potentially on her way out of Berlin, to a future in Gothenburg (and if not there, in Turkey). She talks to Leyla about Leyla's dilemma, and at the right moment, feeling her heart pound, she brings up MSL and how it could offer a way for Leyla to keep her integrity as she goes to Sweden. Sweden might save her body, give her life on earth, and with the MSL community, she might hold on to her integrity. Leyla could trade one outsider idealist's identity, artist, for another, missionary. Leyla thinks about this, and sees the wisdom in what the Mary Sue says, and converts. In the time remaining before Leyla leaves Berlin, the Mary Sue instructs and encourages Leyla, connects her to the MSLian community online.
Now back to the Soap Opera Hero story: The Soap Opera Hero, who has not held back from trying to tell Leyla about MSL, at the wrong times, and giving a mixed-at-best example of MSLian behavior, sees her go off to be with the Swede (after she first goes to Turkey, of course). Leyla no longer hanging around the in-person art scene, and he having been blocked by her on all platforms, he has no more information about her, ever again. He goes on living his life, wondering what effect he had on her. Does she still think about him? Does she think about MSL? He decides that it's time to take the path of celibacy. He wonders what he's doing in Berlin. Maybe it's time to go back to the US? He finds -- not salvation, but at least a distraction from his lostness -- in his job. The MSLian woman is there for him, and they try to be together, in the mix of celibacy and marriage that MSL seems to recommend as its ideal for those who would be couples. (In the meantime she had struggled to decide whether to date anyone, since everyone in Berlin except Soap Opera Hero is non-MSLian.) They eventually come to think that they might be a refuge, a shelter, for young artists in Berlin (they no longer being so young anymore).
The reader might wonder about Leyla, and the author might or might not oblige with a postscript. Maybe Leyla thinks about the Soap Opera Hero, having had a few children with the Swede, comfortable in her life, having buried her secular idealism, then lost her taste for it. A long, slow process, every step being one in search of greater maturity. But she thinks about Berlin and realizes that there was something there. She knows she's too old for secular artistic idealism, the way that someone might find their favorite bands of youth no longer appealing, having lost the taste for youth culture. But she thinks of Soap Opera Hero, so much like the heroes of the soap operas she used to guzzle, always a figure for her of mixed feelings during her years in Turkey and with the Swede, and finds that her distrust of him and MSL has faded, and begins to entertain the possibility that MSL is for her. She can never make up her mind to try to contact Soap Opera Hero to tell him about her interest in MSL, thinks maybe it's best not to talk to that ex, even after so long. But she sees in MSL, and the online MSL community, a resource to give her some backbone and vision, to help her help the Swede get past his egoistic conservatism, to see the world outside (perhaps, to donate to global health and development charities if he must be anti-government).
One way to look at literary genres is to look at what part of the brain they stimulate. Thrillers are all about adrenaline and activating the part of the brain that wants to know what's coming next. Horror stimulates the fear and maybe disgust centers, romance certain emotional and sexual desires. Mystery is (maybe) all about the satisfying feeling of solving a puzzle. I'm not as sure what primal buttons sci fi and fantasy push -- they each have an aesthetic, and cultures they resonate with. In the case of the MSLian genre, I suppose it's up to its authors to determine its characteristic "neurological/aesthetic/cultural profile". But one element that could be pursued is the element of non-familial, non-romantic care for other people (and God). How is the MSLian to get into the life of someone he or she can care for? How will they live with the lostness of the person that has come into their life? How can this world be what it is, how does God feel about it? This is an interesting button to push, this form of care, a perhaps quieter, drier feeling than family and romance. In terms of aesthetic and culture, MSLian literature (I think) would be distinct from that of any existing genre -- not Christian, exactly, although somewhat similar; not like mainstream literary fiction, exactly, though perhaps similarly realistic; neither clearly on the sci fi or fantasy side of the technology vs. tradition debate.
How should pacing work? Fast, tight? Maybe not. Not a thriller. Luxuriously slow? Maybe, but the reader might lose track of the story. How about diction? Lyrical? Spare? Middle-of-the-road? Probably a case can be made for each (maybe lyrical would fit a Mary Sue story, since it's more beautiful? maybe spare language suits Berlin? maybe middle-of-the-road allows the plot and characters to stand out, the writing style in the background? -- or, which writing style elicits the feeling of non-familial, non-romantic care? Restrained lyricism and middle-of-the-road leaning to spareness?) How much should the characters be self-aware? How much should the author spell things out for the reader? One wants MSLian readers to be able to read between the lines (an important missionary skill), but sometimes we learn how to intuit patterns by being taught a body of explicit knowlege. So, is the MSLian genre a didactic one?
What is it that the MSLian genre is trying to accomplish? I read somewhere that Greek tragedies were ways of dealing with PTSD. For MSLians, MSLian stories serve to depict in the imaginal world what is written in their subconscious flesh, allowing catharsis. But the genre also tries to show what good, and bad, MSLian behavior does, what its consequences are. And also how life works. There is a shadow version of catharsis, called "inspiration". Inspiration is when we take into ourselves the energies of the projected future, rather than releasing those already planted in us in the past as we do through catharsis. A young MSLian, or soon-to-be-MSLian, might be inspired by an MSLian novel. And if we inspire young people, we should give them a fighting chance in the path we have drawn them toward. Perhaps all (morally) good novels are didactic in some way.
The study of literature by MSLians, both to see how to insert MSLians in the story, and simply to contemplate texts as they are, is a way to increase the social and emotional intelligence of MSLians. MSLians will have enough against them, enough of the time. The better they are prepared, the better for them, and the people they encounter out on the mission field.