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Μεσσίας
Όταν ο Τζον Κέιβ, πρώην υπάλληλος γραφείου κηδειών, εμφανίζεται στην τηλεόραση κηρύσσοντας ότι ο θάνατος είναι απείρως προτιμότερος από τη ζωή, προκαλεί την έκρηξη ενός θρησκευτικού κινήματος που πολύ γρήγορα κονιορτοποιεί χριστιανισμό και ισλάμ. Με την αρωγή μιας πρωτοφανούς διαφημιστικής εκστρατείας και την υποστήριξη μιας "θεολογίας" εμπνευσμένης από έναν ιστοριοδίφη ξετρελαμένο με μια σαγηνευτική μαθήτρια του Κέιβ, το μήνυμα του Κέιβ θα αποδειχθεί ακαταμάχητο. Η κατάσταση, όμως, αρχίζει να ξεφεύγει από κάθε έλεγχο, όταν η ιδέα του "εθελούσιου θανάτου" μετατρέπεται σε δόγμα και ολόκληρος ο κόσμος ενθαρρύνεται να εγκαταλείψει τα εγκόσμια παίρνοντας τον Δρόμο του Κέιβ -ένα ανώδυνο και εύγευστο δηλητήριο- μέσα σε ειδικά διαμορφωμένα ευχάριστα δωμάτια στα αναρίθμητα Κεϊβιτικά Κέντρα.
Ευφυέστατος και παράτολμος συγκερασμός προφητείας και σάτιρας, πρωτοδημοσιευμένος το 1964, ο "Μεσσίας" προέβλεψε με εκπλήσσουσα ενόραση εξτρεμισμούς ανθρώπων, όπως ο Jim Jones, ο David Koresh και ο "Do", ο γκουρού της Πύλης του Παραδείσου.
Ευφυέστατος και παράτολμος συγκερασμός προφητείας και σάτιρας, πρωτοδημοσιευμένος το 1964, ο "Μεσσίας" προέβλεψε με εκπλήσσουσα ενόραση εξτρεμισμούς ανθρώπων, όπως ο Jim Jones, ο David Koresh και ο "Do", ο γκουρού της Πύλης του Παραδείσου.
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
113 people are currently reading
1533 people want to read
About the author
Gore Vidal
423 books1,866 followersWorks of American writer Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, noted for his cynical humor and his numerous accounts of society in decline, include the play
The Best Man
(1960) and the novel
Myra Breckinridge
(1968) .
People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.
They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde
Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).
Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).
Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.
Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.
Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.
People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.
They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde
Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).
Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).
Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.
Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.
Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.
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October 2, 2023
Never Go to California Unprepared
Gore Vidal has it exactly right in Messiah: Religion, and therefore religious politics, are fundamentally literary matters. It is not so much that religion and its politics use literature inappropriately but that they are examples of a very specific genre which arises from time to time, the purpose of which is to create what are essentially tribal bonds. Messiah is a fictional case study of the literature of religion.
It has struck me for some time that the Deplorables phenomenon in the United States is not primarily a political event but a form of religious enthusiasm. Perhaps the two are indistinguishable in their core. Regardless, there seems to be an essential element of belief among Trumpists that carries the weight of religious conviction. This raises questions of what has been traditionally called divine revelation, the formation of certain, unshakeable faith in someone or something. Where does such faith come from? How does it spread among large populations? How is it maintained in some sort of coherence as it does spread?
These are typically considered as questions appropriate to the sociology of religion. But the categories of academic sociology are misleading. By presuming that religious impulses are a response to some pre-existing emotional need or spiritual lack, sociology puts the conceptual chart before the empirical horse. Religion, like modern retail capitalism, creates its own demand.
Not uncommonly religion starts with the experience of a small number of individuals in the presence of a charismatic - Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, or as in Messiah, the undertaker’s assistant, John Cave (the initials JC are not incidental of course; neither is the name of the PR man who launches the Cavite sect internationally - Paul). But that shared experience has a limited half-life, and an equally limited audience with the technology of only word-of-mouth advertising to rely on. In any case the shared revelatory experience is lost. Enter then what is called fundamental theology, the religious theory of revelation and how it spreads.
Ultimately all fundamental theology becomes fideistic, that is one claims belief because one believes. No proof, no evidence, no rational argument creates faith. Belief therefore becomes an undiscussable principle. Taken seriously, this implies not just complete subjectivity but also total incomparabilty of experience. Technically speaking therefore, even believers don’t know what they’re talking about when they talk with each other. To the extent they agree on a religious vocabulary, they have divorced themselves from whatever personal religious experience they claim.
This is not just my view but that of the most important fundamental theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth. Barth’s work is primarily directed toward re-establishing what he considers authentic religious experience of ‘The Word’ as distinct from the simulacrum of that experience produced by merely human words. The implication of course is that religious language doesn’t refer to anything at all - material or spiritual. Religious language, however, does create a certain form of community, namely that devoted to a certain religious language. For Barth this is an unfortunate tragedy for humanity. For the rest of us, it’s just how things are.
