Customer Reviews

Only Begotten Daughter (Legend Books)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is the most loving, incisive, courageous view of god I've encountered in 25 years of study in comparative religion and comparative mythology, as well as in 20 years as a minister. I won't repeat the book's plot structure, whose major details other reviewers have already given. Morrow's gift is to grapple with difficult issues that the world's leading religions don't like to touch, because they're messy and there are no pat answers: --What is the nature of divinity, and how can it act in the world? --Why does god allow suffering? Why do people cause it? --How do we account for the fact that so many of god's most rabid followers seem to be the most violent, maladjusted, and lost people, motivated by fear and despising the wonderful gifts of life on earth? --What is the nature of god and heaven, "the devil" and hell? --What would Jesus think about all this? --How can a woman claim her divinity in a world stocked with people who demonize everything feminine--including love, embodiment, compassion, and women themselves? --How is it possible to survive in a world largely inhabited by frightened, tiny-minded people who create a god in their own image, who project their worst weaknesses and tendencies onto "him," and who are closed to feeling or thinking, handing themselves over to being led by wiggy neurotics or violent psychotics? (After all, throughout religious history it seems to be highly religious people who do the most persecuting, create the most grief for other people, and hate the world that they claim god created.) --What would a mature spirituality look like--one grown past the father complexes and adolescent viewpoints of fundamentalism? What amazes me about this book (I'm currently reading it for the sixth time, with even more pleasure than the first time) is how easily and naturally Morrow tells the story. And with what deft detail, humor, and observation of the problem of religion in a secular society. In my experience, that's a sign of spiritual maturity (particularly the humor). I agree with the reviewer who observed that Morrow is probably lucky that this book got pigeon-holed as science fiction. I have never understood the concept of "heresy"--it seems to me the very word evokes moral and spiritual cowardice and contempt for god's love and tolerance--so when people say this is a heretical book, I can't follow that. This is a courageous book, full of love, tolerance, and clarity of heart. A term like "heresy" isn't on the radar. OBD is, for me, a myth of power, heart, and wisdom up there with some of the great myths of the human psyche. I think in particular of the ancient stories of the descent of the deity Inanna into the underworld. Yet Morrow goes even further than that. For me, this book blew open the gates of the new millennium, and gave me heart to consider that perhaps the human spirit is open to growing past the inherited fundamentalism of the past. We have much growing and maturing to do as a species. We resist taking responsibility as stewards of this earth, each other, and ourselves. That's unlikely to happen so long as we remain tethered in spirit to our image of a distant, inaccessible, violent father god with an apparent bipolar disorder, who holds us in contempt, is motivated by punishment and pleased by syncophancy, and communicates (we are told) through the mistranslated myths of Near Eastern desert tribes of two to six thousand years ago, now published in the form of a book edited by Renaissance churchmen and others who hold life on earth in contempt. Morrow asks us to drop our nostalgia and our adolescent view of god for something living, breathing, and grown up. That work of a living, breathing, grown up, creative relationship with god is a far cry from the dead, literalist fundamentalism that poses as religion, rather than some new approaches to using fear and the mass media to wring money out of frightened, hurting people. Eliot

"The Universe was a PhD thesis that God was unable to successfully defend." (p. 212)

If God is the Eternal Light, then why do His children live in such darkness? James Morrow wrestles with the age-old challenge of theodicy--how can an all-Good and all-Powerful Deity allow a world with suffering? His vehicle in this excursion is God's daughter, a fertilized ovum found in a male sperm donation, and brought to term in an artificial uterus.

The world is indeed a dark place, and Julie Katz, (That's "Miss God" to you!) seems to find herself in some of the darkest corners. Why is God so distant? Why are miracles so useless?

Religious fanatics and Devout Believers in Scientism both show up in bad form in this book. If you're an existentialist with a dark sense of humor, you'll love reading this. If you're a devout, evangelical Christian, I suspect you won't have as much fun.

Morrow writes well, he dares to tread on the teats of many a sacred cow, and he does so exquisitely well. For those who find their understanding of God and religion offended, I offer you this quote from Julie Katz "If somebody kick your right buttock, turn the other cheek." (p. 260)

Although the characters are somewhat charicaturish, they each have their own depth, motivation, and occasionally act to surprise the reader. The leading characters are more archetypal than human, and that is part of the book's power.

Morrow gets five stars for a solid, well engineered plot. Five stars for characters who live beyond the pages of the books & occasionally drift into our dreams. Five more stars for telling it well, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Courage. Morrow gets about five billion stars for courage--after all, he's insulted every fundamentalist this side of Venus. Once Jerry Falwell gets done blaming the gays, pagans, ACLU & secular humanists for the World Trade Center disaster, he's likely to call for a Jihad against Morrow!

