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Damascus
WINNER - Best Fiction, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards'They kill us, they crucify us, they throw us to beasts in the arena, they sew our lips together and watch us starve. They bugger children in front of their mothers and violate men in front of their wives. The temple priests flay us openly in the streets. We are hunted everywhere and we are hunted by everyone ...We are despised, yet we grow. We are tortured and crucified and yet we flourish. We are hated and still we multiply. Why is that? You have to wonder, how is it that we not only survive but we grow stronger?'Christos Tsiolkas' stunning new novel Damascus is a work of soaring ambition and achievement, of immense power and epic scope, taking as its subject nothing less than events surrounding the birth and establishment of the Christian church. Based around the gospels and letters of St Paul, and focusing on characters one and two generations on from the death of Christ, as well as Paul (Saul) himself, Damascus nevertheless explores the themes that have always obsessed Tsiolkas as a class, religion, masculinity, patriarchy, colonisation, exile; the ways in which nations, societies, communities, families and individuals are united and divided - it's all here, the contemporary and urgent questions, perennial concerns made vivid and visceral. In Damascus, Tsiolkas has written a masterpiece of imagination and an historical novel of immense power and an unflinching dissection of doubt and faith, tyranny and revolution, and cruelty and sacrifice.
323 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2019
254 people are currently reading
2436 people want to read
About the author
Christos Tsiolkas
38 books977 followersChristos Tsiolkas is the author of nine novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe,which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for The Slap, which was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year.
Barracuda is his fifth novel. Merciless Gods (2014) and Damascus (2019) followed.
He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.
Barracuda is his fifth novel. Merciless Gods (2014) and Damascus (2019) followed.
He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 367 reviews
November 29, 2021
Christos Tsiolkas reimagines Paul of Tarsus as a repressed homosexual with a penchant for violence and an unbearable yearning to fit in. An outcast because of his background, and because his sexuality doesn’t allow him a family, Paul chases after heretics. The story of his conversion is not, actually, at the centre of this book. We hardly see it happening. What the reader is privy to is the before and after: how Christ changed Saul into Paul, how Christ came to change everything.
Set in a pre-Nicene world where much was up for discussion, including the divinity of Christ and Mary’s virginity, Tsiolkas gives us a religion of passive resistance, of a God not of War and vengeance but of love and tolerance. It contrasts with the violence that Tsiolkas instills in every avenue of life and society: from sex to parental relations, to people’s amusements, to their work, to their Gods. Everything is violent, unkind, filthy. Mothers are forced to give their baby girls to death, boys are taken by their fathers to watch public shows of torture masked as entertainment.
But there are tensions underneath that wouldn't abandon Christians throughout History. As the Temple is destroyed and Jerusalem sacked, a God who asks to turn the other cheek is no longer viable. Isn’t it enough that Christ died in the most ignoble way possible? What sort of God cannot protect its flock? The tension also remains between the newly formed sect and the other Jews who would never come to accept it. There are no Christians in this book – not in the strict sense. They are all Jews, some who accept Christ, others who don’t. Paul failed to understand that this rift couldn’t possibly be mended.
Tsiolkas exposes ideas with a beautiful simplicity. But this is a difficult book to read; the violence is sometimes too graphic, although not gratuitous. This was a violent world. Christ’s death was a violent death, and the oppression suffered by Jews and by the new sects of Christians at the hands of the Roman Empire was horrific. There is no point sugarcoating it. This is an ugly, dirty world. That is why Damascus’s revelation is important: it shed beauty and compassion into a world in which it was sorely lacking.
Set in a pre-Nicene world where much was up for discussion, including the divinity of Christ and Mary’s virginity, Tsiolkas gives us a religion of passive resistance, of a God not of War and vengeance but of love and tolerance. It contrasts with the violence that Tsiolkas instills in every avenue of life and society: from sex to parental relations, to people’s amusements, to their work, to their Gods. Everything is violent, unkind, filthy. Mothers are forced to give their baby girls to death, boys are taken by their fathers to watch public shows of torture masked as entertainment.
But there are tensions underneath that wouldn't abandon Christians throughout History. As the Temple is destroyed and Jerusalem sacked, a God who asks to turn the other cheek is no longer viable. Isn’t it enough that Christ died in the most ignoble way possible? What sort of God cannot protect its flock? The tension also remains between the newly formed sect and the other Jews who would never come to accept it. There are no Christians in this book – not in the strict sense. They are all Jews, some who accept Christ, others who don’t. Paul failed to understand that this rift couldn’t possibly be mended.
Tsiolkas exposes ideas with a beautiful simplicity. But this is a difficult book to read; the violence is sometimes too graphic, although not gratuitous. This was a violent world. Christ’s death was a violent death, and the oppression suffered by Jews and by the new sects of Christians at the hands of the Roman Empire was horrific. There is no point sugarcoating it. This is an ugly, dirty world. That is why Damascus’s revelation is important: it shed beauty and compassion into a world in which it was sorely lacking.
October 13, 2019
I probably need more time to sit with this, quite literal, Biblical undertaking. This is a wholly unique and daunting work; I can’t even fathom the work that must have gone into it. There are, as ever, the Tsiolkas meditations on class and belonging, fear and acceptance, the sense of place.
There were moments of sheer beauty and I found myself weeping for some of the characters toward the end. Reading the author’s notes on how and why he wrote this book made me view the work afresh and I am keen to re-read it now in this knowledge.
I found myself not knowing where the book was headed for much of the first half and beyond, though this just left me engaged with it in a kind of presence I’ve not really experienced in other novels. Read it.
There were moments of sheer beauty and I found myself weeping for some of the characters toward the end. Reading the author’s notes on how and why he wrote this book made me view the work afresh and I am keen to re-read it now in this knowledge.
I found myself not knowing where the book was headed for much of the first half and beyond, though this just left me engaged with it in a kind of presence I’ve not really experienced in other novels. Read it.
November 29, 2019
This a gut wrenching, magnificent novel. It’s a powerful imagining of the beginnings of the Christian faith set in a time of extreme violence, persecution and physical hardship. I needed breaks to regroup myself to continue. It is not an easy read.
Ultimately it has a lesson (like most biblical stories) that we are one humanity and we share one planet. We should remember to treat others with the respect and dignity we would like to be afforded. Casting stones is a sign of weakness not strength.
I went to see Christos talk about Damascus at the National Library of Australia. I recommend listening to one of his interviews or going to see him speak if you have the opportunity.
Ultimately it has a lesson (like most biblical stories) that we are one humanity and we share one planet. We should remember to treat others with the respect and dignity we would like to be afforded. Casting stones is a sign of weakness not strength.
I went to see Christos talk about Damascus at the National Library of Australia. I recommend listening to one of his interviews or going to see him speak if you have the opportunity.
March 28, 2020
Well. That was not what I was expecting, at all.
Tsiolkas created such a foul and tragic atmosphere full of slaves, refugees, starving and desperate and helpless. All of whom were at the mercy of the rich, the gods and the fears instilled into them, their cultures and their very existence. I'm going for 4 stars, although I thought he could probably have cut back on some of the profanity, but it certainly helped create the desired atmosphere.
