Christ The Lord: The Road To Cana (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
As a Christian, I appreciate the reverence and piety that Anne Rice brings to her second novel about the life of Jesus, "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana." But as a reader, I kept wishing some gay vampires would swoop in to liven things up. There's no questioning Rice's sincerity in this epic project, begun in 2005 with "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt." Indeed, sincerity marks every page, every interview and especially her devout Web site, which immediately inspires your computer to sing "Ave Maria." (Seriously.)Having made a fortune off erotica and horror since she started publishing novels in 1976, the Mistress of the Macabre announced a few years ago that her work had led her to Jesus Christ, another character whose life story revolves around blood. And why shouldn't her flock of readers follow her from darkness into light? Her publisher's faith is well founded: Out of Egypt was a bestseller in hardback and paperback; the advent of "The Road to Cana" is being celebrated with a first printing of 500,000 copies. Talk about feeding the multitude.While her initial volume concentrated on a 7-year-old Jesus trying to figure out who he is, this new installment picks up the story when he's 30, living with his large, extended family in the dusty, backward village of Nazareth. He has no doubts now about who he is: "I am Christ the Lord," he tells us on the opening page, but this is several months before he's baptized by John and begins his public ministry. He's still just a humble carpenter, keeps to himself, tries to brush off those rumors about miracles and wisemen attending his birth. "My way had always been to look down," he says. "The subject of whisper and insult through much of my life, I seldom confronted a man with my gaze, but rather turned away and sought my work as a matter of course. It was a quiet demeanor."It was a weird way of speaking, too. And this is a severe limitation: Rice's Jesus can bear the sins of the world, but he can't convincingly carry the burden of narrating his own story. His voice vacillates between modern Christian orthodoxy and New Age gooeyness: "Something inside me let go," he tells us while meditating in his special grove. "It had been a long while since I'd savored such a moment, since I'd let the tight prison of my skin dissolve. I felt as if I were moving upward and outward, as if the night were filled with myriad beings and the rhythm of their song drowned out the anxious beating of my heart. The shell of my body was gone. I was in the stars."The novel opens during a crippling drought and widespread protests against the new governor, Pontius Pilate, who has reportedly defiled the Temple in Jerusalem with images of the Roman emperor. In this atmosphere of desperation and unrest, two Nazarene boys are accused of being gay and, before any investigation or trial can take place, stoned by a mob. This seems like a return to hallowed ground for Rice, who enlivened old stories about the undead with homoerotic energy. Her Nazareth is scared straight. Jesus's family is anxious about his sexual orientation. Why hasn't he married already? "Are you a man beneath those robes?" someone taunts him. "A man? You understand me?" In a little village like this, people talk, rumors can kill.But it's just a tease: Rice isn't really interested in exploring questions about Jesus's sexuality. He is the Christ. (See the first page.) He knows it; we know it. And though most of the story focuses on whether Jesus will marry a pretty, brutally repressed girl named Avigail, -- spoiler alert!-- it's never in the cards. Oh, he pines for her a bit and even dreams of her, but there's nothing approaching the emotional conflict that Nikos Kazantzakis dared to consider in "The Last Temptation of Christ" more than 50 years ago.The Gospels are notoriously laconic about Jesus's life before his ministry began. Indeed, the earliest and -- many historians assume -- most reliable one, the Book of Mark, doesn't even start until Jesus is an adult. Consequently, Rice has invented much of the day-to-day action of this novel, but what she describes fits neatly with biblical tradition and particularly with Roman Catholic theology. Some readers may find this orthodoxy comforting, but it dulls the novel, keeping it from delivering anything new, challenging or engaging. Rather than rediscovering the startlingly iconoclastic figure that speaks and acts in the Gospels, Rice peers at him through the frosted lens of her faith. In the closing pages of the book, Jesus tells his disciples, "I will go on, from surprise to surprise," but in fact, this highlights the most fundamental problem of the novel: It's virtually surprise-free.It would be nice to say that Rice runs into the same problem Milton confronted in "Paradise Lost": The devil is so much more mesmerizing than the Son of God that it's hard to keep him from stealing the show. But Rice's devil isn't too interesting, either. The Prince of Darkness appears late in the novel, after Jesus's 40-day fast in the wilderness. You'd think the author who put teeth back in vampire fiction could give us a devil with a little spunk, but he's not much scarier than a salesman at Saks:" 'You take a good look at these soft clothes!' he shouted, mouth quivering like that of a child. 'You'll never see yourself dressed in this manner again.' He groaned. He doubled in pain as he groaned. He shook his fist at me."And your little dog, Toto, too!As promised, the novel concludes in Cana, with that famous wedding that runs out of wine. The servants are rushing about. Jesus sees panic in his mother's eyes. "Something was very wrong," he realizes. "It was a disaster of unlikely and dreadful proportions."Jesus, ain't that the truth.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
