Saturday, December 31, 2005

christ: the prequel

I'm in the middle of reading Anne Rice's new book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It is actually quite surprising on a number of levels. Firstly, it is much more reverent and conventional than I originally had expected (see previous entry from May, christ the lord: out of egypt). In fact, it seems that in the process doing research for the book, Rice has actually decided to become a believing Christian.

Given that she's writing as a Christian, it is interesting to note that she decided to include accounts (apocrophyal from a Christian persperpective but sound from a Muslim perspective) of Jesus miraculously giving life to birds made out of clay. Another more provocative miracle which is placed early in the book is an instance where the young seven year-old Jesus actually causes a bully to die (and then raises him from the dead afterwards)

In some ways, the book is to the Christian gospel what the WB tv series Smallville is to the Superman mythos. Rice fleshes out with amazing historical detail Jesus' early years which aren't covered in the Bible. And as in the case of Smallville, we all know how the story will have to end so there are plenty of moments full of foreshadowing and significance. (Like when Christ's relatives get all quiet when the subject comes up of why the family suddenly left Bethlehem or when Lex starts quoting Nietzsche's theory of the Superman to Clark)

In any case, Rice's book is a nice read so far. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Also by Rice: do you know what it means to miss new orleans

4 comments:

Silencer said...

well she didnt become a christian in the process of writing the book, but earlier it seems.

i read this (http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/annerice.html) CNN article about it a while back, it said she returned to catholicism about 1998.. altho she did publish her last vampire book in 2003.

"I wanted to write only for Jesus Christ," she replied, noting that the current novel is intended as part of a series.

Abdul-Halim V. said...

The end of the book includes an essay or a short "spiritual biography" so to speak where she talks about her husband's death, and her research for the book. She's ben thinking about doing a book on Christ for a long time, and she describes how she was doing research and came to believe in the more conservative Christian interpretations (for example, a physical resurrection of Christ)

You might actually be more correct, but I think both events (thinking about Jesus with an eye towards writing a biography and her thinking aobut Jesus with an eye towards becoming a committed believer) probably blured into one another.

Jie Jie Ng said...

¡Felíz año nuevo!

Anonymous said...

Bravo, your opinion is useful