Tsiolkas created such a foul and tragic atmosphere full of slaves, refugees, starving and desperate and helpless. All of whom were at the mercy of the rich, the gods and the fears instilled into them, their cultures and their very existence. I'm going for 4 stars, although I thought he could probably have cut back on some of the profanity, but it certainly helped create the desired atmosphere.
October 13, 2019
This book left me speechless. It is absolutely incredible how Christos has woven in such compassion, history, and thought, into a narrative most people will assume they already know. Christianity is represented as the true revolutionary ideology it was - Jesus dared to claim that all people were loved by God, that there were no barriers between poor and wealthy - and Paul's struggles with his faith, his devout love, his mistakes, were all captured beautifully. This is not a didactic book in the slightest. It presents people as true people. I'm very grateful for having read it.
February 6, 2020
Damascus is the product of a dark and demented imagination. I appreciate that Damascus is fiction, but Tsiolkas’ obsession with the Gnostics and apocryphal writers (even consulting the Quran) as his sources is mystifying. Also the academics Tsolkias’ consults are atheists of varying degrees. That there is excellent critical work done on Paul within Christian academia, seems to be intentionally overlooked. Dare I say is a bit like going to a Turkish historian to get the facts on Greek history.
All of this aside, the story is disjointed, long passages of the book are crude and egregiously explicit. Any hint of the miraculous, immanent, transcendent or divine, present in the Biblical texts, is ruthlessly stripped from narrative.
Tsiolkas is preoccupied with the visceral, corporeal elements of life in the muck and the dirt, of life reduced to bodily functions of excretions and emissions, and of lust and anger unleashed. Damascus unfortunately has no redemptive soul, there is nothing within its pages to lift us from the dirt, despair and depravity of life.
All of this aside, the story is disjointed, long passages of the book are crude and egregiously explicit. Any hint of the miraculous, immanent, transcendent or divine, present in the Biblical texts, is ruthlessly stripped from narrative.
Tsiolkas is preoccupied with the visceral, corporeal elements of life in the muck and the dirt, of life reduced to bodily functions of excretions and emissions, and of lust and anger unleashed. Damascus unfortunately has no redemptive soul, there is nothing within its pages to lift us from the dirt, despair and depravity of life.
October 5, 2019
Brutal, beautiful, foreign and familiar.
February 12, 2020
Gosh, whoever would have guessed? Christos Tsiolkas' ancient world turns out to have been a smelly old place (the word "stench" occurs 17 times in this novel), people ate like animals, and sex consisted mostly of "rutting". Paul of Tarsus's conversion experience on the road to Damascus probably arose from a neurological disturbance. Despite his explicit condemnation of homosexuality in his epistles (not ever mentioned in this novel), Paul was actually a gay man in love with his helper Timothy. Paul often experienced a sense of having noise in his head when disturbed, and in moments of religious epiphany felt himself to be "in the light" (no mention of any "Holy Spirit"). Paul also engaged in an ongoing feud with Jesus's twin brother (yep — bet you did know about him, right?)
Tsiolkas has stated that his aim in writing "Damascus" was "to comprehend this man, who took the teachings of the Jewish prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, and proclaimed that they had meaning for the whole world." (Author's Note)
If this is so, something has gone wrong in the execution, because "Damascus" turns out to be more like what the tabloids call a "shocking exposé" than a careful attempt to fill in the gaps around what we know about Paul of Tarsus from his own writings and from the book of Acts in the New Testament.
To be clear, I'm not a Christian myself. While I've read the four gospels, I'd only ever heard snippets from Paul's epistles before reading this novel. After reading "Damascus", I was interested to read through Paul's epistles in what was probably their true chronological order, and after doing so, I was struck by just how badly Tsiolkas' novel failed to catch Paul's voice, rhetorical style or concerns. I found it difficult to believe that the central character in Tsiolkas' novel was meant to be the person whose actual words I read in the epistles.
I might have been willing to tolerate some of this if Tsiolkas' novel was better written, but to my ears it's rather a mess.
The diction of many of the narrators veers queasily between olde world fairy-tale-speak ("there came a time of plenty", "my mother was with child", "that wretched dwelling") and the contemporary gutter ("Your god was hung on a f____ cross. That isn’t a god. That’s just some poor c___ of a slave.") At the same time, many dialog scenes sound like they come from a Roman sweat movie:
"Do your foul work," he spits at him. "You’ve been paid."
"Unmarried, unfertile. You are no man."
"The madness of that sect undermines us—their madness is what keeps us slaves to Rome."
Longer descriptive passages often feel like they've been put together by applying rubber stamps (here a servant, there a forest):
"Down below, in the far city, I know that there will be crowds in the market, sacrifices in the temples, drunks in the taverns and fornication in the brothels. There will be the children begging, slaves bowing to their masters, there will be violence and death and misery and suffering. I am with my child, on our mountain. The forest is full of birdsong, the sun is ascendant. Our good brethren have left us bread and wine, but also date cakes and olives. We share our seat on the boulder, looking around us, from the world to the heavens and from the heavens to the world."
There is something emptily generic about this passage. To me, the whole thing is about as believable as the cover illustration of a Watchtower magazine.
Time and again, we're presented with passages that are just completely over the top:
"He released himself in me and even in my stupor, with the pain and blood, I was stunned that I could feel his seed slither inside me."
"In the vicious racking of my body I was transformed. No longer a child. My first scream pierced the dawn."
"So much blood. So much torment, and so much exhaustion."
"The roar in his ears is as loud as the world splitting asunder in the inferno of an earthquake."
Eventually, I found myself becoming numb in the face of this kind of writing.
I'm sure there will be many readers who will come away from reading "Damascus" feeling they have learned a lot about the early history of Christianity that they would never otherwise have "known". Historical novels can be quite good at flattering readers in this way. Interestingly, though, Tsiolkas himself did concede to Charlotte Wood in his interview with her for "The Writer's Room" that "there's so much bad historical fiction out there".
Sadly, I'd have to add "Damascus" to that very pile.
Tsiolkas has stated that his aim in writing "Damascus" was "to comprehend this man, who took the teachings of the Jewish prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, and proclaimed that they had meaning for the whole world." (Author's Note)
If this is so, something has gone wrong in the execution, because "Damascus" turns out to be more like what the tabloids call a "shocking exposé" than a careful attempt to fill in the gaps around what we know about Paul of Tarsus from his own writings and from the book of Acts in the New Testament.
To be clear, I'm not a Christian myself. While I've read the four gospels, I'd only ever heard snippets from Paul's epistles before reading this novel. After reading "Damascus", I was interested to read through Paul's epistles in what was probably their true chronological order, and after doing so, I was struck by just how badly Tsiolkas' novel failed to catch Paul's voice, rhetorical style or concerns. I found it difficult to believe that the central character in Tsiolkas' novel was meant to be the person whose actual words I read in the epistles.
I might have been willing to tolerate some of this if Tsiolkas' novel was better written, but to my ears it's rather a mess.
The diction of many of the narrators veers queasily between olde world fairy-tale-speak ("there came a time of plenty", "my mother was with child", "that wretched dwelling") and the contemporary gutter ("Your god was hung on a f____ cross. That isn’t a god. That’s just some poor c___ of a slave.") At the same time, many dialog scenes sound like they come from a Roman sweat movie:
"Do your foul work," he spits at him. "You’ve been paid."
