EXCERPTS FROM THE DIARIES OF THE LATE GOD

by Anthony Towne ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 1968

God (obit 1965) certainly had all his marbles when he appointed Mr. Anthony Towne to be his literary executor. The Divine Diaries, in the hands of a lesser man, undoubtedly would have been subjected to a pre-publication expurgation that would have left subsequent generations with the impression that their late Creator was a pompous old Being who had ended up believing his own publicity. But Mr. Towne, probably because there are no close surviving relatives of the deceased, has been able to throw discretion to the winds and give us God as He really was: omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent--and omni-human; an irascible old Thing who was barely saved from omni-boredom by the centerfold of PLAYBOY and by the antics of His pet whale, Esther, and whose eternity was made bearable only by His ability to observe and record earthly events in heavenly, if sometimes caustic, terms: ""Billy Graham has halitosis of the soul."" It is true that God's comments often leave something to be desired from the standpoint of diplomacy, but then He almost certainly was not writing with an eye to publication; which is probably the only proof we have that he was indeed God. For example, it's a bit much to call Piux XII a ""senile old martinet"" publicly, or to announce that ""Dr. Peale, having left my bed and board, I am not responsible for any debts that he may incur."" One would have to be omnipotent to get away with it. Still, the reader is not omnipotent, even if the author is (was), and the former may wriggle uncomfortably at the constant references, cryptic as they are, to ""J.C.'s trouble on the hill."" Nonetheless, the unalloyed delights of this book make any amount of wriggling worth while, and Excerpts should be a revelation to believers and non-believers alike. It is, quite simply, divine.

Pub Date: March 13, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION