book 35 – Lamb
Christopher Moore is actually the first repeat author of my year-long book-a-week challenge, which is unexpected because several of the books I have read were the first of trilogies that I ultimately plan on finishing. It says something about how much I enjoyed Practical Demonkeeping that he’s the only author so far that I have gone back to. To be honest, it might also be due to the fact that P.D. was such a quick read and I assumed Lamb would be also (I mean, let’s be honest, I am trying to pack a lot of books in here, after all).
But the joke was on me, because Lamb was actually a very dense book that took *much* longer to read than I was expecting. It was still funny, although a much different kind of humour than Demonkeeping which had me laughing out loud. I don’t really know how to describe the humour in Lamb other than it made me think “ok, that was funny” but rarely made me LOL.
The story is a fictional account of the life of Jesus Christ (“Joshua”) during the first 30 years of his life, which is all but ignored by the gospels, as told by his best friend Levi “who is called Biff”. It’s actually a well-researched and semi-plausible account of Jesus’ life, in the form of Joshua and Biff’s (excellent) adventures, which is part of what gives it such density. It is also unexpectedly poignant, although it shouldn’t really come as a surprise, given that we all know the story ends. An actual surprise for me was how much I enjoyed the story given that I don’t typically tend to read interpretations of the story of Jesus. However, Moore very cleverly integrates some of Jesus’ key proclamations into his fictional events as Joshua and Biff round up the apostles, and he sends the pair to the far east to gain insight from the teachings of Buddhism and Confucius, both inspired choices.
Coincidence of the day: There is a cameo by the demon Catch. Given that I somewhat randomly chose the books, I find it interesting that Catch appears in both. Unless, of course, he features in all of Moore’s books…
Rating: Buy it!