"Unmarried, unfertile. You are no man."
"The madness of that sect undermines us—their madness is what keeps us slaves to Rome."
Longer descriptive passages often feel like they've been put together by applying rubber stamps (here a servant, there a forest):
"Down below, in the far city, I know that there will be crowds in the market, sacrifices in the temples, drunks in the taverns and fornication in the brothels. There will be the children begging, slaves bowing to their masters, there will be violence and death and misery and suffering. I am with my child, on our mountain. The forest is full of birdsong, the sun is ascendant. Our good brethren have left us bread and wine, but also date cakes and olives. We share our seat on the boulder, looking around us, from the world to the heavens and from the heavens to the world."
There is something emptily generic about this passage. To me, the whole thing is about as believable as the cover illustration of a Watchtower magazine.
Time and again, we're presented with passages that are just completely over the top:
"He released himself in me and even in my stupor, with the pain and blood, I was stunned that I could feel his seed slither inside me."
"In the vicious racking of my body I was transformed. No longer a child. My first scream pierced the dawn."
"So much blood. So much torment, and so much exhaustion."
"The roar in his ears is as loud as the world splitting asunder in the inferno of an earthquake."
Eventually, I found myself becoming numb in the face of this kind of writing.
I'm sure there will be many readers who will come away from reading "Damascus" feeling they have learned a lot about the early history of Christianity that they would never otherwise have "known". Historical novels can be quite good at flattering readers in this way. Interestingly, though, Tsiolkas himself did concede to Charlotte Wood in his interview with her for "The Writer's Room" that "there's so much bad historical fiction out there".
Sadly, I'd have to add "Damascus" to that very pile.
November 18, 2019
Like the bible, but with more swear words and homoeroticism.
Maybe it was my atheism or maybe this is really really bad.
Maybe it was my atheism or maybe this is really really bad.
September 2, 2019
From a very unlikely subject, this is a stunning, thought provoking, compelling read. Simply excellent.
January 6, 2020
In his Author’s Note to Damascus, Christos Tsiolkas describes his personal experiences with, and reactions to, the writings of Paul (aka Saul of Tarsus), who was a prolific contributor to the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Paul composed some of the most celebrated and beautiful descriptions of love found in literature (e.g. 1 Cor: 13), but also made homophobic observations which have informed homophobic modes of Christianity (e.g. Rom 1:26-27 and 1 Cor 6:9) For Tsiolkas, a gay man, the dichotomies in the writing of Paul are painful, but also intriguing. Damascus is an exploration of society, characters and ideas contemporaneous to the life of Paul.
The novel’s structure is awkward. It follows a linear chronology of stories depicting significant moments in the life of Paul ,narrated in the third person, interspersed with three stories (Faith, Hope, Love) narrated in the first person by people important to, or affecting, the life of Paul. The first person narratives leap forward and back in time from the episodes in Paul’s narrative, in a manner which is at best jarring but, often, just confusing.
Each chapter of Paul’s story is preceded by a quote from the bible. Each other chapter starts with an an obscure reference from modern literature presumably selected to inform the reader of underlying character motivations (if said reader has an encyclopaedic knowledge of literature, or the patience to type the relevant passages into Google). The “non-Paul” chapters are titled Faith, Hope, Love, which are the fundamental elements of a good life as described in 1 Cor: 13. I have no idea about the significance of these ideas in a Pauline context, but know that “something is going on” in the selection of these titles in this book.
The writing in Damascus is most vivid when describing contemporary life and culture in the time of Paul. Tsiolkas uses a broad range of descriptors for bodily secretions to vividly animate episodes of human and animal sacrifice, stoning, infanticide, genital mutilation and other forms of torture. Reading some passages is a visual and olfactory assault, as the aroma and ooze of death and torture seep from the pages. Tsiolkas knows how to describe a bad time.
The flaw in the writing is a failure to reconcile the elements of Paul which Tsiolkas himself identifies as intriguing. At the start of the novel he comes across as a carnal and bigoted brute positioned somewhere on a character plane between Homer Simpson and Joe McCarthy, but then, by report, transforms into an erudite and brilliant Christian scholar. I did not recognise anything of the writing or language attributed to Paul in the character presented on the page, either before or after his transformation. I’m not sure if that was the (obscure) point, or if it is the result of Tsiolkas taking on the Sispyhean task of taking on the mind and voice of a man whose writing has changed the world.
The novel’s structure is awkward. It follows a linear chronology of stories depicting significant moments in the life of Paul ,narrated in the third person, interspersed with three stories (Faith, Hope, Love) narrated in the first person by people important to, or affecting, the life of Paul. The first person narratives leap forward and back in time from the episodes in Paul’s narrative, in a manner which is at best jarring but, often, just confusing.
Each chapter of Paul’s story is preceded by a quote from the bible. Each other chapter starts with an an obscure reference from modern literature presumably selected to inform the reader of underlying character motivations (if said reader has an encyclopaedic knowledge of literature, or the patience to type the relevant passages into Google). The “non-Paul” chapters are titled Faith, Hope, Love, which are the fundamental elements of a good life as described in 1 Cor: 13. I have no idea about the significance of these ideas in a Pauline context, but know that “something is going on” in the selection of these titles in this book.
The writing in Damascus is most vivid when describing contemporary life and culture in the time of Paul. Tsiolkas uses a broad range of descriptors for bodily secretions to vividly animate episodes of human and animal sacrifice, stoning, infanticide, genital mutilation and other forms of torture. Reading some passages is a visual and olfactory assault, as the aroma and ooze of death and torture seep from the pages. Tsiolkas knows how to describe a bad time.
The flaw in the writing is a failure to reconcile the elements of Paul which Tsiolkas himself identifies as intriguing. At the start of the novel he comes across as a carnal and bigoted brute positioned somewhere on a character plane between Homer Simpson and Joe McCarthy, but then, by report, transforms into an erudite and brilliant Christian scholar. I did not recognise anything of the writing or language attributed to Paul in the character presented on the page, either before or after his transformation. I’m not sure if that was the (obscure) point, or if it is the result of Tsiolkas taking on the Sispyhean task of taking on the mind and voice of a man whose writing has changed the world.
January 17, 2020
I struggled with this one, and found that the last third of the book really dragged.
I've enjoyed all of Christos Tsiolkas other books, in fact, a couple are amongst my favourite books, but this one certainly isn't one of my favourite.
Perhaps it was the story matter (it didn't grab me), or was it the writing style (so different to his other novels), anyway it will not be a book that I will return to in a hurry.
I am hoping he returns to form with his next novel.
I've enjoyed all of Christos Tsiolkas other books, in fact, a couple are amongst my favourite books, but this one certainly isn't one of my favourite.
Perhaps it was the story matter (it didn't grab me), or was it the writing style (so different to his other novels), anyway it will not be a book that I will return to in a hurry.
I am hoping he returns to form with his next novel.
