- Hardcover: 600 pages
- Publisher: Weidenfeld Military (9 Jun 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1897580363
- ISBN-13: 978-1897580363
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.4 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,351,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
A slim novel of theology and time travel, Behold the Man was expanded from the 1966 novella version which won a Nebula Award. Non-hero Karl Glogauer has a traumatic history of bullying and abuse as a Jewish refugee child in 1950s Britain. When grown, he rides a strange time machine to the Roman-ruled Judaea of AD 28 and finds himself hailed as a magus by John the Baptist and the Essene sect ...
How should he use the power? Did he really have a mission? Could he alter history and be responsible for aiding the Jews to throw out the Romans?
In his own time Glogauer is a failed lover, a questing but forever unsatisfied mystic, a repeated faker of suicide attempts. In first-century Judaea these shortcomings are echoed in terrible ironies, and his destiny emerges as inevitable from the moment he visits a certain carpenter's workshop to find the misshapen idiot boy called Jesus.
Karl Glogauer had discovered the reality he had been seeking. That was not to say he did not still have doubts.
Perhaps it might have been possible to alter history, but the grim old drama plays out as it was foreordained--or at least, close enough for historians to hammer into the prophesied shape. "The chroniclers would rearrange it". Whether history has been remade as tragedy or farce is for readers to decide. This is Moorcock's sharpest, most successful novel of pure SF; it's the 22nd selection in Millennium's very strong SF Masterworks library. --David Langford --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
In the title story readers are introduced to Karl Glogauer, time traveller and messiah. In "Breakfast in the Ruins", Karl is the central character once again, in the setting of Derry and Toms's roof garden. "Constant Fire", set between the other stories, continues the quest through time.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In his interviw about this book Moorcock says he kept the sci-fi to a minimum because he didn't want readers to get bogged down in extraneous detail. He was not interested in 'rationales' of how the time machine worked but what the time machine might represent symbolically (a womb, a
rebirth) and this is obvious from his description of the machine. If this didn't have its sci-fi element my guess it would be a famous literary classic because it's a whole lot more subtle and interesting than Last Temptation of Christ or that Dennis Potter play about Christ, which I think had the same title. It is the book's continuing power, which hit me as a young man. It isn't intended to shake your faith in religion. It's intended to make you question your faith in everything! Nice and short, too.
rebirth) and this is obvious from his description of the machine. If this didn't have its sci-fi element my guess it would be a famous literary classic because it's a whole lot more subtle and interesting than Last Temptation of Christ or that Dennis Potter play about Christ, which I think had the same title. It is the book's continuing power, which hit me as a young man. It isn't intended to shake your faith in religion. It's intended to make you question your faith in everything! Nice and short, too.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Breakfast in the Ruins, a kind of litany of 20th century infamy and failure, with its wonderfully graphic and oddly sympathetic Mei Lei sequences and various other graphic moments from various terrible 20th century military adventures, is the sequel to Behold the Man. When are the publishers going to put this, far harder to obtain, wonderful novel into the Masterworks series. Anyone who wants to know where the 20th century went wrong could do worse than take a look at this short, powerful read in which Moorcock originally published his own death notice -- and then had to pull it when everyone believed him! Behold the Man is a fine, thoughtful text for our times, but Breakfast in the Ruins take the same quasi-Christ Karl Glogauer on a modern 'stations of the cross' journey which also touches on black/white racism and anti-Jewish racism and looks at man's eternal inhumanity to man; and yet, as in so much of Moorcock's apparently grimmest work,there is a substantial and credible note of hope at the very peculiar end! Moorcock has Dickens's touch -- he shows you the injustice, the terror and the pain -- but he also shows you how human dignity and respect can, like love, conquer all! If you can find the earlier edition, which included Breakfast in the Ruins, read the two books togehter.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This has, no doubt, been widely read by SF lovers. First published in 1969, it won the Nebula award for best novella. It is quite a quick read - even the number of pages exaggerate its length.
I made the mistake of reading the blurb on the back cover before I bought the book. Unfortunately, this told me the plot up to page 145, so there were no surprises for me!
So what's it about without giving away everything? Karl Glogauer has the opportunity to travel in time using a time machine invented by a crank scientist. He decides to go to Palestine in 29 AD so that he can watch the crucifixion. The story builds up the events leading to this decision at the same time as following Glogauer's progress in the past.
I enjoyed this story... as a non-religous person I am all in favour of this type of alternative look at religous history.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Moorcock's most successful page-turner
I read this once every three or four years and it never, ever gets tired. My first exposure to Moorcock was via creaky old 60s paperbacks handed down to me by my grandfather and... Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Stimpson
The story, or that he existed?
I think the book is incredibly powerful as for me it asks the question. What is more important, that Jesus existed or that the story of Jesus exists? Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mr. P. Rogers
Provocative.
This book is really very short. I read it on the train in just a couple of days. However, it is powerful and engaging. Read more
Published 15 months ago by HeecheeRendezvous
Blaspemous? Probably not.
I find no blasphemy here but I do find a powerful questioning of the traditional or received understanding of Christ. Read more
Published on 23 Nov 2009 by Peter Clark
Moorcock's Behold the Man
This is not a book I would have chosen to read, but I'm delighted that it was recommended to me. I am currently writing a dissertation on Religion and Literature; I am focusing on... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2009 by Ms. K. Tostevin
Beyhold the Man
An interesting spin on the time travel genre which also opens up a philospical debate about the nature and origins of religions, starting as a sect to become a "main stream"... Read more
Published on 27 Aug 2009 by Jon Birtwistle
excellent rollercoaster ride of a read
I've read this novella a couple of times. it is the only Moorcock novel i ever managed to finish. I could never get into any of his other stories at all. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2009 by zargb5
Sharp piece of inner space science fiction
This qualifies as science fiction because of the time travel element but this isnt the main focus of the writing at all. Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2008 by Lark
History rewritten
This is one of the superior books of the SF masterworks series.
Basically it is an alternative history of Jesus' last months and the crucifixion, involving - you guessed it -... Read more
Basically it is an alternative history of Jesus' last months and the crucifixion, involving - you guessed it -... Read more
Published on 13 May 2008 by Johnny London
Bukowski in a time machine...
This is less a sci-fi book, more a journey of self discovery. The lead charcter is full of flaws and sins, but the writing style is great and i can not help but relate to him. Read more
Published on 5 Nov 2007 by Mr. A. Jones
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