Customer Reviews

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

5 star:		(107)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sorry to disagree with the previous review, but I think it needs to be said...if you love Crumb's art, you will love this book. I am stunned at the sheer volume of work it took to illustrate the thing. Awestruck, really. I've always loved Crumb's art and work, at first (when I was young) because he seemed so twisted and funny, but later, because I realized what a truly fine artist he is. I say, never mind the "is it passionate" crap.

In March of '09, some online articles were calling this upcoming work "subversive"... Not so. There's no intent to be comical here...or to insult Judeo-Christian theology. It seems, in every sense, to be a legitimate illustration of the Book of Genesis. And, I found it beautiful, because Crumb's attention to visual detail is beautiful.

Crumb relies on two sources for the translation including the King James version, and more so, Robert Alter's "The Five Books Of Moses". So, sure, there may be some disagreement in translation for individuals who are version specific. I would suggest we look past that and just enjoy the book for its merits and Crumb's talent.

One should be aware that a few panels may be considered "steamy" for younger children. Some nudity appears and, for instance, when in Chapter 19 it is written that Lot's daughters gave their father wine to drink and then lay with him, Crumb illustrates it. It is my belief, however, that Crumb's intent here is simply illustration, not subversion.

At any rate, it is an amazing work of art, not to mention a book of many important stories.

When R. Crumb set out to create an illustrated Genesis, he planned two years for the project.

Five years later we have what amounts to a cartoonist's answer to the Sistene Chapel, audicious and bold I guess in the same way that great art always seems to be audacious and bold.

For those who would suggest that the work satirzes its material or attempts to demean the underlying Biblical text I would suggest they re-read their Genesis. Where the Bible says Judah had relations with his daughter Tamar thinking her a cultic prostitute, the illustrations show Judah having relations with Tamar thinking her a cultic prostitute. Where the Bible says Lot while drunk had relations with each of his daughters in a cave, the illustrations show Lot while drunk having relations with each of his daughters in cave.

In this way, and with all due respect, those offended by Crumb illustrations should probably in fact be offended by the text as well.

If this material was noteworthy only for its prurient value, it would be easy to dismiss but the work is filled with nuance and mood reflecting the nuance and mood of the underlying text. For example, the anxious confabulation of Adam and Eve when confronted by God for eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is readily revealed in their faces (including a glance of reproof by Eve at having been blamed by Adam). Later we see Abraham in sorrow as he contemplates the problems of his people, dimly depicted as the hallow faced of the Holocaust we have become so familiar with.

In all this work ably succeeds in doing what it set out to do: to provide an illustrated version of Genesis. That it was produced by an atheist does not rob it of any of its artistic potential nor does it prevent us from appreciating it on whatever level we may choose to do so.

To those of us who have been Crumb fans from the beginning, the first reactions must be: it's not funny; it's not revolutionary; it's not "Mr Natural Meets God". So what is it? It is exactly what the title proclaims, Genesis straightforward in text and illustration, without criticism or commentary, more a scholarly work than a comic book. Perhaps, in 2009, straightforward is radical, as parodies of religion have become the norm. That is the genius of the work. Of course, it is all Crumb with his attention to detail and direct depictions of violence and sex. And most happily for me, the Crumb Women are present in abundance. I am struck by the magnitude and thoroughness of the work, including imagings of the lists of Begats with each character distinct and notable. What is radical about the work is contained within the text itself. Crumb's work is more an illumination of the Word of God than a set of illustrations. Now that is radical.

As soon as I received my copy of Crumb's masterpiece, four years in the making, I knew I would want to review his creation, taking the opportunity to share my appreciation for the strange, insightful man who visualized this important story and breathed life into it, like Yahweh did to the mud-man.
It is important to be clear that this is not a "comic book" version of Genesis for kids, paraphrasing and simplifying the story, leaving out the disturbing parts. Nor is it an irreverent, witty satire a la Monty Python. No, as Crumb says in the introduction, his basic approach was that of an illustrator, not of a redactor, or paraphraser. He takes the story as given to him. But the illustrator picks and chooses what to draw, which images the writings bring to his or her mind, and how to render the material. As near as I can tell, an essentially complete English text of Genesis is here, and it is the source of all written material, except for Crumb's footnotes which he adds to explain the Hebrew original.

It should be pointed out early in this review that illustrating Genesis certainly gives R. Crumb a chance to draw voluptuous, high-breasted women with big fine legs and bubble butts. Well, I'm sure he had some fun with this aspect, and the project certainly gave him a chance to indulge it. Because there is plenty of sex in Genesis; Crumb illustrates the text, never inventing any gratuitous lust. It certainly reminded me how much Genesis is concerned with procreation, marriage, and whose children were whose. Up until after the Flood, Yahweh's only command is 'Be fruitful and multiply.' So Crumb's proclivities were appropriate to this project, and faithful to the text. There is nothing 'dirty' in any thing he draws in this book. Also, I rather think that Crumb's rendering of the women of the time was rather close to what people of the day would have thought fine-looking, robust, healthy women should look like.