(If you'd like to respond to this review or discuss the book, please click on the "about me" link above and drop me an email. Thanks!)

Morrow spins the yarn this time about Julie Katz, the product of a Holy Ovum and Murray Katz's - Jewish lighthouse keeper and bibliophile - divinely ordained semen. Julie Katz's search for identity, heritage, and happiness leads her on a wild ride through Hell and the tri-state area. James Morrow's engaging, concrete style offers up a compelling and seamless blend of irreverence and sentimentality which, though often emotional, is never, ever maudlin. Not for those - religious or otherwise - with no sense of humour. I recommend Morrow's writings - any of them, particularly the Towing Jehovah series - only for the open-minded and for those who can have a good laugh without fear of eternal damnation (but we're all damned anyway, right?) :-) Pay particular attention to what Jesus says about the eucharist. In short, a five-star rating does not do justice to this book. I'd venture to give it more just for the laughs I got from reading the outraged "You shouldn't say those things about Jehovah!" reviews listed below.

It's a comedy. It's a drama. It's a social commentary on religion, sexuality and tabloid journalism. It's a heartwarming inspiration. It's a knee-slapping satire.

The story is riveting, with plenty of unexpected turns to keep the reader guessing what Morrow has up his sleeve. But the real hallmark here is in characterization; the author has created incredibly believable people here despite the incredible premise.

What I like about James Morrow is his audaciousness. He's willing to come up with an idea in the grand old SF tradition, i.e., BIG, and then run with it. Take "Daughter Earth," a story in which a planet is born to a nice northeast couple, or "City of Truth," a story about a city where no one ever lies. Or here in this novel, in which a new saviour is sent to the world, but it's a girl this time. From immaculate conception--she evolves from her jewish father's sperm donation--to being tested by the devil at an Atlantic City casino modeled after Dante's Hell, Morrow keeps throwing the wild concepts and ideas at you straight out of left field. And what ostensibly seems a fantasy--God's daughter and all--yet still has some of the trappings of SF and reality; she is born using an artificial womb, when she returns to earth New Jersey has become a totalitarian, evangelistic state that is a cross of Heinlein's Revolt in 2010 and King's The Running Man.

While for some it was the ending here that they remember (I won't spoil it), for me the best part was when God's only begotten daughter meets God's only begotten son and explained what had happened on earth after his departure. "They eat me," he says, referring to the Eucharist. "Disgusting."

Jill says that if you were of the total God-fearing type, then you would probably be offended by this book. She feels that an aethiest wouldn't like it much either, for as much as it "blasphemes," it comes out fairly spiritual. For those of us who can stand having religion poked at (like, at least Morrow wasn't targeted by the Pope for assassination following the printing of this book), it's a bunch of laughs among some interesting theological play.

Now that's a cliched review title but that's about as good as we're going to get tonight. It is true, to some extent, but it's not like Morrow sets out to offend everyone in creation, mostly just people who take religion too seriously and the majority of his "offenses" are simply pointing out contradictions or other illogical facets of said religion. The premise of this is that Murray Katz, a single Jewish fellow, winds up with an immaculate conception when one of his donated sperm suddenly fertilize and eventually gives birth to his daughter Julie, who right away exhibits powers that are similar to a guy who lived two thousand years ago, leading family and friends to believe that she's the daughter of God. Right then starts her journey as she tries to contact her heavenly mother and get some word out of her, while resisting all impulses to use her powers to fix everything in the world, knowing that it really won't solve anything. Along the way she encounters some extreme Christian fundamentalists (and wait until you see what they do to Atlantic City), and the devil, and goes to a lot of places that she really didn't expect to go. Morrow tends to stick to the genre of religious satire and when he's on (this novel, Towing Jehovah) he's fantastic, and when he's not on (This is the Way the World Ends) it just comes across as heavy handed. Fortunately in this novel he's firing on all cylinders, the premise is sound and the characters are sometimes prisoner to their own archetypes but he manages to wring some actual emotional content out of all of this. It works because he doesn't get too silly, the way he does in some of his other books. Julie is the daughter of God and she has powers and he actually plays it straight from there, with everyone having basically believable reactions in the context of the book. Even the devil makes sense and the scenes later when they visit, er, another plane of existence seem to have some kind of solid grounding. Julie's quest to get some kind of acknowledgement from God and to basically figure out what the heck her purpose is on Earth is touching at times. Some things start to get odd toward the third part of the novel, when New Jersey decides to secede from the rest of the country (another reason I like the book, it's my home state, although we're not really too flattering there . . . but then who likes Atlantic City anyway) and Julie has to deal with a whole new set of problems. But even that makes sense, again you have to suspend a little bit of disbelief but Morrow doesn't take himself totally seriously. But things aren't played totally for laughs either, when people get killed, it's horrifying and brutal and Morrow spares us nothing. It's black humor, in the Vonnegut sense, and he's trying to prove a point and entertain us at the same time. Sometimes he goes a bit over the top, while I do appreciate the noting where the church (or Christian teaching) deviates from what the Bible actually says, I've never seen anybody do it in a way that doesn't come across as someone lecturing at me and proving that they've done their research. Fortunately he only does it once, but it's still one too many times. But I'm nit-picking really. This is probably tied with Towing Jehovah as his best novel (and I think this also won the World Fantasy Award) and well worth the time to read if you want an examination of religion that doesn't get too serious. Devoutists of any religion may want to steer clear, but I don't think this book is for you anyway. Just a hunch.

