Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christopher Moore
When I started reading this, I got really sucked in. I loved the idea, and I’m not opposed to making light of Jesus’ life — especially as despite Biff’s irreverence, Jesus (Joshua) comes across as a principled person doing his best to understand the world and what he’s here to do. I enjoyed Philip Pullman’s take on it, for example. I didn’t even mind the mild obsession with sex and bodies and all of that, because it makes sense that a young boy would wonder about those things and be caught up on those things and be a silly ass about those things.
But the longer it went on in that vein, the more tired of it I got. Yes, yes, women and sex, we get it; is that the best punchline you’ve got? Oh, you’ve got a fart joke too. That’s the entire basis of the humour, along with some anachronisms. It’d probably work as a short story, but at this length, I got very tired of it. I perked up a little when some female characters showed up who seemed intelligent, and then — oh. Sex again, plus making fun of Chinese names. Oh, she’s called “Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm”. And she’s called… “Pea Pods in Duck Sauce with Crispy Noodle”?
I hung on a little longer, but in the end, I didn’t finish this book. There are aspects about it I was curious about, but at 250 pages through, I sat back and thought about whether I wanted to invest more of my life in it.
No, I don’t.
Leave a Reply