[Erfael]

The discussion is now open for Towing Jehovah. The end of the month snuck up on me this time, so I haven't been in touch with Yobmod about opening questions. We'll have those up in a day or two.

[Raule]

I do intend to read this. I finally got my order with the book. I have two other books to read first, though, so I'll come back - probably mid-month - once I've had a chance to read it.

[Gildor]

I shall ramble on for a bit, as their don’t seem to be any specific questions as of yet ..

Now this is what I call outlandish fiction. The basic premise being that God has died, and his body needs transporting to his resting place. Brilliant! In terms of a central idea this is a great theme to take, risqué, blatantly offensive to religion. Yet the book does have some shortfalls.

It Often borders on the ludicrously inane, the characters are quite flat, and are very type cast, though this can work both ways, as he shows at the end which I found quite touching and heartfelt, something which really wasn’t present in any other segments of the book, where you didn't really connect with the very polemic people, I got the sense they were simply there to represent a viewpoint or an ideal.

Yet, I found it a very funny book, and in a satirical ironic tone, that has some surreal and quite often hilarious moments, you really start to connect with the story, well you would when the central theme is of towing God by his ears from the back of an oil tanker. The method settled for singing God was genius, and the WW2 Aviation society thing was very surreal, just how far they took they whole thing, and the recreation of the time and period, with all those impersonators being.

There was a few scenes however that was just so ludricously bad, i'm refereing to the sex scene in the map room, I don't know If he did it on purpose, but it was just so odd ... yet very funny at the same time.

'Rolling towards the Caymans'
'As they glided into the Bahia de Alcudi'
'Anthony Van Horne, a ship with a mission'
(I don't think I could write any more)
I LMAO!!! :D

Plus it got quite strange when they ran the tanker aground on that island that had appeared from no where, was that Island some kind of re surfaced Atlantis, I wasn’t sure. The graphically indulgent wacky pagan pornography, being the things the maddened crew got up to.

Yet I enjoyed it quite a good deal, the strange sentimentality jarred in places, but it didn't detract too much.

[starry-eyed]

I would like to say in my defense that I really tried to read this book. During a week of vacation, and even as the sole source of entertainment on a 5 hour plane ride I still couldn't get into it. My problem: bored to tears. None of the characters held any interest for me- I just didn't care about them or the plot.

I liked the satirical premise that god has died so how does the world react. I just didnt really go for the author's style. Morrow's characters were awfully dull (Glinder's comment of flat says it all) and I was either not getting the jokes or skimming instead of reading by the time there were any. Anthony's "voice" in his journals always seemed wrong- the character we first met and his inner thoughts didn't match. Not funny enough to make me laugh and not serious enough to provoke thought.

Maybe I just didn't give a fair shot, but I tried.

[Eventine]

I finished this last night. I thought it was a pretty interesting book - I really have to wonder how many death threats Morrow received over it.
I didn't go into expecting the humour either - I actually laughed out loud at a few of the scenes involving the WW2 recreation group. What a bunch of nutters.
The concept, though, is always going to be the main point of discussion for this novel. There's nothing more controversial to discuss than religion, and this book definitely throws the cat in with the pigeons.
I didn't have any problem with the two main characters (Anthony and the priest), I thought they were sufficient as a vehicle for the plot. Most of the background characters, with the exception of Neil, didn't really stand out, so the Island section was a bit wasted on me - I couldn't remember who any of these people were, let alone why I should care that they were acting as they did. Even the love interest was a bit bland and nonsensical.
In terms of the philosophical/religous side of things, I'm not very religious so while some of the ideas presented were interesting, I feel they would have more effect on someone who had more care for those factors in their life. There was a point at the start that I liked when the priest pointed out that at least they knew they were the true religion and the Vatican guys were aghast that he'd had doubts.
I'm sure that some people would get upset over the whole sacrament thing on the island - for me it was just gross, but I shudder to think how offended some people could be over that.

I, like Gildor, thought that sex scene was pretty average and should've been nominated for that award they give every year for poor sex scenes in literature. Was it supposed to be that corny?

One of my favourite moments was when I realised that the cruiser chasing them was captained by Anthony's father, and that it was going to turn up at roughly the same time as the WW2 nutters.

[FicusFan]

I read this book many years ago. I was expecting it to be funnier than I found it. I loved the idea of having to deal with god's dead body. There was a lot going on, and I don't know if he tried to do too much, or what the issue was.

I didn't really care about the characters, perhaps because the story was about the idea of a dead god, and the characters were just window dressing. The story itself had some interesting parts, but overall got too wacky to take seriously, yet to me wasn't funny enough to give it a pass.

This book is actually part of a trilogy: Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abaddon, and The Eternal Footman. The second book to me is funnier, sort of the Protestant response to a dead deity. They open a theme park on the corpse. I have yet to read the last book, but I think by then it is only the skull that is left.

I am sure Morrow is saying something about religion and society, but I just couldn't get enough distance to see what he was getting at other than the extremely obvious.

[JJ_99uk]

I have to say I thought this book was just too weird to be that funny.
The premise was great, but he just didn't seem to do much with it, other than throw a whole load of random stuff at it...

I'm not actually religious at all, but I found myself wincing at some of the scenes- the whole reverse sacrament just seemed to be in somewhat bad taste, if you'll pardon the expression. I wouldn't have minded if Morrow had been going somewhere with it, but as FicusFan just said, it's quite difficult to see what point, if any he's trying to make...

[Eventine]

Maybe it's the lack of belief that's preventing us from "getting" this novel. Would a Catholic, or a lapsed Catholic, find more outrage or humour at the contents of this book?

Did all the people who tried to get the movie Dogma banned try and get this book banned as well? If not, why not?