Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Gospel According to the sonby Norman Mailer
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book.
With few exceptions, even the most conservative Christian should find little to reject. In a writer of Mr. Mailer's past daring and outrage, however, such a humility of imagination constitutes his Gospel's most disappointing aspect. In his faithfulness to tradition -- a faithfulness that even leads him to a puzzling reliance on the archaic King James diction of a thousand Christmas and Easter pageants -- Mr. Mailer has barred himself from the kinds of penetrating meditation, risky invention and plunging insight that have always been his strongest gifts and that might have inspired less gifted searchers in the hunt for a possible Jesus.
The autobiography of Jesus Christ, written by him after his ascension into heaven. The novel opens with his youth as a carpenter, gives his reaction to God's announcement of his mission to save mankind, and describes the terror of the crucifixion. Christ analyzes his two sides--the divine and the human--and recalls his debates with the devil. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
|
There's nothing transformative in this book, no radical new take or even divergence from the Biblical narrative (as with The Last Temptation for instance). Instead it's almost predictably a take on Jesus as a jewish man of his time, with some uncertainty and trepidation but overall following the beats as laid out in a harmonizing view of the gospels. This is like reading Mailer's own attempt to understand the story of the NT and that's the biggest failing. There's nothing wrong with it, the prose is nice enough, there's just nothing enticing there, no insight or revelation to uncover. It's exactly what you'd expect. ( )