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119 of 128 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Anne Rice's New Story, November 1, 2005
The latest cultural and literary news is that Anne Rice has found Jesus, that she's become a Christian, and that she now wants her writing to reflect her newfound faith and how it's impacted her life. I don't think it's a marketing scheme - she doesn't need the help, quite frankly, and it's not really the demographic her Lestat novels have traditionally been drawing. What has happened, instead, is that a storyteller has found a new story to share, and a new story in which to participate.
Her first novel of a new series is Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt and as an avid reader but not previously a fan, I was pleasantly surprised. In the past, I've tried to read the opening chapters of a few of her other novels, but found it a chore to try to become involved emotionally with characters I ultimately had no love for. This was different, because this book tells a story with which we're already very intimately involved.
The basic premise is this: Jesus and His family have been in Egypt for seven years, sent there to escape Herod's bloody pride (Matthew 2:13-18). The story opens first person, the young Messiah telling His own story of His family's return to Galilee. The Christian reader will most probably have to get over the notion that there's nothing worthwhile to a story like this since it's not in and of itself "scriptural". Rather, because of her writing style and attention to storytelling and detail, the reader can catch a glimpse of something beyond the text - there was some untold story, some unwritten adventure, that Jesus lived out during His formative years.
As I was reading and being introduced to Jesus' extended family - all the cousins and aunts and uncles traveling with Mary and Joseph to Egypt and then back to the Promised Land - I got the distinct impression that Jesus was a Judean John Boy Walton, sharing the adventures and insights that come from having a big family, everyone having a voice and a role to play in the story. The years of relationship, the secrets of the adults kept from the innocence of the children, the interaction of the different generations, the realities of evil and good and everything that comes with sleeping and eating and living in tight quarters - those are the things that become vivid and real for the reader.
I was especially drawn into the first person narration of Jesus - where there's no gospel, nothing else written of Christ's life except His own quotes and parables as recalled by others, I felt like this liberty taken was justified. Did Jesus get sick? Did He have ultimate knowledge from the first, or did He have to learn some things like the rest of us? Did He feel revenge or fear or confusion? What kinds of questions did Jesus ask the teachers that prepared Him for His own questions and stories later on? There might be some issues to be taken doctrinally, but I think it misses the point to make this a theological exercise more than an artistic one. Rice has written her story, sharing her vision perhaps of what Jesus' story was like, even as she's now entered into it with her own talents and weaknesses, all of which probably pour out of this text in an entertaining and enlightening way.
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76 of 85 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anne Rice's novel is a tour de force!, November 14, 2005
The novel is quite a tour de force. Here are some initial impressions. Your mileage of course may vary.
1) Anne Rice has carefully done her homework. I read her Author's Note first (starting page 305), mostly because I wanted to know how she wrote this novel. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but there's a bunch of background information I should have known but didn't. For example, I didn't know anything -- or maybe I've forgotten, I'm nearly 50 -- about Herod Archelaus except that he was Herod's son. But being a wise technical writer, I did a Google search and found a great website that satisfied nearly every niggling historical question I could think of.
[...]
3) I liked how slowly the story of Jesus unfolded as a seven year old boy. In one sense, the entire novel is an extended meditation on St Luke's wondrous words: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52)
Anne Rice demonstrates a certain apophatic restraint in how the young Jesus comes to understand Who He Is. Eastern Orthodox readers who can appreciate mystery ("I will not speak of Your mystery to Your enemies") will certainly appreciate how certain characters (for example, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Forerunner) only discloses certain revelations when it's appropriate to do so. Characters just don't blabber out profound mysteries. Holy mysteries are treated with respect.
Some quirks emerge in Rice's novel. Maybe it just shows how wacko I have become that I loved them. I didn't mind Elizabeth sending John to live out with the Essences after she dies. I didn't mind Joseph, the BVM, and Jesus living in Alexandria and meeting Philo the famous Jewish philosopher! Later, Cleopas, one of the uncles of Jesus, even gives two manuscripts of Philo to a rabbi in Nazareth as a problem. I was charmed. Finally, I didn't mind Jesus performing certain miracles when he was a kid. They really do make sense in the context of the novel. If I can swallow the Protoevangelium of St James, a couple of pseudepigraphical miracles (from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) shouldn't give me theological indigestion. It wasn't that long ago stories like that gave me The Willies. Maybe this is proof positive that I'm not a Fundamentalist Bible Banger anymore after all!?!?!?
I must admit that it took me nearly 121 pages before I could fully suspend my disbelief. But then Anne Rice snagged me hook-line-and-sinker.
4) What I liked best about the novel is just how Jewish Jesus is. The Jewishness of Jesus in Anne Rice's writing is carefully depicted, right down to some of the gentle humor. (But don't expect any Woody Allen or Mel Brooks jokes!) The character of Jesus is molded in the context of living first-century Judaism. This is where Anne Rice's historical research paid off in spades. For example, Jesus is certainly trilingual, and maybe even quadri-lingual. He knows Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, and perhaps even a smattering of Latin.
Chapter 17 especially enchanted me. Rice describes the young Jesus meeting three rabbis in the Nazareth synagogue for the first time. The oldest rabbi throws out a series of trick questions to the young Jesus, to test His knowledge of the Law and the Prophets. The Q+A scene is wonderful. Immediately I thought of young Reuven Malter before Reb Saunders in Chaim Potok's magnificent novel, The Chosen. Anne Rice really did a great job of emphasizing the sheer Jewishness of Jesus. The young Jesus she depicts could have been Danny Saunders or David Lurie, other characters out of the novels of Chaim Potok (of blessed memory).
5) In Anne Rice's novel, the young Jesus comes to realize He shouldn't make it snow or stop raining willy-nilly. He understands at an early age that He must only do what the Father wills. Admittedly, this is a very difficult truth to hear and do. Like Jesus, we should seek to give up our opinions and deliberations. Perfect freedom is only in obedience to the will of the Father. All else is slavery to the forces of darkness.
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44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Blandly Profound, January 19, 2007
The process of self-discovery is hard enough for any young adult. What must it have been like for the Son of the Living God? Anne Rice attempts to get inside the head of the seven year-old Jesus as he gradually learns about the circumstances of his birth and their implications on the meaning of his life.
The dual nature of Christ is the mystery of mysteries. How would Jesus, fully human and fully divine, think and act? Writing in the first person, Rice portrays a boy with questions, worries, and doubts; but also with an inner calm and wisdom just strong enough to suggest the divine. But her young Jesus speaks and thinks with the vocabulary and simplicity of a child (more like a fifteen year-old, actually). This results in a narrative that is somewhat flat and repetitive. Compounding the problem is the plot itself. The story begins with the Holy Family returning to Nazareth from Egypt, with Jesus trying to learn more about the mysteries of his birth he is vaguely aware of. Since we all know the answers, the process of discovery which consumes the whole book becomes rather tedious; I found myself thinking, "come on, tell him already!".
Still, Rice paints an extraordinarily detailed, believable and beautiful portrait of Christ. The book is incredibly well researched. (In fact, the afterword in which Rice discusses her research and her return to the Catholic Church is almost as interesting as the novel itself.) The reader sees the daily life and society of the Jews under Roman occupation in all its beauty and ugliness. One element of the novel I particulary enjoyed was how Rice rehabilitates Joseph. A often neglected or ignored figure in theology and history, Joseph stands out here as a model of fatherhood-- courageous, wise, steady, firm, loving, almost heroic. He is the Father of Our Lord writ small, as it should be.
If you are expecting a page-turner like one of her vampire books, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a real glimpse of Jesus and the genesis of Christianity, you will not be!
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