What Book to Read?

This short book (2010) is one in the Canongate Myth Series, in which myths from all over the world are ‘re-imagined and rewritten’ by contemporary authors. Some of the other writers and myths in the series are The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood (Penelope and Odysseus), Weight, by Jeanette Winterson (Atlas and Heracles), Dream Angus, by Alexander McCall Smith (Aengus) and Girl Meets Boy, by Ali Smith (Iphis). Philip Pullman is an interesting but perhaps predictable choice to tackle Christianity, given the attack on organised religion in his major work, His Dark Materials, which I reviewed in an earlier post.

Pullman’s retelling hasn’t tried to modernise the story of Jesus Christ, and most readers will recognise the events and parables from birth to crucifixion as told in the gospels. But Pullman has imagined Jesus Christ as twin brothers: Jesus and Christ. Jesus, who is warm and generous, grows up to become a preacher and teacher, but Christ, a careful and reserved man, watches and waits. He thinks Jesus could win more followers if he did miracles and healing, but Jesus disagrees; he doesn’t think the word of God can be ‘conveyed by conjuring tricks’. An unnamed stranger, who Christ eventually decides is an angel, convinces him to write down the words and deeds of Jesus, and encourages him to edit these words, to clarify meanings and unravel complexities for the benefit of the ‘simple-of-understanding’. The stranger explains that there is history, and truth which lies outside history; it is this truth that Christ is recording. ‘In writing of things as they should have been, you are letting truth into history,’ he says. Soon Christ and the stranger agree that some kind of organisation – a church, headed by ‘a sort of regent of God on earth’ – will need to be established to preserve the faith. Jesus instinctively opposes this; worshiping God is the only task he is interested in.

Jesus is presented as a ‘straight talking’ and practical man who rejects the idea that he is the Messiah and makes no claim to be the son of God, though he believes the Kingdom of God on earth is imminent. Because of this he places belief in the Kingdom above the ordinary ties of family or the comforts of prosperity; it is the poor and downtrodden who will be saved rather than the rich and powerful. He knows his Jewish Law, and confounds the Pharisees and Sadducees with common sense answers to their tricky questions. Most of the miracles described in the gospels are treated as sensible responses by him to a particular situation. The gospel story of the loaves and fishes, for example, is explained as Jesus getting the crowd to share what each already had; it is Christ who records it as a miracle.
Pullman makes other changes to the story, such as having Christ rather than Satan tempt Jesus in the wilderness, and he tempts him with a vision of the future church, rather than temporal power. And there are things that Pullman doesn’t explain, such as the stranger who Christ thinks is an angel. He might equally well be seen as Satan (who, after all, is a fallen angel in Milton’s account), or at least a force for evil, which is how some angels – and Metatron, the regent of heaven – are portrayed in His Dark Materials. Towards the end of the story, Pullman diverges radically from the account given in the gospels, though I’m not going to say how because I don’t want to spoil it. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a friend of Pullman’s, has reviewed the book sympathetically, but finds this divergence out of tune with the rest of the narrative, with nothing leading up to it.  I understand why he says this, but don’t share his concern; I’d suggest readers’ attitudes to this section of the story may depend on what they believe about Christianity, rather than on a literary judgement.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ differs from the retelling of other myths in this series in that the story of Jesus is not a myth in the same way that story of, say, Hercules, is a myth. But it is a story, whether or not you believe it carries some essential truth, and Pullman’s retelling of it is thoughtful and interesting.

You can read the Archbishop of Canterbury’s review here, and more about the series here. The next one, due out any day now, is A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarok.