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Biff jesus christ11/25/2023 He’s studious, compassionate, responsible and more than a little obsessed with sex, mainly because he knows - the angel Raziel has told him - that he’s not supposed to engage in it. Joshua knows - his mother’s told him more than enough times - that he will be the Messiah, but he’s constantly trying to figure out what he needs to do to fulfill that destiny. ![]() Well, why not? Why would Jesus have been any different from other kids?Īnd, like many best friends, the two are very different. Most of the humor arises out of the idea that Jesus, whose name is actually Joshua in Hebrew, had a best friend. I realize that might not seem like thigh-slapping comedy to many people, but, for anyone like me who has spent a lifetime hearing references to this or that, often obscure, verse in this or that, often obscure, book of the Bible, it’s hilarious. Part of this, I’m sure, is that I’ve heard the book’s jokes before, such as Biff’s tendency to prove a point by quoting from a non-existent biblical book, to wit: ![]() Re-reading Lamb again recently (for a book club meeting), I was less struck by Moore’s humor than by his earnestness. “What I ended up with is essentially ‘Perky Noir,’ a lot closer to Damon Runyon meets Bugs Bunny than Raymond Chandler meets Jim Thompson…But what was I going to do? ‘Noir’ was already typed at the top of every page.” Drudges and Excretions In 2018, Moore published a noir novel, called, surprisingly, Noir, which was sad and daffy and wacky and surprisingly heartfelt, but not all that dark, and not at all hopeless. His characters live in a world of darkness and threat, pain and violence, yet they find with each other hope and love and delight. He’s cheeky, rude, mocking and profane, but his heart’s in the right place. That’s what’s apparent in all of Moore’s books. Prior to this year, I’d read Lamb twice and reviewed it once, in 2017, reveling in its over-the-top irreverent humor with an undertone of seriousness. Yet, as much as it might seem a sacrilege to make fun of the Bard - Moore even has a novel called Shakespeare for Squirrels - he really swung for the blasphemy fences with his 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. ![]() Christopher Moore is a writer of joyfully goofy and ribald novels about such things as vampires, demons, San Francisco, a Native-American trickster and the comic aspects of Shakespeare’s tragedies, such as the randy fool in King Lear.
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