Three great books
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Of the three books I've recently read, Christopher Moore's "Lamb" was one of the best. I also enjoyed McCrae's "Katzenjammer" and the Tom Robbins novel "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." If you haven't read any of these book, do so now as you will love them, that is, if you like to laugh.
Warning: Those who find their beliefs sacred and are easily offended will not warm to Moore's account of the untold part of Jesus's life. Yet this is a lighthearted book about Christ and his growing up period. If I may, this is the coming of age equivalent of Catcher in the Rye, only about Jesus.
This book fills in the thirty year period that we know nothing about--Jesus's life in that period. It just may not fill it in the way you'd expect. There are a couple of subplots in this novel, dealing with Budhism and Hinduism, and this is a novel of the absurd. If you're looking for reality here, go someplace else.
I recommend this novel along with Tom Robbin's "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and McCrae's "Katzenjammer" which are two other "absurdist" novels that will keep you smiling. Great fun and not a wasted word in sight.
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The "Judo" joke is worth 4 stars by itself
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I dug it.
That's the long and short of it.
I've read Moore before (I think it was Island of the Sequined Love Nun) and don't remember being thrilled, but when I saw this title I thought it'd be something that a fairly sacrilegious guy like me would enjoy.
I really thought the premise was great - that for all those "missing" years of Jesus's life, he was out tracking down the three wise men who had attended his birth, finding them in far flung places like India and China. Along the way he learns various practices and philosophies that he will later use in his teachings. That is a great idea for a novel about Jesus, and I think Moore does a good job keeping the journeys interesting.
The characters are pretty good. Biff - the narrator - has a bit of Tom Sawyer/Eddie Haskell (sp?) about him, and is consistently funny I think. And Jesus is pretty strong as well. Basically portrayed as this kid who knows that he is the Christ, but is pretty confused about what he is supposed to be doing, and generally disgruntled because he's been told (by an angel) that he isn't supposed to be having sex.
There are next to no "laugh out loud" moments in the book, but it is pretty amusing the whole way through, mainly due to the "Little Rascals" narrative voice that Biff uses. It's also a pretty compelling read. I zoomed through it like you do a thriller novel, and even at the end, when the plot has returned to material you're familiar with from the Bible, Moore has put such a spin on the world and the material that you're curious about how he's going to have the end of Jesus's life play out.
So it's a light read, but it is indeed funny and a good page-turner. And it is definitely a fresh and wacky take on some pretty well-worn material.
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I was expecting more
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After reading all the reviews here on Amazon, I was expecting a lot more. This book is just not that funny. A lot of the humour is juvenile (seeing Mary in a pile of dung?). I think I laughed out loud twice and chuckled a few times.
I really liked the first third of the book when Joshua and Biff are children. The descriptions of what life could have been like in those days are fantastic. I really liked that Joshua was just a regular kid who also happened to be the son of God.
When they hit adolescence and leave to find the three wise men, the story turns really bizarre. I just found that part of the book utterly unbelievable and too far fetched. I felt like the book had suddenly changed to a science fiction with a demon, yeti, yogis multiplying food and meditating in impossibly small spaces. Too much weirdness...
I was also very puzzled with the number of sexual references in this book. I'm no prude, but it just seemed excessive to me.
I liked the sections in the book where Biff and the angel were together. It was interresting to read about Biff's impression of the modern world. But, much to my disapointment, there was less and less of this part of the story as the book progressed.
At the end, the story turns very serious (as we all now how the story ends). But, I liked reading the story from the viewpoint of others (Biff and the disciples) and seeing how they could have possibly tried to change the inevitable.
Overall, I feel that this is a book with a very ambitious theme that could have been so much more.
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Funny and Touching
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This is an incredibly funny and touching book, it is refreshing to read about Jesus as a man and the relationships that he may have cultivated outside of his followers. Biff is wonderfully relatable, and is the crazy friend that everyone has during their childhood. Moore manages to make Jesus into a relatable person without, diminishing his significance. This is truly a great read for anyone with a slightly warped sense of humour who isn't afraid to laugh at their own beliefs.
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Life, lizards and longings
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A beautifully conceived and rendered story of what one man's youth might have wrought. True or not, the narrative of Joshua of Nazareth is one of the world's most influential in history. Moore proposes that the "lost years" of Joshua's early life would have been recorded but for an unexpected event. The chronicler died suddenly. Resurrected in modern times, Levi bar Alphaeus, or "Biff" from the sound of his mother clouting him, is commanded to create the fifth Gospel. Sequestered in a St Louis hotel room with an angel who, shall we say, lacks "street smarts", Biff recounts the life he and Joshua spent as boys and young men.
Joshua, in his early years, discovers strange powers. We meet him resurrecting the lizards his brother kills. It's a strange ability, although Biff accepts it more readily than does Joshua himself. As the years pass, Joshua becomes increasingly aware of his divine origins. He's frustrated by his inability to understand why he has this role. There are limitations he cannot understand - "no women!". Biff struggles to take up the slack in that aspect as they begin a pilgrimage. Joshua wants to find the "wise men" who visited the manger at his birth. They spend almost two decades in Afghanistan, Tibet and India studying. Along the way, we learn that many thinkers have developed the idea of the "Golden Rule". Loving your neighbour is the aim many philosophers wish to impart - if they could but understand how.
Biff thinks he knows how - love as many women as willingly cross his path. He loves Joshua's mother as only a "neighbour kid" knows how. His real love, however, is "Maggie". Through all his liaisons in far lands, Levi's longing for Mary of Magdalene never fades away. That her own love is reserved for Joshua is an impediment, but cannot quench his continuing ardour. Even daily lessons in the Kama Sutra aren't sufficient to drive Maggie from his mind. Joshua, comfortable in the awareness of Maggie's love, remains celibate - with a twist only Moore could devise. Don't enter this story thinking that because you know the ending, you're not going to encounter anything new.
How valid, even stripping this tale of the fantastic, could Moore's narrative be? His own statement at end of the book exposes the historical void in Joshua's history. Challengers to Christianity's divine roots have long questioned how a manifestation of a deity could disappear for a generation. How unique is Joshua's philosophy of global forgiveness? Could he indeed have learned these tenets outside Roman Palestine? Biff reveals [again!] throughout this book the forces Joshua had to contend with in bringing a new teaching to a community overburdened with a legalist religious tradition. Moore has done a superb job in presenting a human being invested with divine powers. It's not a sinecure. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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