Books.

A couple of weekends ago, I finished reading LAMB, by Christopher Moore. It's a mostly humorous, but also touching fictional account of Jesus's life from age 6 to 33, as told by his best friend and companion, Biff. It's mostly off-the cuff, wacky interpretations of how Jesus (in the book, called by the anglicanized version of his Hebrew name: Joshua) might have come up with some of his ideas of non-violence and compassion. Written in a satirical, Douglas Adams-like style, it's hardly what you would call a serious scholarly work. All the same, the ending-- though I knew what was coming-- left me deeply sad for days.

I don't think I'm giving anything away here to say that Joshua dies in the end. You all know the story from the bible, but imagine, if you will, the crucifixion of Christ seen, not from the viewpoint of his disciples, but of his friend, companion and guardian of 27 years-- someone who sees him, not so much as a leader he greatly admires, but as his best friend; someone who had rarely left his side for more than a few hours since childhood. Biff had no concept of a life without Joshua, no desire or reason to go on living without him and when he realized that his friend was going to die, and he could do nothing to save him, he was overcome with terror and despair. When he actually witnesses the Roman soldier piercing his friend with the spear, he begins to scream, and the other disciples must wisk him away so that the Romans don't kill him as well. Hours later, still utterly lost, he is unable to locate the source of constant screaming he hears in the background among the mourners until, finally, a hand is clamped over his own mouth, stifling the noise, and he realizes it has been coming from him.

After I finished the book, I hugged my friend for a bit and wondered if she could tell that I was trying to keep myself from crying.

It is before this mood has left me entirely that I begin reading Howard Zinn's, A People's History of The United States. This work too, which attempts to tell the story of our Nation's past from the point of view of the oppressed and downtrodden, is hardly chipper. It begins with the curious, generous, weaponless and friendly tribe of natives who greet the arrival of Columbus's ship and are taken prisoner, beaten, dismembered and killed in the name of conquest, progress and-- of course-- profit. This is no "liberal", distorted conjecture. The passages describing this, and the next 300 or so years of atrocity are primary source material, taken from the journals of Columbus and others on his voyage. Only a few years after his landing, of the tribes of men and women who greeted him in Cuba and Hispanola, none remain. It was genocide, utter and complete.

Guess today was one of those days where life just didn't seem so sunny. As you can imagine, at my friend's Oscar party, I was a bit of a drag...