November 7, 2019
A quick enjoyable read. Tsiolkas in the author’s note states that he worked on the novel Damascus for five years. It’s a worthy effort and an easy read. Though it comes nowhere close to the depth of narrative and insight of Kazantzakis or Norman Mailer invigorating novels in the ‘Jesus Genre’. Damascus would I think be better enjoyed if the reader has some historical contextual background. However, I use the word ‘historical’ very loosely. More in the vein of one has a deeper knowledge and/or understanding of literature and Christian myth. Unfortunately the best I could do was draw on my limited knowledge and cursory Wikipedia searches to help fit the narrative to the words, places, personalities and actions taking place. The novel is packed with references to shit, piss, sweat and the stench of humanity. It seems so idealistic so forced. Puss, blood and more and more images of people shitting and shit. Also a myriad of expressive and descriptive passages about the body beautiful, mainly in reference to young men, “His large dark eyes are deep alluring pools...[that]... would awaken the loins of a dead man. I can feel my own cock stir...”(p. 207).
Historical Mills and Boon? I guess Tsiolkas is attempting to create the world as it was. I’m sure the human habits of the protagonists were savage compared to our current shit and shitting taboos. I enjoyed the visceral imagery but it felt like a movie more than a story. I got the picture, human beings can be filthy, disgusting and I suppose in light of the basic lifestyle appropriate to the story. I also found much of the dialogue reminiscent of Hollywood 1950s Bible Blockbusters. An enjoyable read with some amusing moments but it Damascus does not add anything of worth to literature. Another cheap read from Big W ($16.00).
Historical Mills and Boon? I guess Tsiolkas is attempting to create the world as it was. I’m sure the human habits of the protagonists were savage compared to our current shit and shitting taboos. I enjoyed the visceral imagery but it felt like a movie more than a story. I got the picture, human beings can be filthy, disgusting and I suppose in light of the basic lifestyle appropriate to the story. I also found much of the dialogue reminiscent of Hollywood 1950s Bible Blockbusters. An enjoyable read with some amusing moments but it Damascus does not add anything of worth to literature. Another cheap read from Big W ($16.00).
June 11, 2020
Whatever your views on Tsolkias’s take on early Christianity, his latest offering is not for the faint of heart. And yet, and yet, it offers an irresistible opportunity to return to the source (The New Testament Acts of the Apostles - particularly Chapters 9, 22 and 26) and read against the grain in order to understand the author’s vision and purpose.
‘Damascus’ is an unlikely page-turner with a physical and emotional presence that is completely overpowering. Like Patrick Susskind’s ‘Perfume,’ the text is alive with a stench, aroma, reek and pungency that is only matched by graphic details of similar proportion.
Take the ride. You may hate it, its impossible to remain unmoved.
‘Damascus’ is an unlikely page-turner with a physical and emotional presence that is completely overpowering. Like Patrick Susskind’s ‘Perfume,’ the text is alive with a stench, aroma, reek and pungency that is only matched by graphic details of similar proportion.
Take the ride. You may hate it, its impossible to remain unmoved.
November 9, 2019
Thanks to Tundra for lending me this masterpiece novel to read. Never before have I been granted a look into the real lives of those people living through the biblical period of Jesus.
His portrayal Paul, Thomas and even Jesus as real people with desires, flaws and hopes is breathtaking in the breadth of its canvas.
A truly wonderful read that kept me riveted from first page to last.
His portrayal Paul, Thomas and even Jesus as real people with desires, flaws and hopes is breathtaking in the breadth of its canvas.
A truly wonderful read that kept me riveted from first page to last.
November 16, 2019
I must state I did not finish this book. I painfully got up to page 285. I’d had enough. I won’t be finishing this book. Enough said.
January 27, 2020
4
A powerful account of the early years of Christianity covering especially Paul but also including figures such as Thomas, Timothy and James. From the appalling squalor and violence of the first century, from amongst the downtrodden and enslaved people of Israel arises this true mythic risen Christ.
Christos Tsiolkas’ brutally powerful prose gives us the blood, shit and violence of these first century streets and lives. But in the midst of it all he provides glimpses of the grace and promise for living another way, a future Kingdom, that inspired the men and women he portrays so well. A particular strength is the attention to the profound doubt that darkens such efforts to think and live differently as many enduring the birth pangs of Christianity realise the messiah is not returning in their lifetime.
Tsiolkas prose has a powerful intensity which drives you through the narrative and that few others can sustain with such quality. He provides luminous moments that hint at the qualities of transcendence that those at the birth of Christianity were seeking. He achieves this while at the same time providing insight about the glaring flaws of these characters and that perhaps also are at the very heart of faith.
Highly recommended.
A powerful account of the early years of Christianity covering especially Paul but also including figures such as Thomas, Timothy and James. From the appalling squalor and violence of the first century, from amongst the downtrodden and enslaved people of Israel arises this true mythic risen Christ.
Christos Tsiolkas’ brutally powerful prose gives us the blood, shit and violence of these first century streets and lives. But in the midst of it all he provides glimpses of the grace and promise for living another way, a future Kingdom, that inspired the men and women he portrays so well. A particular strength is the attention to the profound doubt that darkens such efforts to think and live differently as many enduring the birth pangs of Christianity realise the messiah is not returning in their lifetime.
Tsiolkas prose has a powerful intensity which drives you through the narrative and that few others can sustain with such quality. He provides luminous moments that hint at the qualities of transcendence that those at the birth of Christianity were seeking. He achieves this while at the same time providing insight about the glaring flaws of these characters and that perhaps also are at the very heart of faith.
Highly recommended.
November 30, 2019
I loved Christos Tsiolkas’s 2008 novel The Slap, but I knew just looking at the blurb of Damascus that it was going to be very different: “a work of immense power and epic scope, taking as its subject nothing less than the events surrounding the birth and establishment of the Christian church”. Allen & Unwin sent me a copy for review, and I was happy to take a giant leap out of my comfort zone.
I’m a big ol’ heathen, so I didn’t have a lot of religious context for what was happening. To me, it almost read like a historic dystopia. But I think that made it all the better, for me to appreciate the poetic language and visceral imagery and raw emotion that Tsiolkas used to depict this world. What I’m saying is you don’t need to be a Christian, or familiar with the historical aspects of Christianity, to read Damascus (and it might actually be better if you aren’t).
An extended review of Damascus is available to subscribers at Keeping Up With The Penguins.
I’m a big ol’ heathen, so I didn’t have a lot of religious context for what was happening. To me, it almost read like a historic dystopia. But I think that made it all the better, for me to appreciate the poetic language and visceral imagery and raw emotion that Tsiolkas used to depict this world. What I’m saying is you don’t need to be a Christian, or familiar with the historical aspects of Christianity, to read Damascus (and it might actually be better if you aren’t).
An extended review of Damascus is available to subscribers at Keeping Up With The Penguins.
March 12, 2020
Tsiolkas has crafted an audacious, haunting and moving fictional narrative of Saul/Paul’s life (plus a few other characters such as Lydia and Timothy), against the backdrop of a no-holds-barred depiction of the violent, cruel and brutal Greco-Roman world of the first century (think Game of Thrones meets Bible) which not only powerfully informed and enriched my contextual understanding of the New Testament, but also demonstrated the radically subversive nature of the message of Jesus Christ.
