The Stupidest Angel

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
© 2004 Christopher Moore
288 pages

In another Christmas story, Dale Pearson, evil developer, self-absorbed woman hater, and seemingly unredeemable curmudgeon, might by visited in the night by a series of ghosts who, by showing him bleak visions of Christmas future, past, and present, would bring about in him a change to generosity, kindness, and a general warmth toward his fellow man. But this is not that kind of Christmas story, so here, in not too many pages, someone is going to dispatch the miserable son of a bitch with a shovel. That's the spirit yet to come in these parts. Ho, ho, ho.

It's Christmas in quiet Pine Grove, California: the Salvation Army bell-ringers are being walloped by sacks of ice, husbands and wives are at each other's throats, and someone just buried Santa Claus in the woods. Looks like this town needs a Christmas miracle to get back into the spirit of things.  Good thing Heaven always sends an angel to Earth to perform exactly one miracle at the behest of a child every Christmas week. Unfortunately, the angel this year is Raziel, a celestial servant as bright as a bag of rocks. His attempt at restoring Christmas goes wrong -- terribly wrong. Hilariously wrong.

Christopher Moore digs into his back of goodies and bestows upon the reader heaping amounts of absurdism. This starts with the characters, two of whom are a married couple consisting of a hippie constable and a legendary if retired porn actress known as the Warrior Woman, who's just schizophrenic enough to chop down the world's tallest pine tree with her own broadsword in the name of the Worm God. Everyone in this town acts as though they're in a Monty Python sketch. The narrator   is just as eccentric as the lives it details: halfway through the book, it pauses to look at the Christmas photos of the main characters, and some chapters consist of nothing but the local community of decaying corpses in the church cemetery talking to themselves -- gossiping, mostly. I manage to avoid any spoilers, and when I realized just how the angel's miracle had gone wrong, I hit the floor in mirth.

Short and sweet, a laugh-out-loud treat for Christmas time.

Related:

• The Stupidest Angel at TvTropes
• Unshelved Book Club Promo (Possibly ruinous spoilers)

A Dirty Job

A Dirty Job
© 2006 Christopher Moore
400 pages

When the Devil is too busy,

and Death's a bit too much

They call on me, by name you see --

For my special touch. 

(Voltaire, "When You're Evil")

Charlie Asher is the last person you might expect to find stealing into the homes of the deceased, looking for beloved possessions to make off with. He's a typical Beta male -- a timid, nonconfrontational "nice guy" who survives on intelligence and disarming kindness rather than brute strength. All he ever wanted out of life was the love of a beautiful woman and the chance to keep his late father's secondhand store in business, but he saw someone he should not have seen -- Death, in the form of a tall dark stranger wearing a minty green suit standing at his wife's bedside in the hospital, where she has just given birth. The startled stranger soon vanishes, along with her favorite CD. She won't be needing it anymore, for she is now dead: killed by a blood clot in her brain formed during labor. No one else sees Death, not even the hospital security tapes -- but Charlie did, and now along with the demanding responsbility of taking care of a newborn by himself, he will soon be drafted into the ranks of Death.

The minty green stranger is not in fact Death himself: the "Big D" has been gone for centuries. Forces unknown compel those among the living, like Charlie and Minty Fresh (the hospital visitor's proper name), to seek out the dying and protect their souls. The souls attach themselves to beloved posessions, and "Death Merchants" -- Minty's name for his coworkers -- collect these posessions and deliver them to their new bodies as soon as possible, thus facilitating in reincarnation. It's a dirty job, but important -- for if souls are not protected by the likes of Charlie, they become food for the Forces of Darkness. Like the imprisoned Titans, these forces cannot be allowed to gain any strength, lest they invade Earth and chaos ensue. Charlie's life, never an epitome of normalcy -- not with mildly but lovably insane employees -- becomes increasing strange. His neighborhood and city are soon home to sinister voices from below and menacing birds from above. Charlie is a  Death Merchant in a prophetic time, one in which a great battle is predicted to be fought in San Francisco -- one that will end with the rise of a new "Big D". The Death Merchants have no real idea as for whom that might signify a victory.