For God so loved the world that She gave her only begotten daughter.... to save us from ourselves

Only Begotten Daughter: Good book. Thought provoking. I'm not Christian, so I can approach Christ and Jehovah as I would approach any other mythology.

Let's play What If.....

What if... the "Second Coming" wasn't meant to be Jesus returning, but was meant to mean God's second child being born.

What if... everyone missed it because the child was female... and of course, the returning Son of God couldn't be female.

What if... her "purpose" in returning was to say "Hey, y'all need to get a life and stop worshiping the past. Live in today. My brother didn't give his life just so the bunch of you could refuse to acknowledge the world around you."

Water into wine? Forget it, it's been done. This chick changes gasoline into milk.

Morrow does an excellent job of describing what growing up must be like for the child of a major deity. Walk on water? Never, the neighbors might see. The love of an over-protective parent, wondering why God allows things to happen, why He never speaks to His own child... all normal occurences for God's daughter.

In some ways, Morrow is more realistic about his characters than the common belief about them is. He portrays Jesus, not sitting on a throne in the heaven to which he ascended, but offering water to the burning souls in hell. Helping the people after death that he cared for in life, according to the stories written down by his followers. Hell is run by bureaucrats (naturally... there's enough of them there), and Satan has been squeezed into a mere figurehead (much like the Queen of England). Oddly enough, he smells like oranges.

In other ways, he relies on stereotypes. Julie's human parent, for example, draws heavily on the stereotype of the scholarly Jew. The antagonists - a group of religious extremists - are drawn from newspaper stories of abortion clinic protesters and Bible Belt Religious Rightists.

In a less serious critique, I find it amusing that Julie finally finds her place in Philadelphia. I've lived in Philadelphia, and I find it difficult that anyone would find there place in that city without having family members there (one could argue that in theory, God is everywhere, and therefore in Philly, too. I don't buy it.) OR by living there for a minimum of 10 years. No seriously, the City of Brotherly Love is only loving if you've been in the community for a serious amount of time.

Read the book. It's good. It's worth it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel! The satire was spot-on and very prescient. The baroquely grotesque dystopia built by the Revelationists in this novel is perhaps more frightening (and less hyperbolic) now than when Morrow wrote it, given the gradual mainstreaming in the U.S. of fanatical evangelical perspectives on "the End Times." If the loud intolerance of many modern fundamentalist Christians keeps you from comfortably embracing Christianity, this may be the book for you. I found it at turns laugh-out-loud funny and heart-breakingly poignant. Morrow's prose is rich and eminently quotable; I couldn't stop reading choice bits and pieces to my family. This is my first Morrow novel, after having read many of his short stories (I recommend "Bible Stories for Adults"), and I was fully satisfied with the expansion of Morrow's narrative powers into the novel form. Enjoy and be enlightened!

To attempt to describe the plot of this novel would take away from the first time readers experience, so I shall not do that. I will however say this, I enjoyed the characterization of Jesus and Satan respectively and all in all, I literally absorbed this book like a. . .sponge.
It took me two days to read this book, but only because I had to sleep. :)
I encourage anyone who enjoys religious satire, and novels that ask the reader to think to some how get a hold of a copy of this one, and give it a go.
It will be worth your time.

Expect to spend more time thinking about it than reading it. I still think about it and I read it years ago. It was so refreshing to read a book that shows that the world's most dangerous religious fanatics are NOT in the centre of the world. James Morrow has a beautiful writing style and a talent for creating incredibly interesting characters. I also recommend Parke Godwin's, "Waiting for the Galactic Bus."