The blurb about Jesus and his brother Colin on the Goodreads page for this book has to be the most misleading blurb I've ever read. It's all mostly true, but it has a much, much smaller role to play in the novel than you would expect. Colin has about five lines and Jesus only comes in at the end.What this book is actually about it the mystery of who killed God and why, and it all plays out on earth. The famous genre detective Lazlo Woodbine (who some call Laz) is on the case. It's a briefcase this time, at least until he's forced to drop it when Eartha, God's wife, hires Lazlo to find her husband. The briefcase has been picked up by Icarus Smith, a young 'relocator' whose dream it is to relocate things until the world has been put right. Inside the case are some devastating secrets and the means to change the way people see the world.It's all thoroughly ridiculous, which of course is what you're looking for (or should expect) when you pick up a Robert Rankin novel. It didn't work for me in this case though. It was funny at first, then degenerated into "Ok enough now" and finally "Jesus Christ, just get on with it". The gags are repeated way too often and it's all a bit boring. It's not dreadful, but if you're thinking of reading it, keep browsing.
Humour and comedy is hard. So's intertextuality. I've got an odd sense of humour to say the least, and while I love intertextuality, I only love it if it is done unintrusively, so you can read and appreciate the story even if you don't get all the little nudgenudgewinkwinkknowwhatImeanknowwhatImeans, I also really hate when an author does this: "You could wait for Mr Godalming. Get it? Waiting for Godalming, as in Waiting for Godot. That's a good 'un, eh?". I also hated 'Waiting for Godot' with a passion, which I guess doesn't help matters much. The story of 'Waiting for Godalming' is a little bit Philip K Dickian, even if PKD had more plot twists and was harder to dechipher and the basic premise is sort of amusing, even if it's quite clear what happened quite early in the book (I don't think it's supposed to be, but it is). I also never liked pot boilers, American 1950ies hard boiled private eyes, cheap fat jokes or Evil Wife jokes, so 2 out of 5 it is.
What do You think about Waiting For Godalming (2001)?