November 25, 2019
I really did my best to finish it, but struggled to make it half way through, before throwing in the towel. Definitely nothing like I imagined it was going to be ... I was reminded at times of The Name of the Rose (which I liked) but not even close to being in the same league. Judging from other reviews though, I am in the minority.
August 6, 2020
Christos Tsiolkas is heralded as one of Australia’s greatest contemporary storytellers. His works are meticulously researched, his characters carefully crafted and his themes are considered and profound. His latest novel Damascus (Allen and Unwin 2019) is on many levels a triumph of literary achievement: a re-imagined, epic and powerful retelling of the events surrounding the establishment of the Christian church. The narrative is based on the letters of St Paul and focuses on Paul (Saul) and several other characters (Lydia, Timothy, Thomas) who lived during and/or generations after Paul’s lifetime. The broad themes of the novel are belief, religion, class, privilege, desire, family, love, exile, friendship, doubt, faith, betrayal and sacrifice.
Tsiolkas is a serious, intellectual writer who is unafraid to tackle the big issues facing humanity; his writing is urgent and passionate, detailed, unflinching and grave. While I recognise all of those characteristics, however, I was unable to warm to this book. I can respect it for its historical reflections and dissections, I can applaud it for its ambitious scope, but I did not find it deeply affecting as a story and I found it difficult to emotionally connect with the characters. I almost feel like this is more of a factional account of how history might have been; a sort of humanisation of the dry historical facts (or conjecture). The jumping backwards and forwards in time, and the enormous cast of characters, also left me not confused, exactly, but more adrift. For me, and this is only my opinion, it is impressive but not enjoyable; majestic but not engaging. No doubt it will impress others with a much deeper meaning and significance.
These are some of the words that come to mind when I think of describing this book and the emotions it evoked for me: harrowing, vulgar, debauchery, cruelty, violation, fear, dread, hunted, humble, starvation, poverty, torture, crucified, flayed, survival, stink, violence, prayer, calmness, darkness, pain, struggle, wickedness, vileness, anger, whore, blasphemy, death, blood, pollution, filth, sedition, depravity, drunkenness, ugliness, corruption, ravenous, abandonment, Strangers, eternity, truth, witch, sorceress, offering, terror, revenge, avenge, hunger, unbeliever, servant, perverse, miracle, slavery, weeping, supplication, exhaustion, misery, fellowship, eternity, vanquish, deliverance, shame, generosity, exhaustion, brutality, sin, offerings, mercy, grace, gratitude, peace, doggedness, wretchedness, sex, lamentations, destruction, fatigue, nourishment, exhilaration, service, stench, beggars, damage, defiance, catastrophe, blasphemy, corpse, beloved, rape, degenerate, decay, longing, loathsome, yearning, tears, reprimand, Commandments, thanksgiving, grace, mercy, bewilderment, horror, crucifixion, resurrection, conquered, Saviour, zealots, shame, castration, rot, justice, vengeance, idols, rage, incest, perversion, fornication, honour, violation, disgrace, defiled, duty, gratefulness, arrogance, despair, calamity, suffering, greed, selfishness, forgiveness, excrement, filth, joy, grace, rebirth, condemnation, defiance, agitation, purpose, teaching, meaning, guidance, exile, baptism.
It is not often I include a long list of words in my review but I felt compelled to do so with this book. It is not for the faint-hearted and readers should be given far warning of its relentless trauma.
Tsiolkas has spoken of his long years of research and attachment to this story, and about the conflicting questions it explores about Christianity, homosexuality, estrangement, reconciliation and a reckoning of what might have been and what it all means. He says: ‘…even though I am no longer a believer in the Christian myths, I discovered I am still committed to and challenged by the injunctions of this prophet. To love one’s neighbour, to turn the other cheek, and to understand that none of us have the right to throw the first stone all remain fundamental to my beliefs.’ Throughout the novel, the mantra of ‘the first will be last and the last will be first’ is repeated in variations.
I am quite torn in reviewing this novel. While I didn’t personally like or enjoy it, and in fact found it confronting, gratuitous and uncomfortable, I can simultaneously admire the craftsmanship of the writing and the constant seeking of profound and important themes.
Tsiolkas is a serious, intellectual writer who is unafraid to tackle the big issues facing humanity; his writing is urgent and passionate, detailed, unflinching and grave. While I recognise all of those characteristics, however, I was unable to warm to this book. I can respect it for its historical reflections and dissections, I can applaud it for its ambitious scope, but I did not find it deeply affecting as a story and I found it difficult to emotionally connect with the characters. I almost feel like this is more of a factional account of how history might have been; a sort of humanisation of the dry historical facts (or conjecture). The jumping backwards and forwards in time, and the enormous cast of characters, also left me not confused, exactly, but more adrift. For me, and this is only my opinion, it is impressive but not enjoyable; majestic but not engaging. No doubt it will impress others with a much deeper meaning and significance.
These are some of the words that come to mind when I think of describing this book and the emotions it evoked for me: harrowing, vulgar, debauchery, cruelty, violation, fear, dread, hunted, humble, starvation, poverty, torture, crucified, flayed, survival, stink, violence, prayer, calmness, darkness, pain, struggle, wickedness, vileness, anger, whore, blasphemy, death, blood, pollution, filth, sedition, depravity, drunkenness, ugliness, corruption, ravenous, abandonment, Strangers, eternity, truth, witch, sorceress, offering, terror, revenge, avenge, hunger, unbeliever, servant, perverse, miracle, slavery, weeping, supplication, exhaustion, misery, fellowship, eternity, vanquish, deliverance, shame, generosity, exhaustion, brutality, sin, offerings, mercy, grace, gratitude, peace, doggedness, wretchedness, sex, lamentations, destruction, fatigue, nourishment, exhilaration, service, stench, beggars, damage, defiance, catastrophe, blasphemy, corpse, beloved, rape, degenerate, decay, longing, loathsome, yearning, tears, reprimand, Commandments, thanksgiving, grace, mercy, bewilderment, horror, crucifixion, resurrection, conquered, Saviour, zealots, shame, castration, rot, justice, vengeance, idols, rage, incest, perversion, fornication, honour, violation, disgrace, defiled, duty, gratefulness, arrogance, despair, calamity, suffering, greed, selfishness, forgiveness, excrement, filth, joy, grace, rebirth, condemnation, defiance, agitation, purpose, teaching, meaning, guidance, exile, baptism.
It is not often I include a long list of words in my review but I felt compelled to do so with this book. It is not for the faint-hearted and readers should be given far warning of its relentless trauma.
Tsiolkas has spoken of his long years of research and attachment to this story, and about the conflicting questions it explores about Christianity, homosexuality, estrangement, reconciliation and a reckoning of what might have been and what it all means. He says: ‘…even though I am no longer a believer in the Christian myths, I discovered I am still committed to and challenged by the injunctions of this prophet. To love one’s neighbour, to turn the other cheek, and to understand that none of us have the right to throw the first stone all remain fundamental to my beliefs.’ Throughout the novel, the mantra of ‘the first will be last and the last will be first’ is repeated in variations.
I am quite torn in reviewing this novel. While I didn’t personally like or enjoy it, and in fact found it confronting, gratuitous and uncomfortable, I can simultaneously admire the craftsmanship of the writing and the constant seeking of profound and important themes.