And this is what Vidal recognizes. Religion is dependent upon literature. It is a literary phenomenon. The protagonist of The Messiah is not John Cave, the founder of the cult, but Eugene Luther (Vidal's first names), the evangelistic author of the cult’s foundational texts - Cavesword. Of course no text can be charismatic in the manner of a human being, but this is irrelevant. The text has its own kind of charisma, appropriate not to the originary shared revelation but to its cult. The religious community which forms around a text is bound together by the text not by the shared experience of the original cult (it is relevant to point out that while writing this paragraph I was interrupted by my news feed which informs me that Trump is presently in Alabama signing bibles for tornado victims).
This priority of the text over mental or spiritual state would seem obvious to all except sociologists of religion (and many theologians) who appear to regard the content of the religious text as significant. It isn’t. Most Christians have no informed understanding of the Bible much less the doctrinal pronounments derived from it. Latter Day Saints and Muslims may quote passages from The Book of Mormon and the Quran as required to make a political point but have equally vague ideas about the historical source of these passages.
John Cave’s message is that death is preferable to life. The dying itself is the only awkward part. This is a message satisfying in terms of Freud’s Death Wish for the psychoanalytically minded. And it goes well with any combination of Gnostic, Orphic, and millennial Christian tendencies. A theology for all seasons perhaps. Strange bed-fellows one might think, but religion is after all a kind of political alliance.
Having been formed with the text, the community uses the text to continuously affirm and reinforce itself. Allegiance, faith, passes from a person to a text, then to the institution created through the text established by the relevant institution - the church, the mosque, the temple.* The sequence is universal regardless of the text itself. The text is deemed sacred, and must be protected from mis-interpretation. It also may need to be revised from time to time to meet changing dogmatic objectives. The essential role of religious authority is to control and correct the text, its valid interpretation and its public assertion. Faith is commitment to the authoritative institution. Modern totalitarian regimes regardless of ideology have largely modeled their systems of text-control on historic Christian practice over centuries.
Vidal’s Cavite system of textual revision and enforcement was proposed only a few years after Orwell’s version in his 1984.** But Vidal realized something Orwell didn’t, namely that whatever went on inside anyone’s head was irrelevant to the process of social control. The ‘Thought Police’ of Orwell is either a misnomer or a misdirection of resources. Controlling what was said does the job of promoting social discipline quite nicely all by itself in Messiah. Belief is actually inconsequential to religious or social cohesion. Truth is what is written or said by authority. Faith is not a psychological state or abstract commitment; it is an active and public affirmation of authority.
Vidal doesn’t entirely discount human need when it comes to religion. For him there is a very plausible emotion behind the religious impulse in modern life: Boredom, more specifically the boredom of power which is a self-willed condition. Religion, particularly religion spawned in someplace like California, has a frisson of adventurous novelty that has proved itself attractive to bored middle class Americans for decades - even during the 1950’s.
And I’d bet that boredom is the driving root-motivation behind the phenomenon of the Deplorables. Combine cultural ennui with lack of education and it’s a situation tailor-made for the cult of Trump - bored, stupid fanatics frightened of their diminishing power.
* A common misconception is that the Christian Scriptures created the Church. This is historically incorrect. The early Church in its various manifestations carefully chose which texts it would consider as canonical and which heretical. I think it’s therefore accurate to say that Church and text evolved together.
**1984 was first published in 1949; The Messiah in 1954.
Gore Vidal has it exactly right in Messiah: Religion, and therefore religious politics, are fundamentally literary matters. It is not so much that religion and its politics use literature inappropriately but that they are examples of a very specific genre which arises from time to time, the purpose of which is to create what are essentially tribal bonds. Messiah is a fictional case study of the literature of religion.
It has struck me for some time that the Deplorables phenomenon in the United States is not primarily a political event but a form of religious enthusiasm. Perhaps the two are indistinguishable in their core. Regardless, there seems to be an essential element of belief among Trumpists that carries the weight of religious conviction. This raises questions of what has been traditionally called divine revelation, the formation of certain, unshakeable faith in someone or something. Where does such faith come from? How does it spread among large populations? How is it maintained in some sort of coherence as it does spread?
These are typically considered as questions appropriate to the sociology of religion. But the categories of academic sociology are misleading. By presuming that religious impulses are a response to some pre-existing emotional need or spiritual lack, sociology puts the conceptual chart before the empirical horse. Religion, like modern retail capitalism, creates its own demand.
Not uncommonly religion starts with the experience of a small number of individuals in the presence of a charismatic - Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, or as in Messiah, the undertaker’s assistant, John Cave (the initials JC are not incidental of course; neither is the name of the PR man who launches the Cavite sect internationally - Paul). But that shared experience has a limited half-life, and an equally limited audience with the technology of only word-of-mouth advertising to rely on. In any case the shared revelatory experience is lost. Enter then what is called fundamental theology, the religious theory of revelation and how it spreads.
Ultimately all fundamental theology becomes fideistic, that is one claims belief because one believes. No proof, no evidence, no rational argument creates faith. Belief therefore becomes an undiscussable principle. Taken seriously, this implies not just complete subjectivity but also total incomparabilty of experience. Technically speaking therefore, even believers don’t know what they’re talking about when they talk with each other. To the extent they agree on a religious vocabulary, they have divorced themselves from whatever personal religious experience they claim.
