Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Prometheus brought up to date, 20 Dec 2008
A wildly enjoyable re-telling of the Prometheus myth in a modern setting. The narrator, unlovely Canadian academic Theo Greipenkerl, finds a collection of miraculously preserved scrolls, revealed when an Iraqi museum he is visiting is bombed during the chaos that ensues following the American invasion in 2003. The scrolls contain a fifth gospel (in Aramaic), written by Malchus, servant of the high priest whose ear was supposedly struck off by one of the disciples at the time of Jesus' arrest. But Malchus' picture of Jesus is quite different from those of the other four evangelists, and in publishing it, Greipenkerl unleashes a chain of uncontrollable, and in many ways unsurprising, events. Alongside fortune and the attentions of the media (which rapidly pale) come less welcome consequences, such as the dubious accolades of Amazon reviewers (very funny) and kidnapping at the hands of religious fanatics.
Yes, as some broadsheet newspaper reviewers have observed, the plot has some holes in it. But the work is admirably pacy, and a very quick read. All in all, it's a wonderfully irony-laden modern take on the myth, with some real laugh-out-loud moments among the chuckles. And there's enough resonances from the original, spliced into the thoroughly modern setting, to make this a thoughtful and satisfying retelling.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite hot enough!, 7 Jan 2009
A few years ago I read Michael Faber's book The Crimson Petal and the White and remember it with sparkling clarity as one of my top ten books read. Since reading that I've come to all of Faber's subsequent books with high expectations, hoping that he will embark on something equally literate, multi-layered, compelling and with a cast of such memorable characters. Unfortunately this book does not quite fit the bill. I think that part of the problem with this book is that the concept is a little artificial. It forms part of a series called The Myths, in which various publishers have launched:
"a bold re-telling of legendary tales - The Myths series gathers the world's finest contemporary writers for a modern look at our most enduring myths".
It is hard to do this sort of thing without it ending up rather like a creative writing project: there is something about writing to a brief which seems to make otherwise perfectly good writers produce something which reads like its been entered into a short-story competition. That basic creative spark seems to be lacking somehow.
In the case of The Fire Gospel, the myth which Faber retells is Prometheus, who Wikipedia tells us "stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while an eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day".
Faber tells the story of Theo Griepenkerl who visits a looted museum in Iraq and stumbles upon a "lost" manuscript containing a fifth gospel from a previously unknown witness to Jesus Christ's last days. Seeing an opportunity to boost his rather lack-lustre career he smuggles the scrolls home and translates them from the Aramaic, and finds a publisher who launches them to an unexpectedly interested world.
This fifth gospel diverges considerably from the other four - the Jesus depicted seems to be shorn of his supernatural powers and by the time he has ended up on the cross has lost all confidence in his mission. His well-known dying words, "It it finished" (signifying the fulfilment of his ministry on earth) are reported by Malchus as "Finish me!" (in other words, end my suffering by finishing me off!).
Malchus' gospel goes on to describe the complete moral collapse of the Apostle Peter who after the trial of Jesus cursed the one he had followed and gave himself over to prostitutes and drink.
Needless to say, the Fifth Gospel receives a tempestuous reception and when Theo Griepenkerl embarks on a tour of the USA to promote his book he receives a very mixed welcome. Eventually disaster strikes and the Prometheus them unwinds through Griepenkerl's life as he meets his own inevitable fate.
I regret to say that this book is rather weak. It is hard to believe that it is written by the same person who wrote The Crimson Petal. The book is very short, and could be read in a day, but having completed it, I am left wondering what the point of it all is - except for recasting an ancient myth in modern guise. The character development is weak, the plot is somewhat obvious and the ending predictable. I think I shall have to wait rather longer to be enthralled by another Michael Faber novel.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable, 21 Nov 2008
I'm a little nervous about writing this review - one of the funniest passages in "The Fire Gospel" is when Theo Griepenkerl, first time author on a tour of the US, spends a sleepless night looking up his Amazon reviews. Some are really dotty: all read as uncomfortably authentic. Hmmm.
Griepenkerl has been launched to celebrity by - er - liberating the papyri containing the lost letters of Malchus, eyewitness to the Crucifixion and translating them from the original Aramaic into English. As a result, he becomes the focus of the hopes and (especially) fears of a range of believers and unbelievers. While the book's success brings him the fame and money he wanted, all does not really go well.
Theo's progress is interleaved with extracts from Malchus's account, which in itself an inventive and unusual take on the Passion story. Inevitably, perhaps, since this is part of a series retelling myths, the two are intermingled and reflect each other. (Or so I read it. I now see from the "official" review above that this is actually meant to be a modern take on the myth of Prometheus. Really? To me it looks much, much more as though Faber has Theo undergoing his own passion, with many of the details matching - both those in the real Gospels and in the "gospel" of Malchus. And isn't the very name Theo itself rather a thundering giveaway?)
I enjoyed this immensely - be warned, it isn't a long book, but Michel Faber is an expert at (especially) short stories and short novels. I think this is one of his best so far.
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