The Messiah

This book is utterly brilliant. I picked this book up at a book store in Paris and read the entire thing in one sitting (standing, walking... etc.). Basically, I couldn't put it down. It gives the reader a detailed account of a new religion being created and converting the world by storm. The interesting part is how realistic it all seems, and the ties to the way Christianity crushed its opponents and absorbed many of their holidays and even some of their traditions in order to make itself stronger. This book will leave you wanting more and truly questioning religion. It addresses things we don't often think about. And shows a messiah with speech writers, much like a politician. John Cave (initials J.C.) is a modern-day you-know-who that preaches a doctrine of death that people are only too eager to swallow. I don't want to say more and give anything away, but if you're at all interested in what I've said so far, check this book out!

Written in 1955 as a reminiscence of an original leader of the Cavean "Relgion" writes his memoirs in a future 50 years away (i.e. 2005), this scary and bizarre allegory on the beginnings of religions is vintage Vidal in all his devious, unflappable glory.A totally vacuous and creepy "founder" looks good on TV, and enlists a group to peddle his wares, and within a few years, thanks to some good marketing, financing, and TV coverage, becomes a new world wide religion, with the main theme of accepting death as glorious, and perhaps even better than life. There are parallels with many major religions, and some new ones, mainly scientology. Now in 2005, belief in the supernatural seems here to stay, and maybe even stronger than in 1955. So once again, the incomparable Mr. Vidal hits another bulls-eye:strange, realistic, funny, ironic, and horrible.

Vidal captured the glittering horror that was 1950's American gray-flannel culture perfectly with this semi-satire. When he made his title character a Messiah of death, he was imagining the most far-out, repulsive thing he could think of to pin on Madison Avenue and the TV advertising industry. Little did he know Jack Kevorkian (who once tried to option the screen rights to "Messiah") and worse lay ahead...

Great Literature opens the window for all to see what is hidden behind ordinary verbiage-to make transparent words that cloak and distort the world. Vidal allows John Cave and his other characters to speak like few others have spoken. Life is "like a spray in the ocean. There it forms, there it goes back to the sea." "Neither revenge nor reward, only the not-knowing in the grave which is the same for all." "It is good to die." John Cave discovered that with his proposal to establish suicide centers came the obligation for himself, like Christ, to take leave of earth. Like all messiahs Cave had to take the final step, showing mankind his Cavesway. This is a great novelization of ideas best expressed by Eric Hoffer, THE TRUE BELIEVER, who tried to account for the rise of Hitler, Stalin, and others. The catalyst for mass movements are groups who are bored and frustrated by the mechanized societies that spawn them. The character Clarissa remarks, "boredom, finally, is the one monster the race will never conquer-the monster which will devour us in time." Cave's message was to "minds corseted and constricted by familiar ways of thinking, often the opposite of what they truly believed." Vidal wasn't writing to those who thoughtlessly accept life as it is and was dished out. I consider this book great literature.

Messiah may not be one of Vidal's best novels but if you enjoyed Creation, Kilki or Julian you will like this one also. Or if you have an interest in cults, this inside picture of a death cult will ring true. The processes portrayed mirrors both the movements of Swami Praphupada and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Another interesting effect of the cult Vidal describes is the division of the world between the cult and the Islamic world; with Islam being portrayed as the more liberal.