This is not just my view but that of the most important fundamental theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth. Barth’s work is primarily directed toward re-establishing what he considers authentic religious experience of ‘The Word’ as distinct from the simulacrum of that experience produced by merely human words. The implication of course is that religious language doesn’t refer to anything at all - material or spiritual. Religious language, however, does create a certain form of community, namely that devoted to a certain religious language. For Barth this is an unfortunate tragedy for humanity. For the rest of us, it’s just how things are.
And this is what Vidal recognizes. Religion is dependent upon literature. It is a literary phenomenon. The protagonist of The Messiah is not John Cave, the founder of the cult, but Eugene Luther (Vidal's first names), the evangelistic author of the cult’s foundational texts - Cavesword. Of course no text can be charismatic in the manner of a human being, but this is irrelevant. The text has its own kind of charisma, appropriate not to the originary shared revelation but to its cult. The religious community which forms around a text is bound together by the text not by the shared experience of the original cult (it is relevant to point out that while writing this paragraph I was interrupted by my news feed which informs me that Trump is presently in Alabama signing bibles for tornado victims).
This priority of the text over mental or spiritual state would seem obvious to all except sociologists of religion (and many theologians) who appear to regard the content of the religious text as significant. It isn’t. Most Christians have no informed understanding of the Bible much less the doctrinal pronounments derived from it. Latter Day Saints and Muslims may quote passages from The Book of Mormon and the Quran as required to make a political point but have equally vague ideas about the historical source of these passages.
John Cave’s message is that death is preferable to life. The dying itself is the only awkward part. This is a message satisfying in terms of Freud’s Death Wish for the psychoanalytically minded. And it goes well with any combination of Gnostic, Orphic, and millennial Christian tendencies. A theology for all seasons perhaps. Strange bed-fellows one might think, but religion is after all a kind of political alliance.
Having been formed with the text, the community uses the text to continuously affirm and reinforce itself. Allegiance, faith, passes from a person to a text, then to the institution created through the text established by the relevant institution - the church, the mosque, the temple.* The sequence is universal regardless of the text itself. The text is deemed sacred, and must be protected from mis-interpretation. It also may need to be revised from time to time to meet changing dogmatic objectives. The essential role of religious authority is to control and correct the text, its valid interpretation and its public assertion. Faith is commitment to the authoritative institution. Modern totalitarian regimes regardless of ideology have largely modeled their systems of text-control on historic Christian practice over centuries.
Vidal’s Cavite system of textual revision and enforcement was proposed only a few years after Orwell’s version in his 1984.** But Vidal realized something Orwell didn’t, namely that whatever went on inside anyone’s head was irrelevant to the process of social control. The ‘Thought Police’ of Orwell is either a misnomer or a misdirection of resources. Controlling what was said does the job of promoting social discipline quite nicely all by itself in Messiah. Belief is actually inconsequential to religious or social cohesion. Truth is what is written or said by authority. Faith is not a psychological state or abstract commitment; it is an active and public affirmation of authority.
Vidal doesn’t entirely discount human need when it comes to religion. For him there is a very plausible emotion behind the religious impulse in modern life: Boredom, more specifically the boredom of power which is a self-willed condition. Religion, particularly religion spawned in someplace like California, has a frisson of adventurous novelty that has proved itself attractive to bored middle class Americans for decades - even during the 1950’s.
And I’d bet that boredom is the driving root-motivation behind the phenomenon of the Deplorables. Combine cultural ennui with lack of education and it’s a situation tailor-made for the cult of Trump - bored, stupid fanatics frightened of their diminishing power.
* A common misconception is that the Christian Scriptures created the Church. This is historically incorrect. The early Church in its various manifestations carefully chose which texts it would consider as canonical and which heretical. I think it’s therefore accurate to say that Church and text evolved together.
**1984 was first published in 1949; The Messiah in 1954.
November 25, 2013
as always, you can read more about plot, etc. by clicking here; read on for the shorter version.
If ever there was a reason to take a break from reading what's on the New York Times bestseller list or from current fiction, this book is it. Going onto the favorites list for 2013, this novel is simply amazing. Considering it was first published in 1954, it's surprisingly current and definitely way ahead of its time. In this book, a new religion is born, and a simple message offered by a charismatic young man becomes organized, publicized, bureaucratized and ultimately bastardized before it encompasses the entire non-Islamic world. It's highly satirical, funny in a dark humor sort of way, and makes you appreciate how perceptive this author must have been, considering all of the events coming out of messianic cults over the last few decades.
Eugene Luther (which is actually Gore Vidal's real name) has been living in Egypt for the last fifty years under an assumed name. He is working on an account of "that original crisis" that sent him there, which began when he was introduced to a former embalmer by the name of John Cave ("a pair of initials calculated to amaze the innocent"). Luther meets him through Iris Mortimer, a woman to whom he was introduced by another character, Clarissa. On a visit to California, he first hears Cave speak at a small gathering, and somewhat "against his will" Luther realizes that he was totally absorbed. As Iris notes, "There's something in oneself which stirs and comes alive at his touch, through his agency." Cave's message is relatively simple: "it is good to die." This was the sole vision of John Cave, at first anyway; everything changes when Cave is put in the hands of publicist Paul Himmell and his erstwhile partner, Jungian analyst Dr. Stokharin, and Cavite Inc. is born, leading to the founding of a new religion called Cavesword.
Messiah is simply put, an outstanding novel. It seems to parallel the rise of Christianity, including the dissenters, the overlaying of old traditions to make new ones, the schisms, and mythologies that grew out of historical reality. It examines the relationship between postwar American anxieties and the need for some kind of larger-than-life solution to offer people beyond the old, superstition-based religions. It also looks at television's ability as the ultimate medium of persuasion -- considering that this book was written in 1954, that's an incredibly farsighted vision on Vidal's part. But really, the best thing about this book is the realization that comes to Luther as he comes to understand his real role vis-a-vis John Cave; sadly it's at the end so I can't really spill it. It is however, a revelation that had me thinking about this novel long after I'd finished it -- in fact, the same is true of the entire book. There is so much more to discuss, but if I wrote all I really wanted to, it would be more like a paper rather than a review. Messiah is also first book I've ever read by Gore Vidal, and I absolutely love the way he wrote -- so much so that I've already picked up two more of his books. It's as good or better than much of the fiction coming out currently, so if you're into great writing, excellent plotting and a story that causes you to sit and mull over what you've just read, you really can't make a much better choice than this one. It shouldn't be pooh-poohed just because it's nearly 60 years old ... you'd think after reading it that the author somehow had access to news of the future. Superlative. That's my final word.
If ever there was a reason to take a break from reading what's on the New York Times bestseller list or from current fiction, this book is it. Going onto the favorites list for 2013, this novel is simply amazing. Considering it was first published in 1954, it's surprisingly current and definitely way ahead of its time. In this book, a new religion is born, and a simple message offered by a charismatic young man becomes organized, publicized, bureaucratized and ultimately bastardized before it encompasses the entire non-Islamic world. It's highly satirical, funny in a dark humor sort of way, and makes you appreciate how perceptive this author must have been, considering all of the events coming out of messianic cults over the last few decades.
Eugene Luther (which is actually Gore Vidal's real name) has been living in Egypt for the last fifty years under an assumed name. He is working on an account of "that original crisis" that sent him there, which began when he was introduced to a former embalmer by the name of John Cave ("a pair of initials calculated to amaze the innocent"). Luther meets him through Iris Mortimer, a woman to whom he was introduced by another character, Clarissa. On a visit to California, he first hears Cave speak at a small gathering, and somewhat "against his will" Luther realizes that he was totally absorbed. As Iris notes, "There's something in oneself which stirs and comes alive at his touch, through his agency." Cave's message is relatively simple: "it is good to die." This was the sole vision of John Cave, at first anyway; everything changes when Cave is put in the hands of publicist Paul Himmell and his erstwhile partner, Jungian analyst Dr. Stokharin, and Cavite Inc. is born, leading to the founding of a new religion called Cavesword.
Messiah is simply put, an outstanding novel. It seems to parallel the rise of Christianity, including the dissenters, the overlaying of old traditions to make new ones, the schisms, and mythologies that grew out of historical reality. It examines the relationship between postwar American anxieties and the need for some kind of larger-than-life solution to offer people beyond the old, superstition-based religions. It also looks at television's ability as the ultimate medium of persuasion -- considering that this book was written in 1954, that's an incredibly farsighted vision on Vidal's part. But really, the best thing about this book is the realization that comes to Luther as he comes to understand his real role vis-a-vis John Cave; sadly it's at the end so I can't really spill it. It is however, a revelation that had me thinking about this novel long after I'd finished it -- in fact, the same is true of the entire book. There is so much more to discuss, but if I wrote all I really wanted to, it would be more like a paper rather than a review. Messiah is also first book I've ever read by Gore Vidal, and I absolutely love the way he wrote -- so much so that I've already picked up two more of his books. It's as good or better than much of the fiction coming out currently, so if you're into great writing, excellent plotting and a story that causes you to sit and mull over what you've just read, you really can't make a much better choice than this one. It shouldn't be pooh-poohed just because it's nearly 60 years old ... you'd think after reading it that the author somehow had access to news of the future. Superlative. That's my final word.
June 25, 2011
A brilliant (and oddly prescient) satire. With Messiah, Vidal offers a skewering criticism of organized religion, the politics behind it, and its far-reaching ramifications in a manner that is at once humorous, intelligent, and bone-chillingly accurate. While the subtle wit and deadpan snark that characterize Vidal's writing are present in Messiah, a bleak and ominous tone dominates the novel, befitting its narrative. Messiah is a fantastically engaging and smart novel, and had me contemplating its characters and story long after I closed its covers.
January 29, 2010
OK, the first chapter is very heady, but after that the book is just fantastic.
April 28, 2021
He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty boy.
November 20, 2024
The novel is well written and quite a captivating read. It's the story of the creation of a new power structure that, within a short period, takes over most of the inhabitants of the world. It is centered on a newly engendered and radically fundamental ideology. It enthralls the educated, the non-educated, politicians, academicians, the poor, the rich, everyone except for a very few resisters.
A new prophet arrives on scene, John Cave, and spouts a very simplistic idea: death is better than life, death is oblivion, there is no after-life, religion and its churches and institutions are bad. His gift: a piercing and hypnotic gaze. That's it. Other than that he's a rather unprepossessing fellow. One could envisage his creating a cult, it has been done before, but here, his acolytes create the greatest power structure ever seen.
John Cave is the new Messiah, and around him gather a group of "apostles", each with a personal agenda and a specific role in the machine that will create "Cavesword" (reminiscent of Orwell's "Newspeak"), its ideology, its doctrine and rules, and its institutions, turning it into the most dominant world power.
The narrator is Luther, once one of the leaders of this movement who, having rejected Cavism, is now in hiding and writing this story 50 years after the events. All the names (JC, Paul, the name of the PR executive who launches Cavism and spreads it to the four corners of the earth, and Luther) are glaringly intentional.
We are taken on a journey through the mechanics, power struggles, personal agendas and interests that will create this new monstrosity. It's no different from the previous ones, but with the aid of modernity and its advanced tools, it spreads more deeply and rapidly, and is able to exercise more control than did such former power structures
Although a bit dated, it's an interesting read.
A new prophet arrives on scene, John Cave, and spouts a very simplistic idea: death is better than life, death is oblivion, there is no after-life, religion and its churches and institutions are bad. His gift: a piercing and hypnotic gaze. That's it. Other than that he's a rather unprepossessing fellow. One could envisage his creating a cult, it has been done before, but here, his acolytes create the greatest power structure ever seen.
John Cave is the new Messiah, and around him gather a group of "apostles", each with a personal agenda and a specific role in the machine that will create "Cavesword" (reminiscent of Orwell's "Newspeak"), its ideology, its doctrine and rules, and its institutions, turning it into the most dominant world power.
The narrator is Luther, once one of the leaders of this movement who, having rejected Cavism, is now in hiding and writing this story 50 years after the events. All the names (JC, Paul, the name of the PR executive who launches Cavism and spreads it to the four corners of the earth, and Luther) are glaringly intentional.
We are taken on a journey through the mechanics, power struggles, personal agendas and interests that will create this new monstrosity. It's no different from the previous ones, but with the aid of modernity and its advanced tools, it spreads more deeply and rapidly, and is able to exercise more control than did such former power structures
Although a bit dated, it's an interesting read.
June 11, 2017
I found this book recently in a used book store: a quarter seemed like a good deal! The "Messiah" in this novel establishes a new "religion" which looks at death as "...nothing; literally no thing; and since, demonstrably, absence of things is good; death which is no thing is good." Given that, today, choosing death over years of a painful terminal illness is a growing issue (and in at least one state in the USA, mental illness is grouped with terminal illness as a "right to die") this book is oddly prescient. In addition, Vidal takes on world religions, thus world politics. And you might find, even stranger, references to a future USA President. Vidal had no fear of taking on any issue within a novel. About his 2nd book (published in 1948 when he was 23 years old, "The City and the Pillar" was centered on homosexuality), Vidal stated that he thought everyone was bisexual. "So what's the big deal" he must have said about "City and Pillar" as well as "Messiah", in which a massive publicity machine is geared to replace all world religions except one, a new one in which death is nothing to fear, so apparently there is just one "commandment': live it up! But I think there is so much more here that I missed: I'm placing this book on my "to-read-again" shelf. So for now, I'll rate this book 3 stars: it's a fast read with radical concepts for 1954, and for today. If I recall correctly, Vidal was a controversial "talking head" on 1960's TV and his political aspirations were negatively impacted by his novels. Well, apparently, Vidal had little to hide as opposed to, seemingly, everyone in Washington D.C. these days (and I mean everyone, on both sides of the aisle).
June 4, 2013
The second novel i read by Gore Vidal after Kalki.
He can make you very interesting reading his novels, You will never leave it before the last page, It's a well written thriller in an easy and beautiful english, The suspense in Luxor events are very interesting, The characters specially - Clarissa - remarkable and someway original, But what the hell it's really about, You have to be a naive to accept that a man only got a powerful eyes and hypnotise possiblities could change the world with some naive ideas - we actually konw about one only "the ease of death" - and an intellectual - Gore Vidal himself who's he real name is "Eugene Luther Gore Vidal" - could possiblly make all this efforts to prepare its methodology when he really don't know if he believes in him or not.
So after 2 novels by Vidal i can decide that, I'll read more by him just to enjoy myself not expecting any thing more.
He can make you very interesting reading his novels, You will never leave it before the last page, It's a well written thriller in an easy and beautiful english, The suspense in Luxor events are very interesting, The characters specially - Clarissa - remarkable and someway original, But what the hell it's really about, You have to be a naive to accept that a man only got a powerful eyes and hypnotise possiblities could change the world with some naive ideas - we actually konw about one only "the ease of death" - and an intellectual - Gore Vidal himself who's he real name is "Eugene Luther Gore Vidal" - could possiblly make all this efforts to prepare its methodology when he really don't know if he believes in him or not.
So after 2 novels by Vidal i can decide that, I'll read more by him just to enjoy myself not expecting any thing more.
April 15, 2012
Messiah is a chronicle of how a popular movement evolves into a major religion during the last 50 years of the twentieth century, told by one of its aging and disillusioned apostles, Eugene Luther. It is clearly meant as a parallel history and explanation of the rise of Christianity from an atheist's point of view. Much of this is dull and perfunctory, but the intermittent focus on Luther's personal difficulties in balancing his own aspirations with those of his fellow apostles is fascinating. If Vidal had let up some on his satire of Christianity, and followed the logic of the core story of a man being sucked into the entrails of a false religion, Messiah might have been a really fine novel. Vidal's storytelling gifts are considerable, and I'm tempted to give four stars just for the superbly executed climax.
April 21, 2015
If someone had not told me that this is a wonderful book, I might well have given up reading it. For the most part, I found this book colourless, not particularly interesting, and lacking in momentum and entertainment value. It was not what I expected from Gore Vidal. Its ending is quite exciting, but I am not sure that it is worth wading through what precedes it.
April 22, 2018
Libro extraño. El inicio se hace difícil. No hay historia y es todo conceptos y reflexiones con una prosa tan elaborada que distrae. Si eres de los que se dedica a hacer subrayados en esta parte páginas enteras*. Luego, poco a poco se va dejando ver la historia del libro y a medida que avanza mejora cada vez más.
Tengo sensaciones encontradas porque desde un inicio el libro no me estaba gustando. No veía a donde quería llegar el autor ni lo que contaba. Conforme avanza y se va iniciando la trama se va convirtiendo en aceptable pasando a estar bien más adelante.
Hay cierto paralelismo entre el protagonista y el autor del libro que me echa un poco para atrás sobre todo al inicio pero poco a poco deja de ser tan presente.
Creo que el libro es mejor que la suma de sus partes o al menos es con lo que me quedo. El desarrollo de la historia a través de sus personajes y la hasta cierto punto verosimilitud del texto. En muchos aspectos es muy actual como la función de los medios de comunicación y la distribución de un mensaje y no parece que fuese escrito en 1954.
¿Recomendaría este libro? Así en general no ya que tiene los suficientes elementos negativos como echar a uno hacia atrás pero según a quien si.
Dista mucho de ser un libro redondo pero tengo el pálpito de que al igual que mejora medida que se va leyendo – y no tanto que mejore si no que se centra cada vez más en la historia y de ahí viene esa mejoría – con el paso del tiempo el libro va a ganar buen recuerdo en la memoria e ir a más.
Añado: aunque mi valoración del libro no sea excelente esta está ajustada a su nivel. Es decir, el libro es ambicioso en algunos aspectos y solo con leer la sinopsis uno ya se da cuenta. Tiene altas miras y en comparación con otros de la misma nota es superior.
*Ej.: “No eran tiempos aquellos, a pesar de que la gente se cuestionaba y analizaba tan a menudo, de difundir ideas que podían desagradar a cualquier minoría, por lunática que fuese.”
Tengo sensaciones encontradas porque desde un inicio el libro no me estaba gustando. No veía a donde quería llegar el autor ni lo que contaba. Conforme avanza y se va iniciando la trama se va convirtiendo en aceptable pasando a estar bien más adelante.
Hay cierto paralelismo entre el protagonista y el autor del libro que me echa un poco para atrás sobre todo al inicio pero poco a poco deja de ser tan presente.
Creo que el libro es mejor que la suma de sus partes o al menos es con lo que me quedo. El desarrollo de la historia a través de sus personajes y la hasta cierto punto verosimilitud del texto. En muchos aspectos es muy actual como la función de los medios de comunicación y la distribución de un mensaje y no parece que fuese escrito en 1954.
¿Recomendaría este libro? Así en general no ya que tiene los suficientes elementos negativos como echar a uno hacia atrás pero según a quien si.
Dista mucho de ser un libro redondo pero tengo el pálpito de que al igual que mejora medida que se va leyendo – y no tanto que mejore si no que se centra cada vez más en la historia y de ahí viene esa mejoría – con el paso del tiempo el libro va a ganar buen recuerdo en la memoria e ir a más.
Añado: aunque mi valoración del libro no sea excelente esta está ajustada a su nivel. Es decir, el libro es ambicioso en algunos aspectos y solo con leer la sinopsis uno ya se da cuenta. Tiene altas miras y en comparación con otros de la misma nota es superior.
*Ej.: “No eran tiempos aquellos, a pesar de que la gente se cuestionaba y analizaba tan a menudo, de difundir ideas que podían desagradar a cualquier minoría, por lunática que fuese.”
August 3, 2010
I'm not generally a fan of Vidal--- his early novels were often intriguing, but in the last thirty-odd years of his life he became increasingly pompous, bitter, and a self-described radical whose contempt for the masses and the modern world would've done his great-grandfather (or the Venetian patrician clan he pretended to be somehow related to) proud. Nonetheless...nonetheless..."Messiah" is proof that Vidal was a talented and pereceptive writer. As a sci-fi novel--- and as a philosophical novel about the way we should face death and embrace the brevity of life ---"Messiah" is an unexpected find, a small gem of a book. Very much worth reading.
December 22, 2018
I remember reading this in college. I was more impressed with Vidal's asides than with the story. Started to read it again in December of 2018. Vidal has as silver a tongue as any modern writer. I'm enjoying it just because of the way he says things, as much as anything he's saying.
Having finished the book for the second time, what struck me this time was his observation that any religion develops a corporate system over time that often veers away from the intentions of its creator. This book illustrates that brilliantly while telling an engaging story. Brilliant early work from Vidal.
Having finished the book for the second time, what struck me this time was his observation that any religion develops a corporate system over time that often veers away from the intentions of its creator. This book illustrates that brilliantly while telling an engaging story. Brilliant early work from Vidal.
