What we did over our Summer Vacation...and the fall too, I guess...
Lamb, by Christopher Moore
After spending much of the spring and summer “on vacation” from books, Monday Night Book Club started a new book: Lamb, by Christopher Moore. This book caught me off guard, at first, by how irreverently it treated all of the people surrounding “Joshua” (as Moore refers to Jesus). But once growing accustomed to, and mostly enjoying, Moore’s dirty humor, I enjoyed the story he weaved around the “forgotten years” of Jesus’ boyhood, teen and young adult years. It was imaginative, and I felt its strengths lay in the fact that it generally put a human face on mythic, inhumane characters from the Gospel stories. While not “Christ scholarship” (which it was not intended to be), it made the stories of Jesus’ ministry seem approachable and understandable - basically, it humanized them. I also appreciated that, he ultimately did not treat the character of Josh with the disrespect that he heaped upon some of the other characters (the apostles, for example, did not get off so easily). Finally, I was glad that he did not mess with any of the fundamental understandings of Jesus. I think it is effective as a work of comedic historical fiction, and it should be read as such.
Current Book:
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
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