Another Roadside Attraction

Here’s the review of that one. We have all read it, surely. It was a CBC book after all. And we all discussed it at the meeting on the 27^th of April. So I got to say what I had to say about it there, which differed greatly from the other(s) who had read it and others who are yet to. This is my chance, however, to have the last word, and say what I liked about the book at a louder volume and, perhaps more importantly, immediately after he/she/those who opined it was a meh book; to have a last word that will seal this book’s legacy forever.

It was good. Pretty damn good, in fact. Not as a book, and certainly not as a novel, but as a read. Humourous, odd, hippie-ish, dry, and minimal in its jokes’ punchlines, yet cultured and well-rounded enough to be appreciated by those with a taste that has ever had anything in common with the target audience (i.e. dirty Pacific Northwest hippies). For a guy like me, brought up in the desert and a University of Arizona graduate (a character in the book is likewise an alum) with a pretty thin, yet surprisingly strong (like the root of a mesquite tree in its infancy), connexion to the Pacific Northwest and all it has to offer – naturally, industrially, artistically, fundamentally, and spiritually – this book’s author seemed to be a man after my own heart. Not sure I like that phrase, but people know what it means and I cannot think of one that replaces it that people will automatically recognize.

To begin with, the girl in the story is a character I can fall in love with and not love, and I feel like she would be perfectly fine with that. She is a magical flower-child with a beauty that is not to be paralleled and a complete disregard for social norms. Not that I have a thing for flower-child granola bitches, especially those that do not shave their pits and think my hunting/fishing is somehow cruel, but everything about the girl’s personality just sounded generally fun. She also copulates. Frequently. At a Robert Heinlein character sort of pace (that’s the guy that delivers the quote I love: “Better copulate than never”).

The book’s magician is a guy named John Paul (of course his name is John Paul) Ziller. He has a baboon named Mon Cul. This turns into a bit of a fable at the end, which is really the only part of the book that resembles a plot and a storyline and a premise and a conclusion/resolution. It also kind of reminds me of Karl Pilkington’s Monkey News /OOOooh! CHIMPANZEETHATMonkeynews…. (TM Ricky Gervais)

The magician’s friend is an athlete who used to play football for Duke University and can still beat the hell out of anyone, and his mishap in falling into a violent order of monks within the catholic church is also a plot-line that really ends up being the chief storyline and the reason everything unfolds the way it does. And it is bizarre. But funny, at least to me.

Then there is the interesting bit about the narrator. He has experienced some of the story of which he writes, he is currently writing in a state of crisis as the story has not completely unfolded, and the story finishes with him recapping everything and bringing you to date in his current, hellish situation. Which reminded me a bit of the style in which the narrator recaps events in Pale Fire, the book that inspired me to finally get this blog going. If you decide you might be into stories that are written in that odd, rare, fictional-memoire-yet-present-tense-at-the-end form, you may also enjoy A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg.

Another thing I would like to say I found enjoyable in this one is just how much use the characters believe there really is in a roadside attraction. It reminded me of two books I have read that have heavy inputs from roadside attractions: American Gods by Neil Gaiman – a book about varying forms of mythology taking on what people in today’s world worship; and Driving Mr. Albert – a non-fiction book my brother recommended about the improbable cross-country trip of Albert Einstein’s brain as it was returned to his family by a somewhat comical coroner who almost resembles a janitor.

That may just be all I have to say on this book. Unless someone else still has something to say about it, in which case I will respond to that and make my comment the final say and that will be that. Pretty odd book, overall, but I liked it.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (a novel)

Long title. Not a very long book considering it covers Jesus’s life from when he is 6 years old through to that point in his life when they made that movie The Passion of the Christ. 31, was it? Whilst not crazy about it, I think overall I really liked it (the book I mean), but of course I cannot just simply say “I like it” or “dislike it” because I am just not cut out that way.

I would say this was otherwise a pretty damn funny book. And the reason I would not say no to a book of this caliber is because I listened to it on Audiobook. I have been doing Audiobooks for a while now and they help break up the nasty, grueling drive I make to reach Phoenix every other weekend to see my lady and on other occasions, hockey team. I keep track for my purposes which of these reviews I Audiobook, and the prior review of The Drawing of the Three I was listening to, a gory enough scene to make me not want to drive listening to it anymore, forced me to turn it off and when I looked up BAM! Car accident. So I switched to humorous books instead, like this one. And well, here is the review of that.

Getting to the meat of the book, this was a very blasphemous story about reviving Levi so he could write a gospel about Joshua (a much better translation of Yeshua’s name) as he spent nearly every moment by his side growing up, through adolescence and into adulthood. Levi, who is called Biff, is an extremely loyal yet crude, unsophisticated simpleton with a foul mouth and a temperament for blasphemy. The story primarily involves their quest for the Three Wise Men at Joshua’s birth, which we learn are a Magician, a Buddhist and a Hindu Yogi. Joshua and Biff spend years with each, and each person teaches him more about how to become the Messiah, whilst he more than masters what they have taught him and in much less time than anyone expects.

Biff, during all this, is helping Joshua by continuing to be an example of what he will never be, a true debauchery fanatic and the only one with vice and terrible qualities enough to bail Joshua and him out of trouble. Most of this is really fun, and when not fun, blasphemous (which is as good as fun, most times).

The twists of what Joshua learns from these people and how it applies to his miracles he performed in the Bible are an extension of the humorous-blasphemy I enjoy. The idea that Jesus learned all that we associate with his mystical side from pre-existing sources by consolidating different aspects of Sun-Tzu, the Bahgavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, Diogenes’’ Cynicism and various other philosophies, is just great to me.

Still, not a great book in my opinion. Felt like it was great when Joshua spends time with the last Yeti, and the jokes that Biff has about that creature, but the end came a bit abruptly and was a bit too unbelievable for my liking. Really, the final scene comes out of nowhere and is completely unnecessary. And what is supposed to be the takeaway from it? That if you serve Joshua as a means to his ends you all get second chances? Unless his other friends didn’t like you? Really the bit about Judas and how it ties into the resolution/conclusion left me a bit confused.

Anyway, if you like to laugh and love blasphemy, it is worth reading, but I do not otherwise have too many great things to say about it. Good enough, I suppose. I will leave you with one last bit of religious history that always makes me chuckle, fan art from an African on Jesus.