Anyone audacious enough to attempt to write a narrative version of the life of Christ is bound to get themselves into hot water. Anne Rice, of "Vampire Chonricles" fame is certainly no exception. When word broke that her goal was to write the life of Christ before her death, I'm sure that some diehard fans of her series were hoping for a New Agey, controversial, latter day "Last Temptation of Christ", replete with Jesus and Mary Magdalene sex scenes, and the proverbial Pie in the Face to traditionalists. Well, no such luck here, as Rice has experienced a conversion experience, and the former self professed atheist (or perhaps agnostic?) has returned to the Catholic Church of her youth. Likely some of her longtime readers feel betrayed or that she's simply gone nuts. But it is what it is, and fans seem to forget that the writer doesn't really owe us anything, that no one ever forced them to pay for her books in the first place, and that if it bothers you, hey, it's a free country, so just walk away. All that being said, Rice's sophmore effort in "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana" picks up several years after the first installment, subtitled "Our of Egypt" ended, just before the beginnin of Christ's public ministry. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did the first, perhaps in part because I expected the first one to be no good, frankly, and was pleasantly surprised. One of the problems with this book (and mind, you I did enjoy it) is that unlike the first book, which was mostly the invention of the author, this book starts depicting those New Testament stories that we all know so well, and delves into Christ's mind as an adult. Believers and non-believers alike have some idea in their head as to who and what Christ was, how he must have felt and what he must have thought in certain situations. What those people need to remember when reading a book like this is that it's not meant to be a theological treatise, but rather one author's interpretation and depiction of those stories. No doubt some purists and fundamentalists will get their vestments in a bunch because Rice does "change" a couple of things, but nothing I would stone anyone over. But any of those changes serve the story she is trying to tell and not rewrite doctrines. The story seems to concentrate a lot on the town of Nazareth itself at first, depicting it's citizens as backward, bloodthirsty and judgemental, likely paving the way for Christ's message of "judge not, lest ye be judged" in future books. The book opens with the stoning deaths of two little boys accused of "abomination" (use your imagination) and introduces the character of Abigail, a kinswoman of Christ's family who is also shamed and disgraced by equally ignorant "mob mentality" rashness. Jesus takes it on himself to save this girl from the town by arrainging a marraige for her ... and we soon realize that she must be the bridge at the famous wedding of Cana. Rice's Jesus is well written, human and divine enough for most believers. A traditionalist herself, Rice doesn't have Jesus experimenting with his sexuality as a young man but doesn't shy away from it either. In this book we meet John the Baptist, see the tempting by Satan in the desert, and culminate with the beginning of Christ's public life. The one criticism of the book I would have is the subtle transformation of Jesus from Jesus the Carpenter of Nazareth to Jesus the Messiah. One day, he doesn't know what the future holds for him, but knows it's special, to the next moment, he can read minds and seems to have the "mind of God". There wasn't a singular moment of revelation and this transformation happens virtually "off camera" for the reader, even though we never leave Christ, who's our narrator. All in all, this is a good book and I will definitely read the next installments, of which I would assume there would be only one but she could probably squeeze two out of them, if she wanted to. She averts the boredom of merely rereading rehashed bible stories by integrating interesting, real characters and filling the gaps left by biblical narratives with interesting and fascinating theories.
What do You think about Christ The Lord: The Road To Cana (2008)?
I would describe Christ The Lord, The Road To Cana by AnneRice as a drama, beautifully written, narrated in the first person by Jesus Of Nazareth whom is called at this biblcaltime Yeshua bar Joseph. Yeshua(Jesus)draws you into the events of his lifearticulating his final year before and afer his life changing Baptism at the Jordan,a face-off with Satan,and a stunning description of The Wedding at Cana. In conversational prose Yeshua depicts his life amongst his Beloved Family and community, taking you throughthe most intimate moments of his human and divine journey, while bringing the Holy Gospels and Scriptures into full spectrum.I don't know if these esquisite words from Anne Rice could ever be rendered for theatrical performance, but if soI would love to see this as a staged Dramatic Play.