May 5, 2025
Huge book for the repressed gays who went to a catholic school - more a 3.5
November 18, 2019
Christos Tsiolkas is best known for his novel The Slap, which tells the story of a group of friends who go to a barbecue and disagree when one of them slaps the child of another. I thought the concept was clever, but I hated the characters, who seemed vulgar and grasping and driven by startlingly forceful sexual appetites.
All the same, I did recognise that Tsiolkas writes energetically and has original ideas, which is why, when I saw his latest novel in a bookshop in Sydney, I bought it - that and the fact that I was intrigued to discover that he had chosen St Paul as the book's central character and subject, a choice that, had he not already made a success of his writing, might well have guaranteed that the book would never be published. But it has been - and one can't help wondering if Saint Paul is having what I believe is called "a moment", since the historian Tom Holland has just published a book called Dominion which, as I understand it, is essentially an attempt to explain how Saint Paul is central to western civilisation, influencing the ideas and thought of even those who are most violently opposed to the religion he espoused.
Tsiolkas's novel is written in the present tense, (so much is these days, and I'm still not at peace with it) and contains dialogue that is often rather wooden. It has very little in the way of a plot, which may explain the large amount of semi-pornographic sex and violence within it, which may be intended as compensation.
Given that Tsiolkas has spent the last several years studying all aspects of Saint Paul's life and times, (including, I assume from his reference at one point to a feast that includes 'salted acorns', the culinary habits of the period [does anyone have a recipe for 'salted acorns' I wonder?]), I hesitate to challenge his portrayal of Paul's world as obsessed with violent sex*, circumcision and the punitive removal of genitalia in the most painful ways possible. And who am I to argue with his characterisation of Paul as a repressed and tormented homosexual who was in love with Timothy or his depiction of Timothy's death as suicide.
Tsiolkas has done the research and I haven't, but I still find these last two suggestions offensive, even sacrilegious - although one might argue that, as Tsiolkas is himself gay, the most loving thing he can do to a character is to make him gay too. But the Paul who wrote the various wise letters that form a large part of the New Testament does not seem to me to have anything to do with Tsiolkas's tortured fanatic, who spends most of his time in the book engaged in a desperate struggle with his sexual impulses. (And, given that the sex in the book is so full of disgust and deliberately inflicted pain, I can't help wondering about Tsiolkas's happiness, because at least in this piece of fiction he seems unable to imagine love and sex as coexistent.)
This is a strange and courageous (and, as so often nowadays, sloppily edited) book, which is largely unappetising. However, I do admire its author for tackling the unfashionable subject of Christianity with honesty and sincerity, and on some level understanding the importance and revolutionary nature of the faith:
"...the Lord forgives. That was the thing about the Jews that the Greeks and Romans could never understand. Their gods despised men for not being gods. This was the greatest wickedness, the worst lunacy. The Lord was the only god that forgave men as men"
as well as the difficulty of actually being a good Christian:
"I bring my head to the cool plank of the floor and pray for forgiveness, pray for charity and for filial love ... I pray, but rather than being soothed by the balm of selflessness and duty, my heart is struck by the poison dart of envy."
I will not be giving Damascus to any of my friends as a Christmas present, as for much of the time while reading it I was feeling rather sickened, but I admire Tsiolkas for taking the subject on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Read no further if you don't want to feel queasy, but here are two passages to give a sense of what I'm referring to when I complain of the sado-porn aspect I discern in the text:
"...we enter the tight unsoiled cunts of the girls and we break open the tight buttocks of the boys and our spirits and our sex are guided by the hand of Venus and our hatred and our lust is enflamed by the mighty Mars and .... as we spill our seed into the children and the maidens and the women and the crones we know we are continuing the justice of war ... and we know we are beloved of The God and in this sodden pit our sex is full and we smear our sex with blood and we spill into the earth ...."
"...I look down to my body, below the blood-soaked pelt of my loins where there was once my sex there is now only a gash, raw and violently purple meat; flyblown, host to crawling, feasting maggots
All the same, I did recognise that Tsiolkas writes energetically and has original ideas, which is why, when I saw his latest novel in a bookshop in Sydney, I bought it - that and the fact that I was intrigued to discover that he had chosen St Paul as the book's central character and subject, a choice that, had he not already made a success of his writing, might well have guaranteed that the book would never be published. But it has been - and one can't help wondering if Saint Paul is having what I believe is called "a moment", since the historian Tom Holland has just published a book called Dominion which, as I understand it, is essentially an attempt to explain how Saint Paul is central to western civilisation, influencing the ideas and thought of even those who are most violently opposed to the religion he espoused.
Tsiolkas's novel is written in the present tense, (so much is these days, and I'm still not at peace with it) and contains dialogue that is often rather wooden. It has very little in the way of a plot, which may explain the large amount of semi-pornographic sex and violence within it, which may be intended as compensation.
Given that Tsiolkas has spent the last several years studying all aspects of Saint Paul's life and times, (including, I assume from his reference at one point to a feast that includes 'salted acorns', the culinary habits of the period [does anyone have a recipe for 'salted acorns' I wonder?]), I hesitate to challenge his portrayal of Paul's world as obsessed with violent sex*, circumcision and the punitive removal of genitalia in the most painful ways possible. And who am I to argue with his characterisation of Paul as a repressed and tormented homosexual who was in love with Timothy or his depiction of Timothy's death as suicide.
Tsiolkas has done the research and I haven't, but I still find these last two suggestions offensive, even sacrilegious - although one might argue that, as Tsiolkas is himself gay, the most loving thing he can do to a character is to make him gay too. But the Paul who wrote the various wise letters that form a large part of the New Testament does not seem to me to have anything to do with Tsiolkas's tortured fanatic, who spends most of his time in the book engaged in a desperate struggle with his sexual impulses. (And, given that the sex in the book is so full of disgust and deliberately inflicted pain, I can't help wondering about Tsiolkas's happiness, because at least in this piece of fiction he seems unable to imagine love and sex as coexistent.)
This is a strange and courageous (and, as so often nowadays, sloppily edited) book, which is largely unappetising. However, I do admire its author for tackling the unfashionable subject of Christianity with honesty and sincerity, and on some level understanding the importance and revolutionary nature of the faith:
"...the Lord forgives. That was the thing about the Jews that the Greeks and Romans could never understand. Their gods despised men for not being gods. This was the greatest wickedness, the worst lunacy. The Lord was the only god that forgave men as men"
as well as the difficulty of actually being a good Christian:
"I bring my head to the cool plank of the floor and pray for forgiveness, pray for charity and for filial love ... I pray, but rather than being soothed by the balm of selflessness and duty, my heart is struck by the poison dart of envy."
I will not be giving Damascus to any of my friends as a Christmas present, as for much of the time while reading it I was feeling rather sickened, but I admire Tsiolkas for taking the subject on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Read no further if you don't want to feel queasy, but here are two passages to give a sense of what I'm referring to when I complain of the sado-porn aspect I discern in the text:
"...we enter the tight unsoiled cunts of the girls and we break open the tight buttocks of the boys and our spirits and our sex are guided by the hand of Venus and our hatred and our lust is enflamed by the mighty Mars and .... as we spill our seed into the children and the maidens and the women and the crones we know we are continuing the justice of war ... and we know we are beloved of The God and in this sodden pit our sex is full and we smear our sex with blood and we spill into the earth ...."
