Revelation

This has been endlessly analysed by theologians and others for centuries, and we could spend time discussing what it all means but, frankly, what’s the point? This book is just batshit insane.

For sure all the business about draconic invasions of heaven, the whore of Babylon and the seven seals is entertaining enough when taken as madcap poetry, but once you consider that millions of people take it seriously it becomes repulsive.

Here endeth the bible, after nigh on five years of reading. A longer post on my general feelings about the completion of this project is available on Big Blog.

Quarantine – Jim Crace

In parallel with lots of biblical reading comes a contemporary reworking of the Christ myth, with a focus on the forty days and nights in the wilderness. Crace’s Christ is a man as yet almost unaware of his divinity but gradually coming to terms with it. In the neighbouring caves are other people seeking spiritual insight, and the novel pulls their stories together in interesting ways.

Jude

The brief penultimate book starts ramping up the hellfire and brimstone rhetoric just in time for the grand finale of Revelation.

3 John

The shortest book in the Bible.

Nearly there...

2 John

“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (1:7)

You’re welcome.

1 John

He’s a good poet is John, but I hate the way he refers to readers as “little children” throughout. Patronising git.

2 Peter

Uneventful.

1 Peter

Boring.

James

If you removed the God stuff from this it would actually be a decent little book, a notably thoughtful one for this part of the Bible. The main thrust is that faith is not enough and that by one’s deeds ye will be judged.

"By works a man is justified, and not by faith only." (2:24)

Hebrews

This uses a lot of the tautologous “The Bible is true because these bits of the Bible tell us so” argument that is still in regular use by Christian apologists today. Feeble.

I also thought that accusing non-Christians of having “an evil heart of unbelief” (3:12) was a little harsh. Well yah-boo sucks to you to.

Under The Net – Iris Murdoch

This accomplished debut novel started a famous career, and it still entertains if you are forgiving of the more dated elements. As such it reminded me of Lucky Jim, although I think Murdoch is a superior stylist to Amis.

Winter’s Bone - Daniel Woodrell

The movie was my favourite American film of last year, so I could not help but read the novel through that prism.

Both media centre on the splendid character of Ree Dolly, a tough, resourceful and terrifyingly vulnerable teenager who is every bit a product of her bleak Orzark mountains environment. The film presents the audience with more social context (the army draft scene, the music) whereas the book makes its points through poetic (but not florid) prose.

A masterpiece on the screen, the version on the page is not far off.

Philemon

Terse.

Titus

Brief.

2 Timothy

These Pauline epistles are getting really dull and repetitive now. Of interest to biblical historians, I imagine.

1 Timothy

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (2:12)

At last, a statement of Paul’s I can agree with. Arf!

The Island of Doctor Moreau – H.G. Wells

As an adventure story this is a clunker but as allegory it fascinates, helped considerably by its allusions to Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The remarkable closing chapter expresses a post-Darwinian fear of the animal within fellow humans, a Gulliver-like final meditation that could be interpreted as speaking to religious, scientific or imperial concerns.

Sacred Hunger – Barry Unsworth

This triumphant historical novel tells the story of the eighteenth century slave trade in a broad sweep whilst also taking us into the mindset of beautifully delineated individuals of that time.

The plot centres on a pair of cousins, one an insecure, lovesick innocent and the other a diffident radical thinker. As their paths become increasingly entangled, the tale and characters develop in unexpected ways and create that wondrous mix of page-turning excitement and literary zing.

As usual with historical novels, there are a few people with suspiciously forward-looking views on women's rights, slavery, religion and evolution.

It shared the Booker in 1992 with Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Good year, that.

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi - Geoff Dyer

Well, well. What a confounded strange novel this is. It features two consecutive narratives, related to one other by imagery but not narratively. The first is a lively satire of the Venice Biennale that comes across as a bawdier version of Lodge’s Small World. The second is more serious and much duller.

The whole strange contraption goes on too long despite the odd zinger to keep you awake:

“Thought for the week...art world, music business. What does that tell us?”