As Charlie settles into his role as a father and death merchant through the next six years, the predicted battle draws closer. Physical manifestations of dark spirits are able to take to the streets of San Francisco, feeding on the souls Charlie and others miss. As dark forces are wont to do, they delight in wreaking havoc. Charlie's daughter becomes an object of attention to two massive hell hounds named Alvin and Muhammad -- and then matters just get weird, culminating in a desperate drive to the Three Jewels Buddhist Center.

For a book about death, A Dirty Job is surprisingly funny, both darkly and absurdly so. Moore's dialog is particularly effective, and the characters here are more developed than in Lamb. A plot twist at the climax made for a delicious surprise, giving the endgame new vigor. If you're looking for an entertaining novel, A Dirty Job will delight.

Lamb

Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
© 2002 Christopher Moore
408 pages

"What?" [Joshua] said. "What? What? What?"

"Master, you're walking on the water," said Peter.

"I just ate," Joshua said. "You can't go into the water for an hour after you eat. You could get a cramp.What, none of you guys have mothers?"  - 357

As soon as I heard of Lamb‘s premise, I knew that I wanted to read it, and so I was indeed pleased to learn that my local library held a copy for me. Levi, Jesus of Nazareth’s lifelong best friend, has been called forth from the grave to render an account of Jesus’ life for the edification (and entertainment) of humanity. Cloistered in a hotel room and guarded by a not-too-bright ex-Angel of Death with a weakness for soap operas, Levi -- or as he prefers to be called, “Biff” -- tells us of how he and his friend Joshua -- rendered from Yeshua -- met, grew up together, and pursued his divine destiny.

Although the book begins with childhood, their journey together starts on the eve of their 13th birthdays, when the angel appears and tells Joshua that he must seek out his divinity. Joshua and Biff seek out the wisest rabbi they know, only to be turned away by the curmudgeon* and directed to seek out the three wisemen who visited him at his birth. Although their journey begins in the small town of Nazareth, it will take them to Kabul to learn alchemy, to a remote Buddhist monastery in the mountains of China , and to the coast of India before Josh is ready to return home and take up the mantle of Messiah. Although the book’s reputation for humor initially drew me to it  -- and one well deserved, for this is one of the funniest books I’ve read in over a year -- I was quickly drawn in by the story of Joshua’s and Biff’s maturation as characters.  Joshua matures here more believably than he did in Norman Mailer’s The Gospel According to the Son or in Deepak Chopra’s Jesus, which is somewhat strange given that this book is primarily humor.

Part of the humor comes from Moore treating Biff and Joshua as ordinary young boys and teenagers, who are apt to do, say, and think things that adults find entertaining.  Given that Jesus is such as Serious Historical Figure, it’s humorous to see him acting like a real person with idiosyncrasies. Moore also inserts gobs of in-jokes for his readers -- Mary summoning Joshua by having her image appear on the walls of buildings, for instance, or giving us an explanation for the Easter bunny (namely, Joshua getting a bit tipsy and declaring that whenever something really bad happens to him, bunnies should be around to make it better). Moore also has a strong penchant for absurd and surreal humor in the vein of Monty Python and sometimes offers reinterpretations of biblical events. In the "walking on water" miracle, for instance, Peter traditionally has the faith to join Jesus on the water -- when he loses that faith for a second, he begins sliding underneath the ocean. In Lamb, Joshua invites Peter out on the ocean only to play a practical joke on him.

This is a very strong book, I think -- easily accessible to nonbelievers, while not insulting to believers, unless they object to Joshua acting in human ways, including trying to figure out the mechanics of sex and shooting his mouth off. Although the book is intended as a humorous take on Jesus’ life, the story is compelling by itself: midway into the book, I was completely engrossed in it and its lead characters -- Joshua, Biff, Maggie (Mary Magdalene) and even a few of the supporting characters like the Roman centurion who befriends the leads as children. Further, this is a book I’d like to own myself, just so I could re-read in the future and lend it to friends. If you like to laugh -- give this a try.

"What is your name, Demon?" Joshua asked.

"What would you like it to be?" said the demon.

"You know, I've always been partial to the name Harvey," Joshua said.

"Well, isn't that a coincidence? My name just happens to be Harvey." - 319

* Rabbi Hillel, who grumpily informs them that all they need to know about the Torah is to love thy neighbor as thyself.