And it is so obvious that Crumb loves these women. The book is dedicated to his wife Aline, and whatever Crumb's conscious intent, I believe that in part it was because he truly loves Aline and her body type, and her Jewishness. Crumb's earlier work shows a fascination with Jews, a mixture of bewilderment, admiration and respect. He also understands anti-Antisemitism. I feel that illustrating Genesis was a tribute to Aline and her heritage (which seems to interest him more than it does her), and Crumb's tribute to the heritage left to us by the Patriarchs and Matriarchs that has affected all of us so profoundly, believers or not.

But he creates individuals, not stereotypes. Eve, Sarah, Hagar (not all the women are buxom beauties), Lot's daughters... Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, and their handmaidens Zilpah and Bilhah, who before seeing Crumb's drawings were just names to me- all these marvelous, interesting, and very human women are portrayed as strong, clever , and capable of deceit to achieve their ends. The expression of Rachel's face when she lies to her father, excusing herself from rising because of her period, while concealing the household idols she had stolen from him, is priceless, Crumb at his best.

As an appendix Crumb includes his own midrash, a commentary which is both scholarly (but not ponderous) and revealing, at least somewhat, about the illustrator's motives and options. His comments on chapter 12 refer to the work of Savina Teubel, and he suggests that some of what we read in Genesis are remnants of the struggle between patriarchy and matriarchy. This is certainly a question worthy of further exploration. R. Crumb did not take this project lightly, and he did some scholarly homework and, dare we say, spiritual work in preparation for this project.

Crumb's illustrated book is entertaining and fun, and as an interesting coffee table art book, it is a good buy; there's a lot of good drawing for the money. But we can ask: what does it offer, if anything, to the believer who wants to understand Genesis better? Well, as I have said, the illustrations helped me visualize situations that had been incomprehensible to me. I'm not saying that Crumb always got it right, but his vision is certainly a possible one. Crumb's illustrated Book of Genesis could be useful for an adult Bible study, or a program like Education for Ministry. Some people no doubt will feel that his drawing of the patriarchs and matriarchs making love, or being less than admirable, is disrespectful. Well, blame the author of Genesis, not Crumb. A serious study of Genesis and its dysfunctional if not murderous families should make us reflect on what we really mean by "Biblical Family Values".

I also believe that Crumb portrays spiritual struggle very well, and reveals the flawed patriarchs as men of deep faith who responded to God's call. He portrays the women as strong individuals (if not quite matriarchs) with their own desires and agendas. In spite of their weaknesses and flaws, there is a lot of love in Genesis- love of God, wife, sons, family, brothers, friends- and Crumb's illustrations picture it well. I feel too that lots of his own love, especially for Aline and her heritage, spills onto the page- not gushing sentimental treacle, but the passions of our spiritual fathers and mothers.

I hope Crumb illustrates Exodus, and I would like to see him do the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Revelation; but I can imagine that such projects are so draining we may not see much from him for awhile. Thanx, Robert. Bless you. Keep on truckin' .

Couldn't resist buying this as soon as it came out, then read through it in a weekend. Crumb is a genius. Yes he takes some liberties visually while including every word of the text. All the Biblical women, Eve, Rachel, etc, become R. Crumb women, and some incidents are luridly violent or sexual. End result: the Good Book comes vibrantly alive. Amazing, among other things, how he depicts as a distinct character every man and woman in the begats.

Not what I was expecting, but still satisfied. I didn't read The Book of Origins to learn about god, Adam, Eve, Noah, Jacob, Abel or Cain. Nope, the church's attempt to indoctrinate occurred years ago.... I survived.

I read Crumb's version of Origins because I had never read the entire unadulterated book from beginning to end. My prior exposure was to the sugar coated variety interjected with each religion's own interpretation. I figured that if I was going to read Origins, I might as well read a translation complete with pictures. Sans graphics, it could prove quite a laborious task.

I'm happy to report that I finished Crumb's book in three days, in no small part due to the graphics.

I had expected a more cynical depiction of our creation, the origin of man (and woman to a lesser extent). But in retrospect, how much more insanity could Crumb have added to The Book of Genesis? Rather than go the comedic route, Crumb takes the straight man approach. Anything else would have eroded his intent.

Thank you Mr. Crumb.

It's about time someone illustrated what's really in the Bible. Crumb is a bit late to the party, though. The first book to do this was Illustrated Stories from the Bible (that they won't tell you in Sunday school), by Paul John Farrell. It was released about 4 years ago. Both books have their advantages. Crumb plays it straight and the drawings are better. However, there isn't much substance to it. While Crumb confines himself to Genesis, for some unknown reason, Farrell surveys the entire Bible and comes up with the best stories that books by believing Christians will never illustrate, for obvious reasons.

