Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow – Author Puts God On Trial – Literally
Posted in Amazons Hot Daily Deals on Sep 10th, 2009
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Why Buy A Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow?
This is the sequel to Towing Jehovah, a novel that garnered a World Fantasy Award and earned its author the moniker, Christianitys Salman Rushdie. In this book, the two-mile long corpse of God (the corpus dei) has been towed to Florida, where the American Baptist Confederation has set it up as the Main Attraction at Celestial City. When Martin Candle, justice of the peace for Abaddon Township, Pennsylvania, loses his wife in a freak auto accident just after his doctor tells him he has prostate cancer, he decides its time to put the Main Attraction on trial for His actions.
Over 24 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!
Author Puts God on Trial – Literally
I reviewed Morrow’s first book in this series, “Towing Jehovah,” in which God’s enormous body is found floating in the ocean. The Pope arranges a secret proper burial in an ice vault in the North Pole. I criticized Morrow for wasting numerous opportunities to more fully develop the religious conundrums he developed.No such criticism is merited for this book. In another wild tale with a new set of characters, God ends up being sold to the Baptists, who plant him in Orlando next to Disney World. They are making tons of cash as believers show up by the hundreds of thousands to pay respects and/or be healed. Enter our hero, Martin Candle, dying of prostate cancer, who somehow manages to get God put on trial by a world court in The Hague, Netherlands, for allowing evil to predominate in our world.
Fantasy prevails as our hero gets to discuss theodicy issues (Theodicy: a vindication of God with respect to the existence of evil) with Abraham, Isaac, The Ram, Noah, Jesus, Job, Satan, Adam, Eve and others. With clever dialogue interspersed (INRI means “I’m not returning immediately”), Morrow maintains an irreverent tone throughout the book.
Opening arguments for the prosecution: …”They said God was merciful, loving, and just…The prosecution intends to show that exactly the opposite is true…we shall prove that whatever debt we may owe the Defendant for our existence, He has continually acted in a fashion that must be called criminal…”
This paves the way for Morrow to present real arguments, carefully worked out over the centuries by great religious philosophers. The defense attorney presents the equivalent opposing views. The trial is a mini-course on the subject of theodicy for those who wish to be educated on this subject and builds lots of suspense toward the climax.
This inventive yarn shows considerable theological scholarship. Warning: Fundamentalists who stick it out and finish this book may be offended by perceived “sacrilege,” and a few neurons and synapses may be singed in the “religion modules” of their brains. First rate book!
Gullivers Travels & Fantastic Voyage……!!
..make for a whopping good read! Our intrepid hero, a Justice of the Peace/ Magistrate in the Philly Suburbs, gets cancer, and his wife, a professional pet-lover, dies while avoiding a dog on a termite infested bridge. He decides he’s had enough, he wishes to take on God, 2 miles long and recently comatosely discovered, to Court, at the Hagues’ International Court of Justice. At first, this seems too large a task, until he is assisted by a strange Harvard professor who made millions writing children’s books. This same professor takes on the “Not Guilty” side, and this begins our journey through on a hallunicatory, fanatastic, trip through good and evil. Journeying through the Body and Mind of God Himself, we meet the “platonic/ideal” visions of Adam, Even, Lot’s Wife, St. Augustine, the Devil, and many others. At the trial, we witness some very serious discussions on the nature of good and evil, as some expert witnesses are brought along. This is a real mesmorizer,a book that should last a very long time! The ending may be a slight disappointment, but given the circumstances, is as fair as one could expect.
Light a Candle
I’ve now read all three books of Morrow’s trilogy and think that Blameless in Abaddon is the best of the three. Each book is quite good and contributes to the overall plot and set of ideas behind this uncanny device: namely, the dead body of God. Morrow exploits this idea with aplomb, giving us a comprehensive and thorough analysis of God’s presence in the modern world and the various issues associated with this. For believers and non-believers alike, these ideas need to be carefully surveyed.Blameless in Abaddon seems to be the most philosophical of the three novels and does a fine job explaining theodicy and its various `solutions.’ Theodicy is a philosophical/theological concept that tries to rectify the existence of God (a given in this plotline) with the existence of evil (a given everywhere). The traditional formulation goes: since evil exists then either God is not all good or God is not all powerful. A number of theologians have tried to rectify the existence of evil as: 1) instructive for our spiritual development; 2) unavoidable in the structure of the universe; 3) due to our capacity of free will (and thus our own doing, not God’s); 4) an illusion.
While theology can sometimes seem abstract, Morrow achieves a fine balance between providing the details of these matters within the context of fiction and character development. These theological matters are of great significance and do affect how people think about God and the world. Morrow’s main character in this book, Martin Candle, is enraged with God and is trying to convict him before the entire world. In order to do so, he needs to explain why it is unforgivable that God has allowed so much evil and further provide true evidence of this evil to sway judges and jury alike.
To the list of righteous and spiritually advanced dissenters-from Job to Ivan Karamazov-we can now add Martin Candle, aka Blameless in Abaddon.
Don’t read it if you’re hypochondriac
Great novel, great writing, great cynical sense of humour. Definitely a page turner. Sort of an “Answer to Job” of the modern day with a twist. Don’t read it if you’re hypochondriac though, I mean seriously.
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