casting the gods adrift
May 25, 2011 1 Comment
I’ve been meaning to praise Geraldine McCaughrean’s Casting the Gods Adrift, which is what we’re currently reading for family book time. I have yet to read a book by McCaughrean I don’t want to praise. She’s so good at finding the dramatic angle. And my wife describes her writing as "liquid prose."
After the missus read us a chapter at the end of dinner, I was acknowledging the author’s ability to make me care about Pharaoh Akhenaten‘s “heresy” — emphasizing that it’s difficult for me to imagine caring about these gods I don’t believe in.
Not-quite-5-year-old Benjamin said, "You don’t believe in the Egyptian gods? I do!"
"And do you believe in the Greek gods?" I asked.
"Yes."
"And do you believe in the God of the Hebrews who said that all these other gods don’t exist?"
"Yes," said Benjamin, "but He didn’t say the other gods don’t exist; He just said that you can’t have any gods before Him!"
Serves me right for teaching him the Bible. So — will he be a biblical scholar or a lawyer?
“Yes,” said Benjamin, “but He didn’t say the other gods don’t exist; He just said that you can’t have any gods before Him!”
Hohohohoho!!!
That reminds me of a tiny joke book, “Little Kip” in the Marvel Mini Book series – the world’s smallest comics, say some sellers – I got from a gumball machine c. 1968. From it, I still recall one of the … world’s smallest jokes: “Were you named after your father?” “Of course – I couldn’t have been named before him, could I?” I’ve been adapting it ever since, in describing a repeated quote or adaptation as “after” Famous Dead Person X, and for the same counter-anachronist incapacity to have been before said immortal …