I finished Pullman’s “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” in a few hours reading. It is certainly an original and subtle subversion of institutional religion, even compared to His Dark Materials. I don’t want to spoil the style and plot but I think I can say it is a retelling of the gospel story. It has many slight twists which make it a perfect book for fans of postmodernism. Competition between truth and history is explicitly discussed. Most of the famous stories are included but modified to make them more naturalistic; meaning they occur in a manner that is consistent with everyday experience. There are many references to events and artistic works that have since occurred. I detected hints of the medieval history of the church, Plato, Blake, Kierkegaard (Abraham And Isaac) and perhaps a discrete hint of Monty Python (“Penny for an ex-leper?”).

I was playing with the idea of listing gospel messages that are contrary to mainstream contemporary Christianity. Well, Pullman did it better than I could!

Anti Citizen One