—Julia
I was surprised when I saw this book on the shelves of my local library. Surely this couldn't be the same Anne Rice that wrote the Vampire Chronicles, I thought. But a look at the photo and the blurb on the dust jacket told me that it was indeed her and I just had to read it. It was fascinating. She is known for the great depth of character she brought to the vampires she wrote about - in fact to all her characters no matter who or what she's writing about. In this book, she has applied style to Jesus (or Yeshua) of Nazareth. The book - actually the second in a trilogy - takes us through his baptism by John the Baptist, the forty days of temptation in the desert, up to when he turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana. But more than just detailing these pivotal points in Jesus' life, she writes from his point of view, imagining what was going on in his mind during these events and what motivations led him to them. Until the point of his baptism - which happens about halfway through the book - he is a perfectly normal man with all the thoughts and feelings of a normal man. I particularly like the idea that he is in love with a local girl (who, I think, is a cousin but the familial relationship is a bit confusing so I'm not sure) and who has apparently thrown off dozens of suitors in favour of him only to have him say that he won't marry her, that he has always known that he could never marry. Furthermore, he is heartbroken when - because of this - he has to give her up to another man. Even after his baptism and the Temptation when he knows what is expected of him, she still manages to make Jesus come across as a normal man - albeit a normal man who can cast out demons, who can turn water into wine - with the doubts and failings of a normal man. Although this is a work of fiction based on the life of a real man, Anne Rice has managed once again to make the fictional elements of the story utterly believable.
—Sam
When I was a freshman in college I remember reading about half of the first novel, Out of Egypt. I stopped reading it, but I don't recall there being anything particularly wrong with the novel. I guess I just wasn't that interested in the early childhood of Christ. Some people really want to know what those early years were like; me, the only question I ever cared to see dealt with in fictional form is when and how did Jesus come to understand who he was, and what was that moment or series of moments like? I picked this one up having never finished the first, but I had no trouble following along. This novel deals with Christ's life in the months leading up to his baptism by his cousin John, and ends shortly after the wedding at Cana where he turns water into wine.When I found that this was a first person account through the eyes of Jesus, my reaction was mostly mild skepticism. I mean, it is a tad presumptuous. Whether or not you believe in Jesus as he exists in the gospels or not, that's the basic premise of the story, and the direct result is that the author is going to attempt to tell the story of the most complex figure in the history of literature, not through the eyes of his followers or family, but through the eyes of the Messiah himself. The Messiah who happens to be God. No small task, I assure you.Yet somehow, some way, Anne Rice managed to pull a book out of that waiting trap. I believe she effectively sidestepped this issue by mainly having Jesus narrate the events surrounding him. His moments of personal reflection are infrequent, and the deep haunting paradox of being a man and God at once are kept vague as they should be. There is no way to understand this mystery; theologians have tried for centuries and come up with nothing. Rice keeps things simple, day to day activities, day to day struggles. Even the prose lacks fanfare. The story is more interpersonal than personal, and it avoids trying to simplify that which has confounded brilliant men for two thousand years. That isn't to say that the work says nothing interesting about Christ, however. The main reason I found this book to be such a quick read is this very thing. Little details. Most people never realize what a disappointment Christ was to many of his contemporaries. He could argue the law brilliantly but didn't study at Temple. His culture expected him to marry, yet in his early thirties he had not taken a wife. Everyone and their dog thought he was a Warrior King sent to deliver his people from Roman bondage by force of arms. Instead he demands them to do insane things like "take up your cross and follow me," and "love your enemies; pray for those that persecute you." Rice taps into these pressures and avoids stereotype in the character.Is this what Christ was really like? I don't know. Maybe. That's not important. What's important is that Rice's novel erects a world based in history with a character rooted in the traditions and beliefs of his culture, and the outworking of a vision where the world is made new in ways in which no one had dreamed. Christ's humanity is laid bare in this novel, and so at the very least it's interesting to see one person's take on his extraordinary life. "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him." --Napoleon Bonaparte
—A.J.
