Well this is a tough review to write because this is Ron Currie's first book and I wish him well. And I really wanted to like this one a lot - you know when you get good vibes from a book as soon as you hear about it. And it isn't bad. But I just didn't really get where Ron Currie was coming from. The concept, which is in the blurb is that God, having taken human form, actually physically dies and never comes back. And the news gets out, and the book traces what then follows from this revelation. Except it doesn't really. It's a series of short stories strung together like Julian Barnes' "A History of the World in 10 and a Half Chapters" rather than an actual novel, and all of these short stories would fit right into any "Year's Best Science Fiction" collection because that's what they are. Science fiction is as obsessed with God as everyone else, and frequently throws up theological speculations - "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell, "A Case of Conscience" by James Blish, and "Only Begotten Daughter" by James Morrow in which God is born again as a human being, this time as a girl. Okay so what was the problem here? Ron is a very smooth writer, this is a fast read, and I loved the opening riff with Colin Powell (yes, that Colin Powell) - I thought I was in for a real treat. In fact the first chapter is the best short story I've read for a long time. After God's death we jump cut immediately to society-collapsing-and-everybody-dying. But here's the thing - why would it? Let's grant Ron his outre premise - okay, God's dead. Now what? Would everyone freak out? If so, why? Why would everyone believe this crazy God is dead stuff anyway? (Ron doesn't say). If they did why wouldn't they carry on turning up to work anyway, except for a few nutters? (Ron doesn't say). As I realised that Ron wasn't going to be focusing on the nuts and bolts of his conceit I got less interested and began to figure that he could therefore throw in any zany scenario (such as the war between the Post Modern Anthropologists and the Evolutionary Anthropologists) with the underlying unstated assumption that this is all happening because humans now know God is dead. So it began to feel slightly like I'd fallen for a carnival barker "Step right up folks, see God die, yep right here in this show starts in five minutes only ten dollars God will actually die right in front of your very eyes, ten dollars only thankyew kind sir, step inside, find yourself a seat". So the book began bouncing about like a balloon being batted by belligerent boys - caricatured, superficially political, not really serious, vaguely philosophical, like a book scampering around during a game of Musical Chairs, and finally not finding a chair to sit on, and then being out of the game completely.
This book was interesting but overall not as compelling as I think it could have been. There were so many big ideas that I felt just weren't fleshed out well enough. I mean, I guess it's up to you to invent whatever kind of world you want to envision god being dead in, but this felt like so many loose ends to me. I don't know if the alternative is writing a crazy long, epic novel, but there were many roads I would've continued down happily if I could have. Except the one about the wild dogs who ate god's body. That was a little too sad and bleak to me.What I really did enjoy about the book was the general exploration of what we would do in the true absence of religion. Like if something like this happened that could convince humanity, once and for all, that god doesn't really exist. Not only does "he" (I hate using that pronoun to represent god, who would surely transcend our earthly notions of gender) not exist, but actually dies. This is so different from there being no god in the first place. In the book, humanity is wracked by this sense of loss and confusion, and then this desperate drive to find something that would replace god. I think that this is a rather generous view of our species in many ways, because really, if you take a look around at where we're collectively headed, surely god is already dead and we are living with that reality. If we believed that a benevolent creator was looking down on us from on high, maybe we wouldn't be destroying the planet, letting people starve, defunding education, etc. I guess this is a bigger discussion than I'm prepared to have in this review, though. The end.
What do You think about God Is Dead (2007)?
When I first finished this book, I wrote an 800-word review (because that’s what critics do). I thought I’d completed the review until I met with my book club, but now I have a slew of other things to say, so bear with me for an extra 200 or so words.When I began reading God Is Dead, I didn’t know (or perhaps had forgotten) that this is actually an interrelated short story collection/novel in stories, which is my jam. And since I’ve been hearing for years now that this book is all kinds of aweso
—Yennie
I bought this book purely because I was dashing into The Strand to get The Lacuna to read for my 2-person book club with Caitlin and I literally stopped dead in my tracks because I caught out of the corner of my eye a quality of line in the cover art that reminded me of the drawings in Dogs and Water one of my favorite ""graphic novels"" of all time. Much of Anders Nilsen's other stuff is pretty difficult to get your hands on and I must have had hope for a second that he had another big book that everybody could buy instead of gorgeous limited edition sold-out pamphlets. So I bought this book even though I immediately saw the author was actually somebody else. It looks like it will be one of those books by an Emerging Author that could be really incredible or super-annoying, with no middle ground. I feel a basic aesthetic joy when I look at Anders Nilsen's art, like when a kid sees a delightful shoe, and I also feel instantly not only smart, but wise, when I look at a drawing of his. I smile, then nod thoughtfully to myself. Ah, I see. The book doesn't acknowledge the cover artist anywhere, but I looked it up online at home and that cover IS Anders Nilsen! Can your Kindle do that?!? It probably kind of can with some weird "browse" feature and one-tap library of congress citation lookup... Sigh... Ignore that thrown gauntlet, Kindle-lovers.
—Karen
I did not realize this novel was composed of interconnected stories before I read it. The first story - "God is Dead" - sets the scene. God has inhabited the body of a Dinka woman refugee and is wandering in the desert in Sudan looking for a 15 year old boy named Thomas Mawien, who has escaped from the Janjaweed (the rebel group that kills everyone and everything in its path, unless it is a child that they enslave). The Dinka woman has an infected wound in her leg and is dehydrated. She makes it to a refugee camp and encounters Secretary of State Colin Powell, who decides to help her find Thomas. Well, needless to say, all does not end well. God dies and a pack of dogs snacks on the body.The remaining eight stories involve life after the world finds out God is dead. First, everything collapses. In "The Bridge" and "Indian Summer," suicide is the answer. Then the world reorganizes. People look for things to worship - in False Idols, it is children who are worshipped in a manner that is similar to but more extreme than the pedestals many children are put on now. Later the worship moves to the form of government based on free will -- "The Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit." In almost every story, something that is common now - texting, child adoration, war, material goods - is pushed to the extreme in a form of satire. A couple of the stories, however, are harder to pin down. For example, "Interview with the Last Remaining Member of the Feral Dog Pack Which Fed on God's Corpse" plays with religion and egotism. The sole surviving dog answers unknown questions about what happened to God and what happened to the five dogs that snacked on God's corpse. It's quite an interesting saga. In sum, I think this book takes a look at some of today's excesses by highlighting and exaggerating them. I found the stories to be quite thought provoking.
—Linda
