Subject: Postview: "Live From Golgotha" by Gore Vidal

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 20:16:53 GMT

The Gospel According to St Benny Hill :
	"Live From Golgotha" by Gore Vidal
	Review Copyright 1996 paul-michael agapow

The Hacker, a super information terrorist, is systematically corrupting
every copy of the Gospels.  Worse still this is actually changing history as
we know it.  The aged St Timothy is visited by a hologram of St Paul (due to
the kind assistance of a 20th century media conglomerate) and is asked to
write down and conceal a copy of the gospels.  Timothy is confused.  The
actions of Hacker seem to be altering his own memories and anyway, he has no
direct experience of the reportedly unphotogenic Christ.  With multiple
parties running interference and juggling contracts, he prepares to for a
live broadcast of the crucifixion.

To be blunt: this is no "Towing Jehovah."  Neither is it "Stranger in a
Strange Land."  Hell, it's not even "Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier."

"Live From Golgotha" is a broad satire, "broad" being used in the same sense
as when fat people are called "big boned."  The apostles cavort endlessly in
polyamorous couplings, with the whole church coming across as some bisexual
mutual support society.  St Timothy frets endlessly about his penis while
his wife becomes addicted to cable TV. Jesus' halitosis and weight problem
present network directors with a problem.  The disciplines roll from town to
town in a sort of travelling medicine show, extorting money from the
gullible.

The question is not whether you find this offensive but whether it is
entertaining, and it's not.  This sort of cluttered broadside might be
construed as an iconoclastic and outrageous parody, but that would be an
overestimate of its cleverness.  There are portions that are certainly
amusing -- intellectual cafe society in Palestine, Shirley MacLaine
travelling back to a previous reincarnation -- but basically it's far too
scattergun to work.  The plot is also fairly nonsensical.  Far from being a
logical chain of events, it just happens.

An interesting idea laid waste to and not recommended.  A house burnt down
to the stumps on the Sid and Nancy scale.

%A Gore Vidal
%B Live From Golgotha
%I Abacus
%C New York
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-349-10478-6
%P 248pp
%O paperback, Aus$14.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
"There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and
desire."