Science-fiction specialist Park (Celestis, 1995, etc.) turns from distant planets to the distant past, here using an apocryphal conceit to retell the story of Jesus as a bearish ex-zealot who, exiled from Palestine for murder and treason, gradually discovers his true identity during a perilous trek to the Far East. The story begins in Rome with the flight of a slave, Corax, who watched his master kill himself rather than be killed in an Imperial power struggle. Finding his way to Palestine by sea, Corax makes use of his considerable skills as a healer to make money but runs afoul of Pilate's soldiers and is imprisoned. He becomes an informer to regain his freedom, then sets out on a pilgrimage through the former realms of Alexander the Great, intending to honor his father's memory by going to the headwaters of the Ganges. His medical training hindering his progress as much as helping, Corax eventually teams up with Jeshua of Nazareth, the Jewish bear- man he first saw in a cave of zealots in Palestine but who now seems to be popping up wherever Corax goes. Jeshua has both the Romans and his former comrades against him; he wanders in exile from one painful situation to another until Corax rescues him from a pigsty and the two flee eastward together. Along the way, they encounter gracious Persians, Jewish bandits, African slaves, and deadly but fair-minded Huns, and, finally, in the remotest outpost of Greek civilization, they witness the slaughter of the last inbred remnants of Hellenic culture. The two intrepid voyagers part company at the bloody scene, each to meet a separate destiny. A comfortable cruise for the armchair traveler through the Ancient World but not much as a novel: The characters serve mostly as points of reference in an ever-changing historical pageant without ever making the story their own.
Pub Date: June 12, 1996
ISBN: 1-56947-061-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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