May 25, 2018
Vidal examines how society and human nature combine to debase and ultimately subvert spiritual inspiration. Bold stuff for the period. Stylistically, aside from a short, pompous section at the beginning that will hurt your head, the body of the book is indistinguishable from something PKD might have written. The story is inventive and solidly constructed, modern and humanist.
April 30, 2012
Not one of Gore Vidal's best novels, this tells of the rise and spread of a suicide cult. The weakness is that it is written from the outside. Vidal, much as I generally like him, has little sense of religion.
June 25, 2009
This book is funny and interesting and not too serious even though I think its overall message that messiahs come along all the time is a serious, valid, important message.
February 20, 2022
Gore Vidal's modern (mid twentieth century) retelling of the Gospel story, or rather the early Church's take on it, is in the form of a memoir by Eugene Luther, the evangelist ghosting the message of John Cave, a charismatic young Californian, whose beliefs found a new world religion, but who, apart from his sensational television broadcasts, remains elusive and enigmatic throughout the novel. Following Cave's death, Luther is in exile in Luxor, fearing for his life, his writings substantially revised, his authorship denied, even his existence airbrushed out of history, by the fanatical Cavite schismatics, who are now planning to convert the Moslem world. Gore Vidal's style can at first feel ponderous and self-conscious, but his use of complex Latinate sentences is entirely appropriate, both to the narrator, Luther's background as a Classical scholar researching the apostate Emperor Julian and as an archaeologist excavating in Egypt, and to the gravity of the book's Biblical pretensions. I found this book, as I first did almost half a century ago, both provocative and moving, the relentless inevitability of its tragic storyline entirely believable in the cynical world we live in.
August 19, 2024
Utterly engrossing read, weaving together absurdity, humour, drama, philosophy, cynicism and despair. Very engaging and fairly thought provoking, dealing with themes such as religion (duh), ethics, identity and canonisation.
November 23, 2016
I'm not sure what to call Messias. Is it science fiction, urban fantasy, a social or a satirical novel? It's a dystopia for sure. It's the rare breed of a novel of ideas by an author who not only has original ideas but can write. Vidal's oeuvre is a weird mix of historical novels, biographies and campy fantastical stories with Messias being a prominent representative of the latter.
John Cave is the messias, a former mortician with the surprising epiphany that life is all about death. His promise is not to fear death and live a better life by welcoming death. He's this kind of guy who intrigues others. He's able to put them under his spell by the power of his calm speech and his presence. A motley crew assembles around him - an advertising specialist, a rich bored east coast society lady, a young female prude and a writer just working on a biography of the Roman emperor Julian. A biography that Vidal later published in real life. From nimble beginnings, a religion forms and takes the United States, even the world by storm.
The success story is told in retrospect by Eugene Luther, the writer. He's a renegade now, he fled from the influence sphere of cavism to Upper Egypt, seeking refuge within the realms of Islam. But even Islam isn't able to withstand cavism much longer. Cavistic missionaries approach. In new editions of cavist scriptures his name is eradicated not withstanding that he was the one to author the original scriptures. The only trace of him is the term 'lutherists' for enemies of the religion.
TV and other mass media are the means used by the cavites to promote their religion. Propaganda is the name of the game. When the founder of the religion becomes cumbersome, he's murdered. His death is sold as the ideal of cavism. If the book was written today, the equation could be Cave = Trump minus the murder, the religion being money. A great novel.
John Cave is the messias, a former mortician with the surprising epiphany that life is all about death. His promise is not to fear death and live a better life by welcoming death. He's this kind of guy who intrigues others. He's able to put them under his spell by the power of his calm speech and his presence. A motley crew assembles around him - an advertising specialist, a rich bored east coast society lady, a young female prude and a writer just working on a biography of the Roman emperor Julian. A biography that Vidal later published in real life. From nimble beginnings, a religion forms and takes the United States, even the world by storm.
The success story is told in retrospect by Eugene Luther, the writer. He's a renegade now, he fled from the influence sphere of cavism to Upper Egypt, seeking refuge within the realms of Islam. But even Islam isn't able to withstand cavism much longer. Cavistic missionaries approach. In new editions of cavist scriptures his name is eradicated not withstanding that he was the one to author the original scriptures. The only trace of him is the term 'lutherists' for enemies of the religion.
TV and other mass media are the means used by the cavites to promote their religion. Propaganda is the name of the game. When the founder of the religion becomes cumbersome, he's murdered. His death is sold as the ideal of cavism. If the book was written today, the equation could be Cave = Trump minus the murder, the religion being money. A great novel.
March 11, 2022
For a book written nearly sixty years ago, this novel still feels quite fresh. In 1954, Gore Vidal pretty much had figured out what TV would do, and it's still doing it. There's an oddly appealing drawing-room comedy air to much of the discussion, as the protagonist is a well-born, well-educated, well-off man who makes good company at luncheon parties. Characters are for the most part only sketched, but I enjoyed listening to Clarissa, who like Salome in True Blood, claimed to be very old indeed and had seen it all. There's a lot of what I remember (having not read much Vidal aside from the occasional magazine piece) as typically Vidal snarkiness about lots of things - but it's all quite mild compared to a few minutes of, say, Real Time with Bill Maher. While the novel discusses religious riots and connected tumultuous upheavals, the reader and the writer remain for the most part well away from the fray, tucked away at the top of a Park Avenue penthouse.
