The Book Against God: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A British Mid-Century Throwback (Thank God)
Review: At a slim 250+ pages, the eminent critic, James Wood, uses a fractured story line (reminiscent of Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier) to convey a consistently entertaining old-fashioned book of manners and ideas revolving around the callow, atheist son, Thomas, and his wise believing father, Peter. This book has the feel of a mid-century Graham Greene or C. S. Lewis told from "the other side" of the faith line. Indeed, the narrator, Thomas, loves to invert the arguments of the church fathers and saints, just as this book feels like an inversion of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. A book well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A book not for Theologians, but for Fathers and Sons
Review: For the past ten years (I'm 26) I've read something on the order of a novel a month. In that time, Wood's is the only one that has made me cry. When Bunting starts his final paragraph, I lost it and literally wept into my pillow.

I am Jewish, not religious. I have no gripes with Christianity, nor am I particularly well versed in the New Testament. Saint Peter denied Jesus three times, as does Thomas Bunting his father. Wood's religious-philosophical musings propel the narrative, but it's the relationship between a son and his earthly father that lies at the heart of Wood's and Bunting's so-called "BAG." A better twentieth century story of father and son you'd be hard pressed to find. (I realize this is from the 21st... it is, in my opinion, that good.)

Wood's criticism has a preternatural quality (how could someone so young be so well read?), and the Book Against God, while flawed and self-consciously limited, displays a profound understaning of literature, its roles, capabilities and power. I'm grateful he's made the move to fiction and look forward to future works.

Rating:
Summary: God is Not Dead
Review: God is alive and well as portrayed in James Wood's The Book Against God. He is kept alive by the author's protagonist, Tom Bunting. Tom doesn't like to bathe, doesn't pay his bills on time, is frightened of fatherhood, and has trouble getting along with his wife. But most of all he is a non-believer in God and in Christian dogma. In fact he spends most of his time in the novel filling his notebooks with diatribes against The Almighty instead of working on a Ph.d he has started. Why hasn't God created a more perfect world, Tom asks, "a kingdom where the skies were safe, and the stormy wind was made mild, and mountains did not erupt and murder had been abolished, and violence was defunct...illness ...rare as the unicorn...no more death...a kingdom where we shall be given beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
There are many things the reader may not like about author Wood's protagonist, Tom Bunting, but his thoughts here strike a universal and idealistic cord that resonates well. In fact, author and literary critic Wood has created in Tom a very human and believable character. The Book Against God functions well on both the theological and human level. Not only Tom but other characters in the novel contain verisimilitude--particulary Tom's father, who is a minister in the English village where our hero grew up. Much of the novel is taken up with Tom's rebellion, not only against God, but also against the Christian beliefs of his parents. In addition, many of the villagers are presented in a warm, sympathetic, and idiosyncratic way by Mr. Wood.
If you like an novel that blends the ordinary and the profound (to say nothing of the controversial), you will find The Book Against God to be thought-provoking and entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: funny, intellectual, stylish
Review: I was told about this novel because I read theology, and think about God etc (I am NOT a believer). It doesn't disappoint. There's a lot of thought to chew on here, and it's the only book I know that makes God-talk funny! Also, it doesn't matter whether you're an atheist or a believer, you can read it both ways -- as a book against God, or a book about God. Seriously recommended.

Rating:
Summary: An unsatisfying muddle of a book
Review: If I had read some of Wood's previous work, perhaps I would have some context for this book and be more forgiving, or at least more understanding. As it is, I picked it up simply because I'm an atheist and a quick scan showed the promise of an engaging story with an existentialist bent. That promise was not fulfilled.

The book starts and ends with the character at the same point in space and time. The middle is all backstory. There's no discernible character arc and no resolution whatsoever - which would lead some to quibble with the author's assertion that this book is "a novel." This book is a portrait of a rather unsympathetic character who reveals himself slowly but doesn't seem to change. Mostly, this book is a discussion on religious belief, hung on the sad scaffolding of a narrator who is both unreliable and ambivalent.