Crumb is an intellectual, and it's too bad that he didn't discuss his drawings more in the book, telling us why he thinks his book is important and different from others. Farrell's illustrated Bible stories come with a commentary section where he discusses the importance of each of the stories and even includes the Christian response to these problematic verses. For example, in one story, Yahweh personally slaughters 70,000 people. While it's interesting to see this illustrated, it's just as interesting to see how Christian leaders try to explain this as something good.

I've watched Crumb discuss this book in interviews and he articulates why these illustrations are worth doing, and presents some challenges to traditional views of the Bible. Too bad he didn't put more of his mind in the book as well.

Nevertheless, I salute people like Robert Crumb and Paul John Farrell for having the courage to illustrate the Bible without sanitizing it. Far from being attacks on the faith, they shed new, popular light, on aspects of the Bible that leaders in the church would rather you didn't know about.

First, I admit I am not a fan of Crumb's work. It's not that it is bad - on the contrary, his drawings are beautifully executed and technically wonderful. It's just that I do not prefer the "earthy" look of his characters, nor the complexity of detail, which I find busy - compare it to the stark beauty of Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise Book 15: Tomorrow Now and Wendy Pini's black and whites. So I will admit my opinion is just a matter of preference.

So, why did I buy it? For my youngish son. (He might love Crumb's style - who knows?) So far, he has only looked at it a little, and just the sight of kissing would make him turn the page, so I am not worried about any sex in here. We are not talking Sapphire (Sapphire (N B M)) or Empowered Volume 1 sex, ya' know.

He came home one day saying a friend told him Jesus said we should hate our parents, and wasn't that crazy? So, out came the bible, and I read him the verses in question and pointed out that the word translated to "hate" really *does* mean hate. That was a revelation for him! Mind you, all I did was read him just what the bible said.

As a young catholic, I was never encouraged to read much of the bible. I asked the priest why we did not have a bible study and got a blank look. Face it, Issac Asimov said, "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." If my son grows up to be any kind of religious, I will still love and support him. However, I do not wanting him to make a choice based on what an authority figure tells him to believe, or choose something without having thoroughly read the pertinent holy literature and some rebuttals. This copy of Genesis is an easy start.

Crumb's Genesis is just the facts...no spin, nothing taken out to make the bible look better or less confusing. If a person has faith, they should be able to read the whole bible without losing it. If one fears reading it, then there is a problem. One issue is that christians feed their youngsters all happy-happy joy-joy bible bits, saying they are too young to understand the evil and nonsense parts yet.

Look at this dross: The Beginner's Bible: Timeless Children's Stories (Beginner's Bible, The) Notice how they skip god drowning all those helpless animals, all the humans and the innocent babies and kids. Would you let your child watch someone drown puppies in a lake? How would you feel about watching that? Seriously, Noah and his family are smiling about all this? I guess watching god drown thousands of beings has no effect. If you're not going to tell the story right, don't put it in a kids' book. People grow up so deluded about just this story, never giving it any more thought past the "sweet" images in their childrens' book, that they will *even decorate their own infants rooms with these cute pictures of mass murder.*

I call B.S. because most of them are never introduced to those stories later "when they're old enough." I do run into people on line who studied some of this in church as teens, but there are not many. The catholic church, the largest and most influential christian church in the world, surely doesn't encourage one to read more than the approved weekly readings. I am an atheist, and NONE of my christian friends know the bible like I do. If I mention an illogical bit or a dodgy story, I get a chorus of, "THAT'S in there?" and "How did you learn that?!"

So here it is - an unvarnished, basic telling of Genesis in well-done comics form. Buy it for your older kid or yourself. Buy it if you dare.

I started reading this last night and cannot put it down. The art is Crumb-ish with buxom Bible babes and mighty patriarchs.
Genesis is a faithful re-telling with all the begets left in and has something to offend Bible literalists who see their Old Testament figures as wart-less and fully clothed--Adam and Eve being gleefully naked before the fall. An important re-telling but also readable, human, and accessible.
(I was especially struck by the venality of Abraham as he passes off his wife Sarah to two rulers as his sister but collects the loot when God wrathfully intervenes on Abraham's behalf to go medieval on the duped and confused kings.)

As a theologian who has studied the Bible at great length (sans the snazzy illustrations), I was really curious to see this book when it came out. In one word -- stunning! Crumb has not watered down or distorted the Scriptures; nor has he left out any of the juicy or violent bits. I will be proud to display this on my bookshelf next to my Bible and other theological works. Thanks Mr. Crumb!