Having the heretic take refuge in Egypt is something that as it happens works very well in 2012, given the evolution of events there. It's easy to imagine the narrator lazing about a tourist hotel in Luxor. (Maybe because I kept recalling the image of Vidal himself poolside at the Bangkok Oriental where we both happened to be staying for a few days in the late '90s. The pool attendants made a great fuss over him).
The net effect, though, is low impact, given the high stakes discussion of life, death, suicide and afterlife that the Messiah brings to society's attention. Vidal was not the first to make most of the points he wants to make about society and religion, and he definitely wasn't the last. But reading what he has to say about is pretty painless and at least mildly amusing.
Having the heretic take refuge in Egypt is something that as it happens works very well in 2012, given the evolution of events there. It's easy to imagine the narrator lazing about a tourist hotel in Luxor. (Maybe because I kept recalling the image of Vidal himself poolside at the Bangkok Oriental where we both happened to be staying for a few days in the late '90s. The pool attendants made a great fuss over him).
The net effect, though, is low impact, given the high stakes discussion of life, death, suicide and afterlife that the Messiah brings to society's attention. Vidal was not the first to make most of the points he wants to make about society and religion, and he definitely wasn't the last. But reading what he has to say about is pretty painless and at least mildly amusing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2016
A thinly veiled parallel to the rise of Christianity showing how a powerful public-relations effort, staffed by the requisite missionaries and martyrs, can fashion a worldwide religion out of a simple cult of personality. It comes complete with an imbued messiah figure, his "holy" family, and a small if fanatical following of original disciples.
I personally can't completely relate to people who can't relate to Mr. Vidal, so you might want to take this as less of a review than an encomium. I will say that I'm far from the only one to whom Messiah remains one of the great iconoclastic works of fiction. That it was published in the fat-and-happy, complacent 1950's makes it even more of a marvel.
O Gore, where art thou? This new, dumbed-down world of ours is in sore need of another you.
I personally can't completely relate to people who can't relate to Mr. Vidal, so you might want to take this as less of a review than an encomium. I will say that I'm far from the only one to whom Messiah remains one of the great iconoclastic works of fiction. That it was published in the fat-and-happy, complacent 1950's makes it even more of a marvel.
O Gore, where art thou? This new, dumbed-down world of ours is in sore need of another you.
May 26, 2010
Terrific book about the rise of a new religion that celebrates death that sweeps the globe. Vidal skewers organized religion and the politics that too often twistsn virtuous ideas into oppressive dogma, and seemingly rational people into homocidal/suicidal fanatics. Published in 1954, this one remains fresh and all to relevant today.
October 23, 2008
Interesting story about how religions can form. What starts as a grandiose idea about "how we should think and live" between friends becomes a malignant and uncontrolable institutional force that changes the world...
March 20, 2017
A many layered allegory on religion, politics, history, religion, power, America, Trump, with layer upon layer to uncover if you have a good sense of history. Aim to read this again in a year or so as I suspect I missed quite a bit.
October 22, 2021
I read this just after school and the philosophy of Cavesway was incomprehensible back then. Now that one is confronted with Islamic terrorism, one realizes the prescience of Gore Vidal and terrible effects of organized religion.
September 5, 2007
I was totally absorbed by this book and found it profound and intriguing. Definitely needs another read!!
June 12, 2009
Jim Jones' handbook?
June 6, 2012
Even though Gore Vidal was trying to show how silly Christianity is, he hugely missed the point
March 1, 2021
An interesting examination of the creation of Messiahs, how their ideas are distorted and twisted and taken out of control.
December 19, 2023
A fascinating novel. The protagonist, Eugene Luther, shares Gore Vidal's birth name and various other aspects of the author's life. Clearly an insert, and yet, more than just a mouthpiece for Vidal's views, Luther is an interesting character in his own right, one who is foolish, hopelessly romantic, and pseudo-intellectual. Does Vidal think this way of himself too?
The themes regarding death and suicide are very interesting, perhaps the novel's most interesting subject. Despite the depths of horror to which the story sometimes goes, it remains, remarkably, in favour of life, and living, and against death and dying.
The place where Vidal falters is due to his atheism. He cannot accurately tackle problems of God, prophecy, and the soul because he does not actually understand them. Still, he never strawmans religion, which is respectable.
There are also some funny bits of pacing. Years seem skipped over too quickly. While I do not expect every moment of a story that spans decades to be narrated, it does undermine some dramatic moments which don't feel built up.
Anyway, really good, definitely recommend.
The themes regarding death and suicide are very interesting, perhaps the novel's most interesting subject. Despite the depths of horror to which the story sometimes goes, it remains, remarkably, in favour of life, and living, and against death and dying.
The place where Vidal falters is due to his atheism. He cannot accurately tackle problems of God, prophecy, and the soul because he does not actually understand them. Still, he never strawmans religion, which is respectable.
There are also some funny bits of pacing. Years seem skipped over too quickly. While I do not expect every moment of a story that spans decades to be narrated, it does undermine some dramatic moments which don't feel built up.
Anyway, really good, definitely recommend.
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