Gospel

Rating:
Summary: mostly awesome
Review: I have always loved Eco's books and have searched for other works of there kind. I found this in "Gospel". As a biblical scholar I find his historical knowledge top notch. The only thing that keeps it from that coveted 5th star is the part at "TPL". If you read it you will understand. Otherwise an inpressive work, both entertaining and educational with a lot to think about.

Rating:
Summary: An uphill read that's worth the effort
Review: This book is... bizarre. Pieces of it are good old-fashioned novel; they whiz by like beach reading. Pieces of it are irreverent to the point of offensive, which did a great job of putting that bemused "I was about to chuckle but I'm not sure it would be polite" look on my face. And the offensiveness is relevant, as it is supported by detailed footnotes about religious history that are weird enough to raise your eyebrows right off your head. The footnotes read like... well, like footnotes, slow going. You've gotta want to know. But after a few pages, you realize you *do* want to know.

If Wilton Barnhardt were a career theologian, or if the book were nonfiction, I'd know how much of the footnote information to believe. As it's a work of fiction and as Barnhardt has, from all I've read, not concentrated on religion, per se, during his career, I'm left wondering how much of his background material is fact and how much is fiction. It's an important question; the book has huge emotional impact, and a lot of that impact comes from the assumption the reader naturally makes that the footnotes are factual.

The thing that balances out the irreverence and the potential offensiveness of this book is the incredible warmth and heart with which Barnhardt treats his main characters. The real story of this book is the love that each flawed person deserves. The real story of this book is the feeling I came away with: that I was, in spite of my flaws, loveable. Any book that can make you feel that way is well worth buying.

Rating:
Summary: Overlong, but very thought provoking
Review: In the late 1970s I saw an atrocious mini-series on television called "The Word." It starred Darin McGavin (later to become Kolchak, the Night Stalker) and was based on the novel by Irwin Wallace (at least, I think that's what the author's name was). It is my understanding that Wallace's novel is pretty bad, as well--Wallace once wrote a novel about writing the novel he was writing, which even in a post-modern concept sounds pretty terrible (I think, to be really original, he called that one "The Novel"). In any case, the whole premise of "The Word" was that an investigator discovers that the gospels were a hoax--an entirely made up account, based somewhat on historical personages, but expanded on in elaborate ways to create an interest and a cult. Woah, I thought. Why couldn't it have been like this? How do we *know* that the Gospel was inspired, rather than invented? (No use writing in, I'm familiar with the "you must have faith" verses--I might know them better than you, in fact.) Since then I've been fairly skeptical about the word. In some ways, this might explain my fascination with the concept of the unreliable narrator, as ultimately the most unreliable narrator of all is the author him- or herself.

Which is a bit far afield of the novel in question, but puts a little background on why I was interested in this novel about the search for a fifth gospel. While basically an adventure story, with kidnappings and arsons and misunderstandings and close calls, etc., the intellectual basis for this story is solidly researched, as evidenced by the copious footnotes and the index. The danger about mixing such solid research in an extremely James Bond-ish plot (even if none of the characters achieve Bond's superhuman status) is that the audience is not quite sure what to believe.

Interspersed with the adventure story is the lost gospel itself, which tries to cover some of the myths and popular beliefs about the other gospels and the disciples that wrote them. Fundamentalists will be offended, no doubt, just as they were offended by _The Last Temptation of Christ_ and _Live from Golgotha_. But Barnhardt's view has a strong feeling of verisimilitude, even if his made-up gospel doesn't.

The book is long, but not over-long, and the action is exciting, if straining credulity at times, but overall it provides solid entertainment with just enough thought to make you think twice about those other gospels, and the books surrounding them.