In addition, the book's tone swings wildly between realistic, down-to-earth dialogue and character depictions, and the most overwrought descriptions I have ever read. As regular as clockwork and usually in chunks, you get descriptions like this gem: "As the cows sighted us, they pricked a swaying wander over the sucking mud, came to the fence and snorted faint figures of steam. Their mooing noises buzzed deep down in their unemotional throats." Self-conscious passages like that managed to jerk me out of any tenous connection I might have had with the character and the ongoing story, such as it was.

On the whole, this book reads more like an author's idea and notes for a book. (That is certainly what the narrator would argue, but acknowledging a flaw doesn't make it less flawed.) I'm sure existentialism and narrative flow can be successfully married, to great effect. "The Book Against God" doesn't manage it.

Rating:
Summary: There's not enough God-hatred, dammit
Review: John Simon once referred to Samuel Beckett's misotheism. Which means a hatred of God. And it's too bad that Wood didn't use the word for the pedantic hell of it. Emil Cioran is my favorite misotheist. And luckily he got name-checked by Wood: "And that other chap in Paris, the Romanian, Cioran. I hear he's not too well, the Romanian genes ... Oh, and we need someone to update our Popper piece, pep it up a bit. I've heard he's a wee bit poorly."

Cut the crap, Jimbo. That's just the sort of shallow kneejerk alliteration you'd expect from Vladimir Nabokov or Martin Amis.

Bunting says: "So I abandon sleep and get up early. 'Man's first duty on rising---to blush for himself', says a favorite philosopher of mine."

Right on, daddy-o. The quoted philosopher is Cioran.



Rating:
Summary: An amalgamation of ideas
Review: The Book Against God serves as a modern novel written through the use of many old techniques. Instead of being consumed with flashy magical realism or strange postmodern techniques, Wood writes the (purposefully unreliably narrated) story of Thomas Bunting--and he does it well. The writing is spectacular, using nuanced Jamesian metaphor and descriptions to achieve mutable yet distictively believeable characters. Wood is truly an amazing writer, as his criticism shows. In his first novel, he succeeds in telling an interesting while sometimes disturbing story. Had he used a third person narration technique, it is possible the characters could have been even more vivid and complex. If you like a novel that bursts with packed prose, yet is a fun read, The Book Against God will suit your fancy.

Rating:
Summary: good novel of ideas
Review: The portraiture of this novel began and remained disappointingly lifeless. Despite a minor revelation to the protagonist, it remained difficult to view him with any compassion; he never entertains, shocks, or angers the reader. A catalogue of dusty arguments and tired literary maneuvers by a practiced writing hand. A few dynamics were well handled (between Thomas and his wife); but skillful handling can hardly rescue a book with very little to say. A man with spiritual crisis named Thomas?? My,my, how clever.

Rating:
Summary: A book not for Theologians, but for Fathers and Sons
Review: Thomas Bunting suffers from self-pity, disorientation, and lethargy as he realizes he cannot worship the god of his parents, both Christians. Nor can he keep his wife's affections largely in part because his inner turmoil seeps too much into his married life. His wife would prefer him to be more upbeat, socially adroit, clean, and ambitious, but Thomas' religious struggle slowly and insidiously consumes him as he forges his own "gospel," a Book Against God, which articulates his reasons for being an unbeliever.

A good companion piece that covers someone losing his faith is Martin Gardner's The Flight of Peter Fromm.

Rating:
Summary: funny, intellectual, stylish
Review: What is this ..., this psycopath has given us a novel of boring consequences. I'm sure pretentious Book Festival types will hail its "genius". Normal people will probably commit suicide. James Wood is a critic apparently, I think he should stick to that cause no real talent is needed to hurl stones at easy targets. I wonder if James has used heroine in the past, I dont care about his characters doin PHD courses, wow, this will really unite the free world this "classic" will. I much prefer less pretentious writers, not idiots masquarading as
intellectuals, its just a book damn it. Dont buy this pap, buy Rick Reilly instead. I want to give this book 0 stars, but the geniuses that run this site imply that even hacks deserbe 1 star.