The Atheist Book Club discussion

We'll be reading Towing Jehovah by James K. Morrow from October 1st through the end of November.

This thread can be used to give book reviews as well as for a general discussion of the book. Please feel free to start a new discussion in the book club folder if you'd like to focus on specific aspects of or ideas from the book.

I just started this book last night. What a smart, funny book! Great recommendation.

I honestly bought the book thinking it was non-fiction. Much to my surprise it is not. I have had it now for going on two weeks and I am only to page 34. Due to my lacking ability to grasp fiction, this read has been a difficult one. It is my intention to get through this and with some measure of enjoyment too.

Terri wrote: "I honestly bought the book thinking it was non-fiction. Much to my surprise it is not. I have had it now for going on two weeks and I am only to page 34. Due to my lacking ability to grasp ficti..."

It's fiction?!!!!! ;D

Never judge a book by its cover, right? Does going on the title count?

We all do that, of course, and it was the title that first grabbed me, then the description made it a must read. Morrow is a writer that I was only vaguely aware of, but the reviews appealed to me immediately. So when the book club were looking for fiction recommendations I just had to put it forward, and am very glad I did – although I was slightly worried that the book was perhaps less atheistic than I had anticipated.

The initial set up just sounds so inventive and funny: The archangels come to the Vatican to tell them that god has died and his two mile long corpse is floating in the mid Atlantic. They have hollowed out an iceberg off Svalbard and want it towing to this tomb before corruption sets in, so the Vatican hires a former super tanker Captain, disgraced since being in charge when his vessel caused the world's most damaging oil slick – along with his former ship – to do the job.

I confess that what I expected was fairly straightforward, irreverent humour and plenty of digs at the absurdities of religion, but I was somewhat wide of the mark. Don't get me wrong, it is a very funny book (although more in way of later Pratchett with the humour leavening more serious episodes than early, slapstick Pratchett) and I'm sure that many people would consider it irreverent simply because of the subject, but Morrow does much, much more than take the easy option. What he gives us is an incredibly smart book about how we define our beliefs as much as they define us, about the roots of morality (of course), about hypocrisy, about how people react when their most cherished beliefs are threatened and the ends that they'll go to to protect those beliefs and, most of all, about personal redemption in the face of an uncaring universe.

The author draws his cast of characters superbly well – all, arguably and to varying degrees, caricatures perhaps, but also with subtlety and humanity. And as often as not, any cartooning of characters or situations is there to wrongfoot us, to show up our own assumptions. For instance, when the crew of the tanker begin to lose all moral perspective I admit that I was initially disappointed that Morrow seemed to be showing the collapse of morality without an omnipresent god but, as at every turn of the novel, he had of course anticipated me and lead me down a path that would bring me to a far more thorough – and entertaining – discussion of the questions than I had given him credit for.

This is one of those rare books that not only kept me gripped and entertained from cover to cover, but kept me thinking more profoundly than I could have before I read it for long after. An instant favourite, and I think I will be spending quite some time in Mr Morrow's company.

Terri wrote: "I honestly bought the book thinking it was non-fiction. Much to my surprise it is not. I have had it now for going on two weeks and I am only to page 34. Due to my lacking ability to grasp ficti..."

I should have known...it has god in it. Of course it's fiction....lol

Now that I approach the 100 page mark, it has become a bit more appealing. The overabundance of hypocrisy and the play on Ockham is the only thing, as yet, that keeps me nose-to-book.

I know, I know...I'm really late to the party here. Just over the half-way point. The ship has crashed on the island, the crew has mutinied, and I'm loving the delicious irony of the priest, who was just discussing Kant, standing there yelling, "Immanuel, Immanuel", instead of "Emmanuel, Emmanuel".

I finally finished this book - I'm in school and had to reluctantly put it aside for weeks at a time.

Towing Jehovah became one of my all-time favorites by the half-way point! It will be one of my 3 suggestions later this year in my book group. I'll write a proper review later (after finals?) but for now, a hearty "thank you" to Paul for such a wonderful suggestion and reading experience -- I'll be picking through your book list a bit more carefully now!