Messiah: A New J.C. Conquers The World And Destroys Christianity
This is the gem of the genre, Gore Vidal’s 1954 novel, Messiah. An undeniably controversial figure, the somewhat forgotten Vidal was an openly bisexual public intellectual who was writing novels about transexuality and denouncing the white supremacist ideology hiding in the Republican party back in the late ’60s. He was a high-brow author who answered the reproach of being anti-American by saying his literary production made him America’s official biographer. He was an anti-imperialist political commentator that was criticizing the corporate police state before stuff like 9/11 and the Patriot Act. And this guy wrote a novel about the second coming in 1954.
Dutton
Messiah is presented as the memoir of Eugene Luther, one of the first followers of John Cave, a mysterious undertaker/preacher gaining a cult following in ’50s California, and clearly named after Jesus Christ (either that or John Connor, was Vidal also a time-traveler?). And it is a memoir because Messiah is not set in the ’50s, but rather in a future where Cave’s religion, Cavism, has already overtaken most of the planet. What the novel offers, then, are Luther’s recollections of his time working with Cave and the group formed around him. We get to read about the religion’s beginnings, its world-conquering growth, and of course the struggles, resistances, and betrayals that go with it.
The superior literary piece, Messiah does not repeat the trap of preachiness, at least not in the same way as the other examples in this list. You see, unlike the easier path of adapting Jesus’ return around love or forgiveness and thus using it to condemn modern society’s abandonment of these values for money, power, or whatever Jeff Bezos craves (we’ll go with pee), Messiah focuses on deeper issues: life and death. The subtler core conflict of Vidal’s novel, then, is between Cave’s teaching of accepting death, and Luther’s interpretation of said teaching as if it dealt with affirming life. The difference might seem trivial, but it echoes more brainy debates within Christianity itself, and even with criticisms around the very figure of Christ.
Okay, but should I read it?
Definitely. For better or worse, Vidal’s entire work deserves a reappraisal, and a short but punchy novel with such an interesting plot that borders on dystopian sci-fi is definitely a good place to start. So imagine the novel becomes popular after almost 70 years, and we finally get a big, glossy, Denis Villeneuve Hollywood adaptation. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Top image: Ahoy Comics
4 Bonkers Novels About The Second Coming
Source: Pinoy Daily News
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