“...couples going nude into the sad water in the profound lasciviousness of Spring in an algebra of lyricism which I am still deciphering.”
“The world is a beautiful place to be born into, if you don’t mind some people dying all the time.”
Robert Graves – 1946
“Do you ever relax from your monomania of holiness?” - Pontius Pilate to Jesus
I don’t think I’ve ever been as happily captivated by a novel from beginning to end as I was while reading Robert Graves’ King Jesus. I loved it so much that I felt like it was written especially for me. How Graves was able to present his enormous knowledge of antiquity, blended with his own theories and observations, filtered through his somehow poetic and completely accessible writing style, is nothing short of miraculous in my opinion. Equally remarkable is his ability to tell the story of the life of Christ from secular and pagan perspectives while also displaying due admiration for Jesus himself. The fictional historian who guides us takes the position that most of Jesus’ reported miracles were misunderstood or exaggerated in the retelling, but that Jesus was not only a genuinely gifted holy man with sharp human ethics, and who was legitimately entitled to be known as the King of the Jews as well. I was hooked from the very first page, on which Graves describes the antagonistic relationship between Judaism and “mother goddess” cults in the ancient Levant. This connects to Graves’ other major work of the 1940s, his nonfiction study of paganism and poetry, The White Goddess. The scholar/historian narrator in King Jesus asserts that the great secret of ancient Judaism is that the right of kingship is actually passed through the female line, not the patriarchal. The Biblical characters Hannah (Anna), Elizabeth, Miriam (Mary), the mother of Jesus, and Mary of Cleophas all belong to a parallel or interior sect within Judaism that maintains the ways of the older cults devoted to the mother goddess. “In the name of the Mother,” is a password phrase recognized by them all. Graves suggests that Jesus’ birth was engineered by a clever, farsighted high priest who arranged a surreptitious marriage between Mary, the last in the royal matriarchal line, and Antipater, King Herod’s eldest son and heir, giving their offspring indisputable claims to the Judean throne through both parents. Herod spoils these plans when he condemns Antipater to death as an Abrahamic sacrifice intended to help cure him of the mysterious festering diseases that would claim his life soon after Jesus’ birth, forcing Mary to seek out an arranged second marriage with the carpenter Joseph and to flee to Egypt to protect the infant from the murderous Herod. One of the running themes of the novel is the misogyny that Graves seems to consider inherent in Judaism. The Israelites dread being on the sea, identifying it with the Female, i.e. female sexual power, the lust that corrupts and distracts holy men from their holy business. The great rarely-spoken-of enemy of the Jewish tribes is the mother goddess embodied by the apocryphal Lilith, “the first Eve,” and her fellow priestesses down through the ages. Lucifer/Satan/the Devil is never even mentioned, but it is stated that Jesus’ mission is to personally “destroy the works of the Female.” There is a remarkable and heady chapter in which a type of doctrinal wizards duel takes place between Jesus and Mary of Cleophas (Clopas), a prostitute ringleader and high priestess of the goddess cult, which climaxes with an agreement between the two of them to marry in order to fulfill messianic prophecies that both of them have vested interest in, although the actual marriage, to Mary’s chagrin, is to remain unconsummated. Jesus’ many recorded miracles are explained as either misunderstandings or exaggerated by word of mouth, and in some cases, the result of the power of suggestion. Jesus is careful not to attempt healing anyone who is blatantly incurable. A crippled man is able to stand because Jesus relieves him of his debilitating guilt. The changing of water into wine is just a metaphor, not an actual phenomenon. It is told that Lazarus, a cousin of Jesus’ witch wife Mary, was cursed by her with a condition resembling death in order to lure Jesus home, and that Jesus is somehow able to remove the trance, allowing Lazarus to seemingly rise from the dead. There are unexplained miracles too, however, which the author seems to accept, having no rational explanation, including Jesus’ resurrection. After exiting his tomb, he is last seen disappearing into the mist over a hill in the companionship of three women; Mary, his mother, Mary, his queen, and a third, unidentified woman. As in Frazer’s The Golden Bough, it is observed that crucifixion is an ancient tradition in many cultures, starting as a propitiatory ritual requiring kings themselves to be killed, and degenerating over time into a punishment for lowly criminals. As such, Jesus ends up accidentally fulfilling the pagan “dying god/dying king” prophecy, which he could have averted if he had accepted Pontius Pilate’s help, who clearly accepted that Jesus was King Herod’s grandson, even noting the facial resemblance. Just after his tortuous execution, Jesus’ wife/queen Mary comments to observers that her husband’s actual crime was not against the Pharisees or Rome but “the Female,” whose prophecies cannot be rushed into fruition, not even by someone of Jesus’ great gifts and genius. In losing his battle against the great mother goddess, fervently praying to his Father god to his last breath, Jesus is discredited and condemned. We are left to discern the meaning of his resurrection ourselves, as Graves’ narrator appears to run out of theories in the book’s final pages, but the implication could be that the Female’s, the Triple Goddess’ magic has won out over the Israelites’ slight-of-hand miracles and superstitions, as the three mysterious women on the foggy hill, like Macbeth’s trio of witches, lead the healed and resurrected Son of David off to his true destiny. King Jesus is a truly unique, beautiful, challenging and satisfying work of literature by one of the great English author/scholars.
