The Messiah
Book description
When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Gore Vidal's deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Messiah as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I didn’t know that this celebrated author had published such a readable novel on this intriguing topic as long ago as 1955.
In a page-turning narrative that cuts near to the bone in the way it presents the modes through which a modern religious cult is conceived and launched into the world, Vidal employs the kind of attention to imagined historical detail that we find in his better-known slightly later novel Julian (based upon the real-life figure of Julian the Apostate).
The Messiah is actually about a still highly relevant subject – where do the truth and the power behind…
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