I thought it was brilliant writing. Joseph Heller writes from the POV of King David of Israel, but in the tone of a 20th century American Jewish man.

A word of warning: If you are not familiar with I and II Samuel (Old Testament books), you will be hopelessly lost while reading this. ( )

always worth a reread. ( )

Funny, cynical, crazy, delightful ( )

A good book from the first chapter to last, true, its a vintage Heller! ( )

57. God Knows by Joseph Heller (1984, 356 pages, read Sep 12 – Nov 7)

I'm not going to give Heller his due in these comments. This book was brutal for me get through, although in the end it came around and left some kind of positive impression.

A very elderly King David, cold and unable to get warm, lies on his bed and reflects on his life in an all knowing sort of way - past and future. He constantly argues with his future reputation, comments on such things as the famous Renaissance statues of David and so on. He's a cantankerous selfish bastard who curses left and right and has little to nothing we might convey moral or compassionate, and lacks any type of contrition. He's still bitter that God stopped speaking him after David had Uriah killed so he could marry Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. The novel follows the biblical story to the finest detail, including pronouncing both exaggerations and many things only subtly implied as factual.

All this is apparent in the first ten pages or so, and that is where the book lost me. I don't find the idea of a cantankerous David all that unique or interesting. Any intended shock effect fell flat on me. And, having just read the biblical version (I actually started while in the middle of Samuel) I had all the biblical details pretty clearly in my mind. I didn't need the lengthy refresher. It was only when the book embellished that it was able to maintain my attention - but there really wasn't that much of that. So I struggled.

So, what is going on here. David's narrative is obsessed with Bathsheba. He reads her in depth, sees that she has emotionally turned away from him and fully knows that her only interest in David now is to get him to place her son as next in line in succession, even though the actual next in line is Solomon's older brother, Adonijah. It's through Bathsheba that David reveals his human side, where real emotions come to surface. He has a complicated kind of love of for her, and an intense longing for her in ways that are past. But he can't reach her. In David's thinking about her the book becomes an exploration of the things we desire that are out of reach, simply impossible, and how we might consider compromising our lives just to maybe try to lean closer to them. We know what David is going to do, but we have to wonder exactly why.

There are many cute details in here offering different implications, such as when David is served tacos for dinner...yes tacos. It's a playful mixing of what is normal at present into the past where it's outrageous. This seems to hint that Heller is using this to explore something more modern, likely writing about himself and his life through David. It's so interesting a idea that I spent a lot of energy trying to see that in the book...but mostly I failed. Should I read it again?

What won me over in the end was when I finally began to see and appreciate what Bathsheba really meant to David and began to tangle with his inability to get her back...or to stop wanting her. In the end I was moved.

2012
http://www.librarything.com/topic/138560#3746471 ( )