When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Now available in a Penguin Classic edition, Gore Vidal's deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heaven's Gate suicide cult.
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Messiah
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Gore Vidal has received the National Book Award, written numerous novels, short stories, plays and essays. He has been a political activist and as Democratic candidate for Congress from upstate New York, he received the most votes of any Democrat in a half-century.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An eerily prophetic gem,
This review is from: Messiah (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)
According to the back cover of the Penguin edition of Gore Vidal's "Messiah," this novel was first published in 1954. With that in mind, the book is unsettlingly prophetic in its depiction of a media driven, controversy-plagued religious movement; it's almost as if Vidal had looked into the future and seen the coming era of televangelists and death cults."Messiah" is told in the first person by Eugene Luther, a key figure in the rise of the Cavite movement. This new religion is founded by John Cave, who preaches the simple message that "it is good to die." Vidal uses a very effective narrative device: Luther is an older man who alternates between narrating his current life in exile and the birth if the Cavite movement 50 years previously. Thus, the reader essentially gets two parallel stories of the same man at different stages in his life. "Messiah" could be read as a sort of science fiction novel: one based not in the physical sciences, but rather in a flight of fancy derived from concepts from the social sciences. Vidal's novel is flawed in that the Cavite movement is not fleshed out enough to be wholly convincing. But what's here is indeed intriguing. Vidal looks at the creation of the new religion's scriptures, infighting among the new faith's inner circle, etc. He ultimately considers some big questions, such as the plasticity of history in the service of dogma. And the book is very much a reflection on religion in the United States; one character notes that "America is particularly known for religious maniacs." I think of "Messiah" as one of a group of literary works that look at the creation of imaginary new religions. As companion texts, I recommend Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" and Tony Kushner's 2-part play "Angels in America."
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny & Scary Future Religious Cult On the Rise!,
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This review is from: Messiah (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)
Written in 1955 as a reminiscence of an original leader of the Cavean "Relgion" writes his memoirs in a future 50 years away (i.e. 2005), this scary and bizarre allegory on the beginnings of religions is vintage Vidal in all his devious, unflappable glory.A totally vacuous and creepy "founder" looks good on TV, and enlists a group to peddle his wares, and within a few years, thanks to some good marketing, financing, and TV coverage, becomes a new world wide religion, with the main theme of accepting death as glorious, and perhaps even better than life. There are parallels with many major religions, and some new ones, mainly scientology. Now in 2005, belief in the supernatural seems here to stay, and maybe even stronger than in 1955. So once again, the incomparable Mr. Vidal hits another bulls-eye:strange, realistic, funny, ironic, and horrible.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
DEATH'S MESSIAH,
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This review is from: Messiah (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)
Great Literature opens the window for all to see what is hidden behind ordinary verbiage-to make transparent words that cloak and distort the world. Vidal allows John Cave and his other characters to speak like few others have spoken. Life is "like a spray in the ocean. There it forms, there it goes back to the sea." "Neither revenge nor reward, only the not-knowing in the grave which is the same for all." "It is good to die." John Cave discovered that with his proposal to establish suicide centers came the obligation for himself, like Christ, to take leave of earth. Like all messiahs Cave had to take the final step, showing mankind his Cavesway.This is a great novelization of ideas best expressed by Eric Hoffer, THE TRUE BELIEVER, who tried to account for the rise of Hitler, Stalin, and others. The catalyst for mass movements are groups who are bored and frustrated by the mechanized societies that spawn them. The character Clarissa remarks, "boredom, finally, is the one monster the race will never conquer-the monster which will devour us in time." Cave's message was to "minds corseted and constricted by familiar ways of thinking, often the opposite of what they truly believed." Vidal wasn't writing to those who thoughtlessly accept life as it is and was dished out. I consider this book great literature.
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