"...I look down to my body, below the blood-soaked pelt of my loins where there was once my sex there is now only a gash, raw and violently purple meat; flyblown, host to crawling, feasting maggots
December 12, 2019
I didn't really bond with Damascus - which is a pity because Christos Tsiolkas's last novel Barracuda was brilliant.
Damascus is the story of St Paul from his youth persecuting Christians through his conversion, his ministry and his immediate legacy. We see life from Paul's own viewpoint and also three other perspectives: Lydia, Vrasas and Timothy. As a character driven novel with such varied perspectives, we should really feel we've got to know Paul. But the whole novel feels as though it is seen through some kind of fog. The details are clear enough for scenes of torture, illness and bodily fluids, but the big stuff - Paul's conversion, his beef with Thomas, his writing of gospels - is either so quick that you blink and you've missed it, or written in such opaque terms that unless you are a scholar of the Bible, it will be hard to understand what is going on.
And at the end if it, I never felt I knew Paul. There was [more than] a suggestion that Paul and others were repressing their homosexuality and this was what drove them to develop a sect based on love. And there is a sense that Paul is a loner who is uncomfortable dealing with societal values. But he never quite felt like a real, rounded person. And that is quite a failure since Tsiolkas says in his end notes (and I paraphrase) that his whole objective was to depict Paul and the early years of the church in human, relatable form.
I am sure there is enough in Damascus to cause some angst to Christians - Thomas being Jesus's twin brother for example. But what did leave an impression, and which ought to trouble Christian readers - is how fragile those early years of the church were. There was no Bible; there was no training for the priesthood; there were no firm rules. The way the Church set its rules was as much based on the mood Paul might have been in as it was on the teachings of Jesus. Did Christians need first to be Jews? Was Baptism administered at birth or in adulthood? Could Christians participate in civic society? Was there a virgin birth? Was the resurrection literal or figurative? All of these rules of the modern day churches were determined by men applying their own ethics and opinions - or at least that is what Tsiolkas would have us believe.
So the novel does leave some things to think about, but in terms of telling a Biblical story in human terms I felt it didn't quite work - it was a bit too sterile.
Damascus is the story of St Paul from his youth persecuting Christians through his conversion, his ministry and his immediate legacy. We see life from Paul's own viewpoint and also three other perspectives: Lydia, Vrasas and Timothy. As a character driven novel with such varied perspectives, we should really feel we've got to know Paul. But the whole novel feels as though it is seen through some kind of fog. The details are clear enough for scenes of torture, illness and bodily fluids, but the big stuff - Paul's conversion, his beef with Thomas, his writing of gospels - is either so quick that you blink and you've missed it, or written in such opaque terms that unless you are a scholar of the Bible, it will be hard to understand what is going on.
And at the end if it, I never felt I knew Paul. There was [more than] a suggestion that Paul and others were repressing their homosexuality and this was what drove them to develop a sect based on love. And there is a sense that Paul is a loner who is uncomfortable dealing with societal values. But he never quite felt like a real, rounded person. And that is quite a failure since Tsiolkas says in his end notes (and I paraphrase) that his whole objective was to depict Paul and the early years of the church in human, relatable form.
I am sure there is enough in Damascus to cause some angst to Christians - Thomas being Jesus's twin brother for example. But what did leave an impression, and which ought to trouble Christian readers - is how fragile those early years of the church were. There was no Bible; there was no training for the priesthood; there were no firm rules. The way the Church set its rules was as much based on the mood Paul might have been in as it was on the teachings of Jesus. Did Christians need first to be Jews? Was Baptism administered at birth or in adulthood? Could Christians participate in civic society? Was there a virgin birth? Was the resurrection literal or figurative? All of these rules of the modern day churches were determined by men applying their own ethics and opinions - or at least that is what Tsiolkas would have us believe.
So the novel does leave some things to think about, but in terms of telling a Biblical story in human terms I felt it didn't quite work - it was a bit too sterile.
August 15, 2020
NOT THE STORY FOR TSIOLKAS
I must say I didn't get very far with this one. I'm glad that somebody who is a non-Christian is trying to write about the birth of Christianity in a positive light. However, straight away I was put off by the scene where Paul goes to see a prostitute. It seems pretty clear to me from reading the New Testament that Paul's sinful life prior to his conversion took on a very different form. He was the best of all the Pharisees, the conservative Jewish elite at the time. He was a violent man and brutal in his suppression of the Christians. But he was also a man that sought to keep the law. The brothel scene didn't seem to fit with this image of Paul. The whole point of Paul's conversion is that he was outwardly righteous prior to being converted, but could only find redemption for the filth of his heart and mind through Jesus. Tsiolkas' bland portrayal of Paul's sin means that this doesn't come across.
Also, the use of language put me off. I'm generally irritated when characters use modern swear words in historical fiction excessively. If you're going to have obscenity, do what Colleen McCullough does and include the Latin swearing. Let me tell you, it's far more obscene than anything we have today.
Like I said, I appreciated the thought. But I think that this is a book for another author; probably a Christian one. In "The Secret History" Julian says something to the effect that you have to become Christian to read Dante and convert to polytheism to read the Greeks. I think this principle applies here. There are just some stories that are better told, and better appreciated, by certain people.
I must say I didn't get very far with this one. I'm glad that somebody who is a non-Christian is trying to write about the birth of Christianity in a positive light. However, straight away I was put off by the scene where Paul goes to see a prostitute. It seems pretty clear to me from reading the New Testament that Paul's sinful life prior to his conversion took on a very different form. He was the best of all the Pharisees, the conservative Jewish elite at the time. He was a violent man and brutal in his suppression of the Christians. But he was also a man that sought to keep the law. The brothel scene didn't seem to fit with this image of Paul. The whole point of Paul's conversion is that he was outwardly righteous prior to being converted, but could only find redemption for the filth of his heart and mind through Jesus. Tsiolkas' bland portrayal of Paul's sin means that this doesn't come across.
Also, the use of language put me off. I'm generally irritated when characters use modern swear words in historical fiction excessively. If you're going to have obscenity, do what Colleen McCullough does and include the Latin swearing. Let me tell you, it's far more obscene than anything we have today.
Like I said, I appreciated the thought. But I think that this is a book for another author; probably a Christian one. In "The Secret History" Julian says something to the effect that you have to become Christian to read Dante and convert to polytheism to read the Greeks. I think this principle applies here. There are just some stories that are better told, and better appreciated, by certain people.
November 5, 2019
Lots to think about with this excellent novel.
Longing, doubt, love, devotion, faith: an exploratory look at the early decades after the death of Jesus and the struggling Christian cult that arose. Tsiolkas examines the chaos and confusion of the early Christians and how their faith both sustained and traumatised them.
I look forward to seeing this book win many awards in the coming year/s.
Longing, doubt, love, devotion, faith: an exploratory look at the early decades after the death of Jesus and the struggling Christian cult that arose. Tsiolkas examines the chaos and confusion of the early Christians and how their faith both sustained and traumatised them.
I look forward to seeing this book win many awards in the coming year/s.
