theremightbecupcakes's Reviews (2.86k)

I wanted to finish this novel. The narrator, Amy Landon, has a soothing voice, and understood Beth’s emotional remove from others and what that might sound like. The author, Walter Tevis, has given us other important American stories turned into landmark films such as The Hustler, The Color of Money, and The Man Who Fell to Earth. 

But.

I truly believe you need to understand chess to follow this novel’s progression. Many of Beth’s plays, and tournaments’ rules and activities, are given without any explanation, which is frustrating. Plus, there is so much alcohol abuse, without it pressing forward the story. Both Beth and her mother drink beer like mother, often in physically impossible quantities and in a method of communication with each other and with other people. I am not sensitive to alcohol abuse or alcoholism per se, but even I became very uncomfortable with the frequency of it. I became so hyperaware of it that it took me out of the book.

This feels…complicated. It’s a reimagining of the Gospels by an atheist. Also by an amazing creative writer. You see the intense complexity.

Much of the book was, to use a rural Pentecostal phrase, “in the Word”. Then it all takes a dark, weird turn.

The author makes Jesus and Christ into twins, born on the same familiar night under the same miraculous star. Christ is visited by a stranger, who is never identified as human, angel, or demon, who tells him to document Jesus’ activity and words, and then to betray him in order to kickstart the Kingdom. Both their names will be known for all time, as it was meant to be.

I am an Episcopalian, so I don’t feel fundamentally uncomfortable with having had read this book as other Christians might. I love religious discourse of all kinds. But I didn’t like it. In some parts, it felt true to Jesus’ ministry, and even respectful and loving. In others, it seemed to claim that the Gospels were full of lying details (“there’s history, and then there’s the truth”), the truth nudged like clay to make things happen. In those parts, it felt…mocking, rather than creative or even exploring a historical theory. There was a sharp unpleasant turn in tone that surprised me.

My main problem with this book was that my professional mind kept pulling me out of the story, proclaiming, "Alaska's bipolar". I'd mutter, "Yes, yes, now hush," and it would insist, "But she is, look how she--" and then I'd have to smack it.

Edit: After much thought (and reading another John Green novel), I've realized that, no, it wasn't me, it was the writing. Her bipolar disorder was being telegraphed so loudly that it distracted from my reading the book.