The Fifth Gospel, the Fire Gospel, or the Gospel of Malchus
From the NYTimes (I apologize ahead of time for the long block quote, but this just seemed like it would make great spring break reading for many of you bibliobloggers out there): January 8, 2009 Books of The Times A 5th Gospel Can Be Like a 5th Wheel By JANET MASLIN Skip to next paragraph THE FIRE GOSPEL By Michel Faber. 213 pages. Canongate. $20. As part of Canongate’s series of short novels based on myths, “The Fire Gospel” is nominally linked to the story of Prometheus. Like Prometheus, Michel Faber’s main character steals something incendiary and is terribly punished for his transgression. But Mr. Faber’s hapless Canadian linguistic scholar, Theo Griepenkerl, does not suffer the Promethean fate of being chained to a rock and having his liver repeatedly devoured by a bird of prey. His is a different kind of pain. In keeping with Mr. Faber’s more modern idea of torment, Theo has to contend with Amazon.com’s idiotic customer reviews of his book. That book is an earth-shaking religio...