-- From a review on The King James Bible.
In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.
The religious right is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere,
is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A book review
This book has an incredible amount of sex and violence, including incest, entire cities being destroyed, plagues of frogs and locusts, and even the death of 99.9% of the world's population in a giant flood. Irwin Allen would have had a field day making a television movie of this book, there's just so much entertainment here, much better than Twilight. But the downside is the incredibly one-dimensional characters (with the exception of that "Jesus" dude, who is this really groovy stoner hippy type who, like, preaches peace and giving up material possessions in pursuit of the spiritual and stuff like that when he's not, like, toking out big time, but also has downer times when he wonders why he bothers), and an utterly disjointed plot where characters pop up, do a few things, then disappear for the rest of the book. Dude. This book really needed an editor, not only for the major, major plotholes (*TWO* different stories about how the Earth was created? Dude!) but for the atrocious spelling, grammar, and rampant run-on sentences. For example, at the beginning of the Book of Matthew there's this one sentence that literally runs on for multiple pages of "begat" after "begat" after "begat"! Which is okay if your name is James Joyce, but this "God" guy who wrote this book isn't anywhere near the talent that James Joyce was. Dude. Get a real copy editor for your next book, 'kay?!
8 comments:
Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.
WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
That one good character sounded cool, but no way he'd get far today. If, by some chance, he were to come back and try to teach modern Americans how they should treat each other, well... they'd nail the guy to a friggin' tree.
ReplyDeleteI especially like the part where parents are advised to kill their children.
ReplyDeleteThat's even more fun than Lot's wife (whatever her name was) getting turned into a pillar of salt for - literally - doing a retrospective.
And that "God" dude - the one the story is really about - wow, is he one vengeful, neurotic sadist.
C'mon, Abe - it's time to murder your first born - that kid you never thought you'd be able to have. That's right - plunge the knife now, ever so slowly.
Just KIDDING (so to speak) - that one never ceases to be funny. Nyuk, nyuk! That "God" dude - what a cut up!
Cheers!
JzB
the formerly catholic trombonist
Nangleator, yeah, those hippy types never end up doing well. If this "Jesus" dude hadn't been nailed to a tree at the end of one of the chapters (well, *four* of the chapters, actually -- like I said, this thing's got major plotholes and needs some editing big-time!), I'm sure he would have ended up going to law school and becoming a lawyer for the rich and famous. Either that, or he would have become a televangelist and gotten people to send him all their savings so he could build a Crystal Cathedral, a mansion for himself with gold bathroom fixtures, and air-conditioning for his dog's doghouse.
ReplyDeleteJzB, I interpreted this "God" character as being one of your movie villainous hero types, like Don Corleone in The Godfather. So he's supposed to be a prick. Thing is, this book does a lousy job of giving us the background and motives that turned this "God" dude into such a prick, making this character far more one-dimensional than a good piece of writing would have made him. The author should have taken some lessons from Mario Puzo on how to write a believable prick villainous hero...
-- Badtux the Literary Penguin
Well thanks a lot Tux, now I don't have to read it. You told me the ending jeeeez.lol
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there's going to be a sequel. ;)
Nah, reading through it, it seems like the author planned for a sequel, made some half-hearted stabs at plot points where the hero comes back to life after three days, chats with his surprised and skeptical followers for a while, rises up into the sky into a UFO, goes exploring outer space for a few centuries, then comes back to see what's happened while he was gone. But the plot summary ("Revelations") for this planned sequel (called "The Apocalypse") was apparently such a mess that the publishers put a stop to it before the author even wrote it. But I understand that there are still people waiting for that sequel, years after any sensible person would have given up.
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Yeah, today Jesus would be a stoner.
ReplyDeleteFuck Twilight, it's just more fiction.
If you want to read a great honest true of life book talking about a lot of sex and adventures you should read, THE BEST DAMN GARAGE IN TOWN by Smokey Yunick.
It's one of the best books I've ever read, you can skip over a lot of the tech stuff though, unless you are interested in such.
It's a Mel Gibson extravaganza waiting to happen. And hey, part of it already did!
ReplyDeletewv: mingship. Hmmm ... The Bible: The Movie, with a Chinese cast? In yer face, SAG!
re: The Apocalypse... Don't even get me started on the fan fiction. The stuff those people pull out of their ass... as if it's the most important stuff in the world... and expect everyone to love it... Jesus Christ!
ReplyDelete