Behold the Man

The madman, the prophet, Karl Glogauer, the time-traveller, the neurotic psychiatrist manqué, the searcher for meaning, the masochist, the man with a death-wish and the messiah-complex, the anachronism, made his way through the market place gasping for breath.He had seen the man he had sought. He had seen Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph.He had seen a man he recognized without any doubt as a congenital imbecile.

I wasn't expecting much from this novella at all. I wasn't in the mood to continue reading other stuff so I picked this off the shelf as it's quite short. Boy, was I not expecting it to be this good. Best comparison I can come up with is that one of the characters out of Milan Kundera's books travelled through time to meet Jesus.

Karl is extremely flawed narcissist drowning in toxic relationships and with nothing left to lose. So he decides to be guinea pig and gets stuck in the past one year before Jesus' crucifixion. But things aren't as they are suppose to be. Book description hints at it, it's obvious almost since the beginning. He needs to arrange historical events as they are remembered (more or less) because the real Jesus is not there to do it.

Karl's life is brutal but at the same time it's a dark comedy. Parts from Jesus' era are alternating with Karl's past in the 20th century. His childhood, adolescence and adulthood. His parents, his relationships with women. All mixed together with a few Bible quotes from apostles.

Some parts reminded me of Kundera's Immortality in their rawness and brutality that only life can bring and only a talented author can describe this well. The book definitely isn't for everyone. Hell, I dislike organized religion, think the notion of God as western religions see him makes no sense. And yet I absolutely loved this book because it's not about God. Not at all. It's about Man. A selfish flawed neurotic Man with messiah-complex. This is what surprised me the most. It's not shallow, it goes deep into Man's soul.

I've only read two of Elric's books so I did not expect Moorcock to be this great of a writer. I need to check more of his works. The guy wrote like crazy. He released 7 (S E V E N !) novels in 1976 on top of two edited collections. Even if all of them were as short as this book the number is insane. And it's not like he stopped before or after. Some authors should get inspired...