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England – Ian Mortimer

This offers an overview of the sights, sounds and smells of medieval England, and I learned a lot in a painless way. Unfortunately, the writing is largely a little flat except for a notable section on the unbelievably devastating Black Death, in which the prose suddenly blazes.

Contains the word “gongfermour”.

Slow Chocolate Autopsy - Iain Sinclair & Dave McKean

This is a fascinating oddball volume, combining Sinclair’s typically sparkling prose with McKean’s dark-hued comic work. The linking thread of the various episodes is Norton, a lowlife trapped in London geographically but able to move through time, and thus witness Marlowe’s murder, the Krays, Jeffrey Archer and other such characters.

The authors create a world of mythologies and self-mythologies, with Sinclair’s usual shout-outs to his old buddies. Despite being narratively all over the place, the results somehow cohere into a fine work, and some of the sloganeering is irresistible:

“Treat London like an autopsy catalogue.”

“Surveillance is the art-form of the millennium.”

2 Thessalonians

There is textual evidence to suggest that this is a forgery of sorts, an update of 1 Thessalonians by a later scholar. Why do some fundies insist that this is the literal word of God, or even divinely inspired? Anybody who reads the bible can see it is a ragtag of texts put together by committee years after the event.

1 Thessalonians

It is clear that Paul expected to see Christ's return in his own lifetime, just like the Rapture crowd today. I expect the current lot to experience a similar disappointment.

The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

I had high hopes for this, as a page-turning thriller with acknowledged literary chops. It turned out to be pretty good. I was gripped in the first half by the sociopathic titular character and the cunningly constructed plot, but somehow the tension drains away in the later sections.

Colossians

Paul is just repeating himself now; wives submit to your husbands, servants submit to your masters etc. Whatevs.

Philippians

Paul is still obsessed with foreskins, but “beware of dogs” (3:2) seems sensible advice.

Ephesians

But for a dodgy bit in the preamble that endorses predestination and some characteristic Pauline sexism, this is actually decent stuff, full of forgiveness and other bits of Nice Christianity.

Galatians

On to a run of short books that inhabit the NT between Corinthians and the grand finale that is Revelation.

This is still Paul, outlining the reasons that Jesus overturned some of Mosaic law and spending much of his time talking about circumcision. Having gone to a CofE school, I’m grateful that the church decided to ditch this rule.

2 Corinthians

Well, that was dull. Turgid stuff, although this line sums up one of my major objections to religion from the horse’s mouth:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (5:10)

Go Tell It On The Mountain - James Baldwin

This is a superbly constructed chronicle of a black family in America from the Nineteenth Century through to the fifties. There is a strong Exodus (and thus civil rights) theme, with characters repeatedly turning away and then returning to God, and a journey from slavery in the south to comparative freedom in New York. White people are either faceless or actively malevolent.

There are some lyrical, highly stylised passages as well as some realist moments. Both can be devastating, as in this description of an older woman's travails:

"by and by she had married and raised children, all of whom had been taken from her, one by sickness and two by auction".

1 Corinthians

Chapter 13 is the one they always read out at weddings because the poetry is spectacular; through a glass darkly and all that. I still wake up in a sweat thinking about the time I stuffed up a reading at the nuptials of two dear friends. The guilt!

Paul, the author, really doesn’t come across as a nice guy. A definite misogynist, and he also has a thing against men with long hair. Eh?

Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope

In outline this sounds like a Dickens story. A young Irishman heads to London to make his way in politics where, after many intrigues both romantic and social, he marries his true love. In tone, however, this is pure Trollope, with even the comparative excitement of an attempted garrotting and a duel presented in a low-key way.

Charming.

The Children Of Men – P.D. James

I didn’t like my one look at James’ detective fiction (to understate the case), but I gave this a go on the basis of her literary reputation and the excellence of the movie adaptation.

I’m still unconvinced, but this is a pretty good read. The central conceit remains fascinating but some of the sci-fi extrapolations seem strange while otherhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif possibilities are simply ignored.

There are echoes of H.G. Wells, mainly in that apocalyptic events take place in the genteel surroundings of the Home Counties.