Lamb : The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Rating:
Summary: ---------------> Not To Be Missed!
Review:
Christopher Moore is quite the risk-taker. Perhaps he looked at himself and saw that he had the satirical talent of Vonnegut and Adams; the style of Barry; and the literary construction skills of a young John Irving, and decided that he was ready to take on the most famous work of literature in history -- The Bible. This book is going to perturb a lot of people who live on the "religious right." (Heck, I suspect that "perturb" is putting it mildly.)

Now, before I go too far, I should explain that LAMB is not specifically a "take" on the Bible, but rather attempts to depict in humorous and satirical form some major portions of the life of Jesus that don't appear in the Bible. Basically, all of Jesus' growing up and formative years are mostly missing from the "official" text, so Moore has taken it upon himself to wonder what activities would have taken place to "form" Jesus. And, I think he has some very good ideas. He doesn't really mess with any of Jesus' beliefs, but rather develops the life history that might explain how he would end up where he did.

Using the literary artifact of an Angel (Raziel) bringing Jesus' brother Biff back to life and planting him in a hotel room in 1999 Earth to write the new gospel, he has the chance to work in two first-person voices simultaneously (Biff NOW and Biff THEN). It's an interesting device and provides an interesting (if perhaps unoriginal) "fish out of water" view of modern society as viewed by an immortal being who hasn't been tracking our progress over the last 2000 years. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, of course, did this much better, but I don't hold that against Moore. Actually, I was sorry to see the present day narrative mostly abandoned towards the end of the book, relegated to a few quick chapter-intros. I was starting to like Biff and the Angel dealing with "modern life."

There are moments in this book that made me laugh out loud and many, many that made me smile. In addition, Moore has a very strong handle on the eastern religious doctrines that would undoubtedly have inspired (or at the very least impacted) ANY healer, philosopher, socialist, or savior of the early first millennium.

I think most readers of his will enjoy this book tremendously. New readers might want to go back and read the first five works in chronological order and then you'll be ready to read LAMB and appreciate it within the context of his entire oeuvre. In addition to Moore's wonderful books, I'd like to recommend two other hugely enjoyable, entertaining novels I recently picked up off Amazon: [e-mail] by Tom Grimes and The Losers Club by Richard Perez. You can't go wrong with these terrific titles!


Rating:
Summary: Monty Python: For A Book!
Review: I first heard about this book from a couple people that said it was hilarious. Well, I decided: I better check it out! From the moment I read the product description online, I knew I was in for an awesome ride... well; i'm here to tell you--I was not disappointed! From the stupidity of the angel, to Joshua's love of irony, this book keeps you rolling from the beginning to the end. Warning: it is not meant for little kids! There is a lot of adult humor in it, so know your tolerance before you read it. Other than that, this book is a winner, and I can't stop re-reading it! It is the first thing I read from Christopher Moore, and know I'm buying all his books! Definitely read this! It's non-stop fun!!!

Rating:
Summary: Biff Rocks!
Review: What a concept! Write a book about the lost years of Jesus (ages 1 week through 30?), make all the characters budding comedians, and give Jesus a streetwise sidekick who is a womanizer. So that it won't be just comic relief, do some research. Then present the probable political and social situation of Nazareth at the time. Develop the characters of the Roman heirarchy, the Jewish heirarchy, and the peasant class.

Send the young Messiah and his narrator, Biff around the world to study the great religions, meanwhile remembering to include a joke or two on every page.

Keep it light, but not frivolous, as you merge into the time that is written about in the Bible. Make the ghost-writing for the Sermon on the Mount like a weekly think-tank session for Saturday Night Live. Cap it off with a believable version of the Passion.

One last thing - give it a happy ending. I wish I'd thought of all that.

Rating:
Summary: Light, but not Lightweight.
Review: There have been many "fictitious" accounts of the life of Jesus based on what scholars know or suspect about the historical figure himself and the period in which he lived. Probably the most erudite and well known of them is The Last Temptation of Christ, by Nikos Kazantzakis. The Last Temptation, an incredible work, portrays Jesus as, in some ways, a confused adolescent, and it has invoked ire as well as praise. This is true of almost anything written about Jesus, apart from the four arbitrary synoptic gospels selected for the modern Christian New testament. (There were actually as many as 120 gospels which were eliminated during some phase of the development of the modern bible.)

Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend, is not literature. It is in no way as important or as weighty a work as Last Temptation. However, it isn't fluff either, as the title would have you assume. It is, to a very large degree, plausible. True, there is comedy, as we would expect from anything written by Christopher Moore (of whom, I must admit, I am a fan). The book is not (entirely) irreverent. The "entirely" refers to one episode in which Jesus, as a six year old boy, is reviving dead lizards by putting them in his mouth; but for the most part, given that Jesus, or Joshua, as he is called in the book, considers himself to be the Son of God, his actions are remarkably credible and, if I dare to say it, human.

There is nothing in the book which is contraindicated by anything in the gospels. In fact, reading the book makes Jesus all the more real, since his actions, though dominated entirely by selfless compassion, are those of any "special" or intense person growing from childhood to young adulthood who struggles with contradictory emotions and motivations. And young Jesus, after all, did have a sense of humor. Why would He not? Young people who have been set apart from their peers for being more gifted than the norm will identify with this portrayal.

Nor is Biff a lightweight. He is more worldly than his companion Josh, because he is not inhibited from performing the occasional deception to ensure survival. Biff truly loves Josh; he is, in fact, a model of true friendship. I wish I had known Josh and Biff personally: they are both engaging, resourceful persons.

To make a long review short, this book is a must-read for any of Moor's followers, but it should also be read by anyone who would wish to reflect on the more human side of Jesus growing into his Messiah-hood.

Let me quote the Author's Blessing which appears at the beginning of the book, in lieu of a dedication: "If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it. If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil. If you seek an adventure, may this story sing you away to blissful escape. If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions. All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not. May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them. May you find perfection, and know it by name."

To which I can only add, "Amen."

Rating:
Summary: Its just not that Funny
Review: I read this as part of a book club, and it just wasn't that funny. Its the bible a la 12 year old boy humor. Yes, there were funny parts, but it got old after a while. I didn't know anything about the story when I started reading. Once I figured out that it was a retelling of the bible story, with some gaps filled in, the story became rather predictable. And the humor got repetitive. Its an easy read; I just wish I had spent my time reading something else.