November 20, 2019
Fascinating. I couldn’t put this book down! This book contextualises the first 4 generations of what is today known as the Christian Church - not yet a rich, powerful and conservative force in the world, it is a small heretical, weird ‘death loving’ sect already developing internal schisms. The focus is a trinity of men - Paul, Timothy and Thomas - 3 men, not saints, learning, ageing, battling doubt, loss and persecution as they wait for the return of their Saviour.
March 19, 2020
This book humanizes St. Paul and we see and feel his mental torment. Earthy, sometimes gruesome, and depressing but beautifully written. More a series of vignettes, some treating facets of Paul and another three entitled Faith, Hope, and Love. These last ones concentrate on other characters: Vrasas, Paul's jailer, a devout pagan; Lydia, a Christian convert and her sad life; and St. Timothy, Paul's bosom friend and secretary. A hard book to like but recommended.
August 15, 2020
I keep going back to Christos Tsiolkas. I think this is because few other novelists—at least in Australia—write so honestly about shame.
Shame rears its head in Damascus too. Strangely though, the shame is less so about homosexuality in this work (although it is there). Instead, shame swells when Vrasas cannot father a son, when Timothy’s faith waivers, and when Saul realises the extent of his estrangement from his family. Even Jesus/Yeshua’s crucifixion is depicted as a deeply shameful event, the cruellest and most ignoble of punishments.
But perhaps I should take a step back. Damascus, sets over approximately 60 years and spanning different locations around the Mediterranean, charts early Christianity through the eyes of four characters. There’s Saul (or St Paul), a zealous Jew who becomes an apostle and proselytises with unforgiving urgency. He is joined by Lydia, a Greek pagan and later Saul’s first convert. We hear also from Timothy/Timos—another Greek—who is Saul’s confidant, scribe, mentee and “beloved”. The homoeroticism between Timothy and Saul is a quiet one which burbles in the background: sexuality is on the fringes here, rather than central to plot as it is in works like Barracuda and The Jesus Man. Timothy is perhaps the most likeable character, affable and doubting in a modern way. His love for Thomas (another apostle and, apocryphally, Jesus’ twin), displays a “love thy neighbour” morality which his brethren, Abel, Gabriel and Saul, are unable to embody. The penultimate chapter, in which an ailing Timothy narrates from his position as overseer in Ephesus, was, for me, the most moving part of the book. The fourth narrator—Vrasas—is a Roman pagan and Saul’s jailor.
Interestingly the narration changes perspective too, such that Saul’s chapters are in the third person but the others are in the first person. Saul thus remains a mystery. In this podcast, Tsiolkas explains it was easier to write the other chapters in the first person because those characters, like the author, are trying to unravel the myth of Saul.
I can’t say I loved this book like I loved Tsiolkas’ other works. The writing was slightly less poetic and, for me, didn’t have the same raw grit as his other books, despite occurring in an arguably darker world. Perhaps this is because the narrative has an ancient, fable-like quality, which distanced me from the characters.
Nevertheless, it raised intriguing questions not just about the essence of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic ethics, but also about fundamentalism in both faith and political discourse. Thomas’ exile from the nascent religion resonates with today’s call-out culture which equally silences those deemed blasphemous. Saul’s hatred of the Stranger is no different from today’s Xenophobia (interesting here that we still adopt the Greek word, xenos meaning stranger). And the characters’ parochialism and ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality mirrors the fiery partisanship of Australian society.
So yes, despite being set two millennia ago, Damascus very much speaks to modern sensibilities. Tsiolkas offers us a clear message: “turn the other cheek”, “do not cast the first stone” and, importantly, “be as a passer-by in this world.”
Shame rears its head in Damascus too. Strangely though, the shame is less so about homosexuality in this work (although it is there). Instead, shame swells when Vrasas cannot father a son, when Timothy’s faith waivers, and when Saul realises the extent of his estrangement from his family. Even Jesus/Yeshua’s crucifixion is depicted as a deeply shameful event, the cruellest and most ignoble of punishments.
But perhaps I should take a step back. Damascus, sets over approximately 60 years and spanning different locations around the Mediterranean, charts early Christianity through the eyes of four characters. There’s Saul (or St Paul), a zealous Jew who becomes an apostle and proselytises with unforgiving urgency. He is joined by Lydia, a Greek pagan and later Saul’s first convert. We hear also from Timothy/Timos—another Greek—who is Saul’s confidant, scribe, mentee and “beloved”. The homoeroticism between Timothy and Saul is a quiet one which burbles in the background: sexuality is on the fringes here, rather than central to plot as it is in works like Barracuda and The Jesus Man. Timothy is perhaps the most likeable character, affable and doubting in a modern way. His love for Thomas (another apostle and, apocryphally, Jesus’ twin), displays a “love thy neighbour” morality which his brethren, Abel, Gabriel and Saul, are unable to embody. The penultimate chapter, in which an ailing Timothy narrates from his position as overseer in Ephesus, was, for me, the most moving part of the book. The fourth narrator—Vrasas—is a Roman pagan and Saul’s jailor.
Interestingly the narration changes perspective too, such that Saul’s chapters are in the third person but the others are in the first person. Saul thus remains a mystery. In this podcast, Tsiolkas explains it was easier to write the other chapters in the first person because those characters, like the author, are trying to unravel the myth of Saul.
I can’t say I loved this book like I loved Tsiolkas’ other works. The writing was slightly less poetic and, for me, didn’t have the same raw grit as his other books, despite occurring in an arguably darker world. Perhaps this is because the narrative has an ancient, fable-like quality, which distanced me from the characters.
Nevertheless, it raised intriguing questions not just about the essence of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic ethics, but also about fundamentalism in both faith and political discourse. Thomas’ exile from the nascent religion resonates with today’s call-out culture which equally silences those deemed blasphemous. Saul’s hatred of the Stranger is no different from today’s Xenophobia (interesting here that we still adopt the Greek word, xenos meaning stranger). And the characters’ parochialism and ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality mirrors the fiery partisanship of Australian society.
So yes, despite being set two millennia ago, Damascus very much speaks to modern sensibilities. Tsiolkas offers us a clear message: “turn the other cheek”, “do not cast the first stone” and, importantly, “be as a passer-by in this world.”
February 7, 2022
3.5 stars rounded up.
This epic novel about Saul (Paul), Timothy and Thomas from the New Testament took Tsiolkas 5 years to complete. I went into this not knowing fully what to expect.
Tsiolkas grew up Greek Orthodox, and had difficulties marrying his sexuality and the teachings of his church, especially with the writings of Paul.
This work however, is not the damning indictment against Christianity it could have been, but an enlightened view of the difficulties of the time as some people transitioned from Judaism to Christianity, while having to deal with continuing Roman rule.
This epic novel about Saul (Paul), Timothy and Thomas from the New Testament took Tsiolkas 5 years to complete. I went into this not knowing fully what to expect.
Tsiolkas grew up Greek Orthodox, and had difficulties marrying his sexuality and the teachings of his church, especially with the writings of Paul.
This work however, is not the damning indictment against Christianity it could have been, but an enlightened view of the difficulties of the time as some people transitioned from Judaism to Christianity, while having to deal with continuing Roman rule.
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