Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus' Childhood Pal.

[ScottyMcGee]

Genre: Fiction
Author: Christopher Moore
Audience: Adults. A lot of cursing, sexual themes, scenes and humor.
Rating: 3 out of 5.

I rarely give any reviews on anything, mostly becuase the books I've read have made me content enough to forget rambling/ranting about what I liked/disliked.

However, not until I came across this book.

First of all, for the summary, it is about a man named Levi (nicknamed Biff) who was raised from the dead today in order to write another Gospel about Jesus' missing lifetime - his childhood. Biff turned out to be Jesus' first and best friend from the very beginning. The book spans from the first time Biff met Jesus to the crucifixion.
Biff is your typical horny teenager who doesn't really concern much with the divine and supernatural other than "it's cool and stuff." Nevertheless he joins Jesus and embarks on a quest to find the Three Wise Men, and thus be taught what to do and how to bring about the Kingdom of God.

Another thread here is what reminded me of reviewing this book. The thread was about forced humor. I find that there is a lot of forced humor in this book, which is mainly what brings it down. The first half of the book is fine. Plot is intricate, humor is moving along--but it reaches a certain point where the reader can lose interest.

You will notice that it feels as though Moore was getting tired and simply speeding up the plot without any real concern for proper development. For example, in the last part of the book when Jesus finally becomes the man we all know, everything is sped up. I assume it's becuase Moore thinks we all know what's going to happen, but that's the thing - he should make it more interesting so we feel as though we don't know what really happened. All of the apostles are introduced very late and it's rather useless to go on paragraphs explaining their physical appearances when we're not going to see them for more than fifty pages longer.

Nevertheless, the good parts of the story were the theological rambles behind it, which are good for the common people who don't really think much into this sort of thing. There's a nostalgic, sad undertone whenever Jesus realizes how different he feels from the rest of the world, and thus feels lonely. Unfortunately, there's too much joking around to really feel the sadness and pain of Jesus' crucifixion, not only that but the jokes are cheap and cliche.

All in all, I still don't understand how it has reached so much acclaim by critics and audiences alike. In the end, it's rather silly I suppose.

[Jack]

Sounds interesting. I suppose, then, it would have been better if it wasn't a comedy?

[ScottyMcGee]

I have a feeling, yes. There could have been a lot of other potential storylines to lead to had it been more epic, serious, etc. Maybe have a different kind of humor instead of obnoxious and blatant.

[johnroyal]

I'm just starting to get into Moore's stuff.

He writes immature, which makes me laugh.

I haven't read Biff, but You Suck is my favorite vampire novel since Dracula.

[ScottyMcGee]

I'm sure some of his other stuff is hilarious. But for this, it seemed kind of forced and cheap. It's the only Moore book I read so far. I heard the vampire one's good too.