Robert A. Heinlein – 1959
As a longtime fan of Paul Verhoeven’s film adaptation of Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein’s source novel has been on my reading list for years. The only other book of his that I’ve read is Stranger in a Strange Land. Supposedly, Verhoeven didn’t read much of the novel because he found it fascistic. I don’t know if that’s the case. I interpreted it as a story told from the point of view of a young soldier who is thoroughly indoctrinated in military philosophy. Probably 80% of the novel is a debate and dissertation, first absorbed and then expressed by protagonist Johnnie Rico, about everything from practical soldiering to the mathematics behind combat strategy. Rico is an interesting hero because, as in the film, he starts out a rather spoiled and self-interested boy, but, due to his inherent humility, quickly adapts to the life of an infantryman. Rico portrays himself as simple and unexceptional, but his writing and observations are advanced, and I wondered if this situation could occur because the society he lives in places minimal value on arts and letters, being completely militarist in orientation. What makes the book so interesting to me is the ultimately unresolved question of whether or not Rico is exclusively brainwashed or if the army just legitimately brings out and polishes his best natural abilities. Regarding the perceived “right wing” slant of the novel, I don’t buy it. Why can’t a brilliant author bury himself in an alien worldview just like he does with his main characters and fictional universe, to explore how systems and ideas evolve? The presence of militaristic statements by fictional characters does not make the author a fascist. That logic would lead you to believe that Nazis criticizing Jews in hateful language in Schindler’s List must mean that the work itself, and its author, are fascist too. This reasoning is absurd on the face of it. Further, the implication of fascism’s characteristic xenophobia is completely undercut by Heinlein’s depiction of a cooperating international Earth culture. Juan “Johnnie” Rico is from South America, but the language he speaks at home with his parents is Tagalog, and his squad in basic training is populated with inductees representing not only English but Spanish, German and Japanese-speaking nations. And in the final chapter, depicting a brand new infantryman preposterously boasting of his nation's many historical accomplishments, we and Rico are reminded that ideologies often flourish thanks to big lies. It's clear that Heinlein is highly skeptical of all political systems, including the one currently in power in his story. I was surprised how little combat against the giant “Bugs” of Klendathu actually takes place in the story. In fact, Rico doesn’t find himself in the middle of the war until the last dozen or so pages, and even then, ironically, he gets injured and knocked unconscious and misses the battle’s entire resolution. (Hardly the rousing finale you’d expect in a supposedly pro-war book.) In further irony, Verhoeven’s film was also dismissed as fascist propaganda by blinkered intellectuals utterly consumed with interpreting all art through the filter of their narrow agenda. These automaton-like critics lack the tools to acknowledge the subtlety and nuance of authors who are actually critiquing the very things they’re accused of promoting. That’s the real dystopia we’re in, which was always foretold by the best science fiction writers like Heinlein, Bradbury, Vonnegut, and many others.
Dave Davies - 1996
Three years younger than his brother, Ray, Dave
Davies founded The Kinks without him in 1963, only to have Ray join soon after
and essentially take over as lead singer, primary songwriter and mastermind.
This early sibling rivalry is at the core of Dave’s grudge against his brother,
one that was never resolved in the entire 33-year history of the group, (which
disbanded officially in 1996, the same year as this book’s publication). The
eccentric Ray Davies became one of the top songsmiths and rock visionaries of
the 60s alongside Bob Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Brian Wilson, and Pete
Townshend, producing a string of classic concept albums in the 60s and 70s. It
might never have happened if the rebellious, Eddie Cochran-worshipping Dave
hadn’t started the band in the first place and created the signature raucous
guitar sound that made the first few Kinks singles so sensational. At only
seventeen years old, he experimented with his guitar and manipulated his amps
to create the raw sound that characterized the legendary riffs in the songs
‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day and All of the Night.’ Skyrocketed to fame
overnight, Dave was more than ready to dive into the swinging sixties with
regards to fashion, drugs and groupies. Dave was the outgoing and good-looking
rock star while his brother Ray was the brooding, suffering and distant artist.
They apparently had so little in common that it’s hard to believe they are
related. Dave claims that Ray manipulated and stole credit from him repeatedly
throughout their career, but (as happens with many successful musical
partnerships) neither of them could break away; they needed each other to
produce the magic that was The Kinks – Ray's wizardry in the studio and Dave’s
dazzling onstage guitarwork and outgoing rock image. Neither could have fired
the other, nor gone solo with the same success as they had together. The book
seems to be Dave’s attempt at therapy, unloading a lifetime’s worth of
grievances all at once in the hopes of relieving his pain. It probably didn’t
work since what it seems he’s really after is some basic human warmth from his
big brother. The other big trauma of his life was being torn from his
girlfriend at the age of 15 after she became pregnant and both sets of parents
conspired to separate them, persuading the girl that Dave wanted nothing to do
with her and vice versa. Dave spent 25 years wondering what became of this girl
and the daughter she raised without him. The most heart-wrenching aspect of the
book is this story, with Dave eventually being able to meet his daughter as an
adult. While lovable in a rascally way, Dave is also frustratingly capricious
all his life, alternately bragging about his sexual conquests of nameless
(often underage) girls while also professing a deep-seated spirituality that
encompasses Jesus, Zen, magic, witchcraft, ESP and UFOs. On one page, he may
wax poetic about falling in love with the woman of his dreams and marrying her,
and on the next describe nonchalantly cheating on his wife while on tour. Dave
is nothing if not bold, and that’s what makes the book so interesting. Aside
from essentially inventing hard rock with those early Kinks records, creating
an edgier sound that none of their contemporaries had attained, he also had the
longest hair of any rocker in 1964, longer than any of the Beatles or Rolling
Stones, and additionally was unabashed about pursuing sex with men when he felt
like it too. While not a great writer of prose, Dave Davies makes up for it
with sheer genuineness. If ghostwriters and editors were involved, they seem to
have stayed out of the way and allowed Dave’s personality to come through. You
come away feeling like you really know the guy and that he’s truly let his
guard down, and that more than anything makes the book worthwhile.