The Fire Gospel (Canongate Myths)

Dec 15, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Review placeholder.... too busy grading....

Faber's novel is more novel-ish, maybe novelette, an update of the Prometheus legend for the Myths series. A tightly-wound, underwhelming scholar of Aramaic happens upon a lost gospel, and translates--dreaming of big bucks and fame, but unleashing hell. The book contains the pleasures I normally associate with Faber: sly descriptions (a man "smoked hurriedly, without pleasure, as though he were standing at a bus stop and had mere seconds to finish the t...more Review placeholder.... too busy grading....

Faber's novel is more novel-ish, maybe novelette, an update of the Prometheus legend for the Myths series. A tightly-wound, underwhelming scholar of Aramaic happens upon a lost gospel, and translates--dreaming of big bucks and fame, but unleashing hell. The book contains the pleasures I normally associate with Faber: sly descriptions (a man "smoked hurriedly, without pleasure, as though he were standing at a bus stop and had mere seconds to finish the thing off before the bus left without him") and a baldly bleak yet strangely generous sense of human failings.

Some reviewers have harped--positively or negatively--on the book's heavy-handed satire, and whether tilting at publishing, academics, the book-buying hoi polloi, or the faithful, Faber is lobbing darts at easy targets, no doubt. I loved the satire... but the book would feel thin if only concerned with taunts and jeers.

First, SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER.

Jesus dies in the discovered gospel. A fairly mortal death -- leaking and spewing fluids onto the few faithful down below, and actually seeking dispatch (asking for, not naming, an end), and then finally agonizingly dying. And the miraculous rebirth is promised, rather than witnessed... thus sparking the present-day conflagrations, the faithful driven to skepticism or a renewed (and vicious) belief. Such could easily be taken as potshots and armchair blasphemy, and I'd be okay with that, lacking faith (or, rather, not desiring or possessing faith) myself.

But I happen to have read this just a day before finding out a close friend had been diagnosed with cancer. A pretty rough discovery--she's very young, and it's further spread than you'd want. I have no idea of the prognosis... but it's grim. I found Faber's vision, lurking in my memory, tremendously reassuring. For all its derision about the laughable grotesqueries of the body, even "His" body, the novel is, I think, profoundly concerned with with the way our desires seek always to satisfy yet escape their gross material limtations. We crave some escape from the blood and shit, yet hunger desperately for the sex and food and many carnal satisfactions, and this bind is one so fully human, so fully realized in even this brief little distraction from Faber, that I found a kind of renewed hope in my sense of the human. Not the vaunted and vaulted "Human," but the human of assholes and handshakes and cheap flings and the sadness of our own decay. It's strange to say, but the Promethean bargain Faber outlines is to recognize that our aspirations (for that other pure spiritual truth or knowledge) are not divorced from the pain and suffering, but fully embodied through them.

I'm rambling. And this ramble--and this book--would do my faith-strong friend no good. But for this snickering atheist, Faber's about the best kind of spiritual guide I could want. (less)

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Apr 10, 2009 Jason rated it 1 of 5 stars

Very disappointed in this book; it had immense potential for a scathing commentary on current media marketing and religious lassitude. Unfortunately, the characters were rather pat (loser breaking up with his girlfriend, nutty Christians) and there was little else to offer. The plot moves quickly, but takes some rather unbelievable jumps. Also, the "translations" offered by the main character of the Book of Malchus simply don't read well. The problem is, if Faber intended this as a wry commentar...more

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Apr 26, 2011 John Champneys rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebooks, satire

I purchase this over the Christmas period as a present to myself, after liking the review, and because it was going for such a bargain price. As soon as I'd done that, I squirreled it away in the archives and forgot all about it.
I'd previously been reading my way through The Diviner's Tale by Bradford Morrow, and was feeling soggy and saturated by the time I'd reached the end and as I was looking for something short and cheery I felt this Fire Gospel might just be the thing to dry me out and war...more

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Feb 01, 2009 Alfonso rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: an ape

Shelves: fiction, home-library

**********Spoiler Alert*********

This book had so much potential and it let me down. Faber is great with description and even though I did not like the book his writing kept me moving along. I know that the book is fictional, yet I was not able to believe the premise of the story and did not care for the character. First I had a problem with the fact that he happened to be an expert in Aramaic who finds these lost gospels in Aramaic after in explosion in an Iraqi museum and then he is able to smu...more **********Spoiler Alert*********

This book had so much potential and it let me down. Faber is great with description and even though I did not like the book his writing kept me moving along. I know that the book is fictional, yet I was not able to believe the premise of the story and did not care for the character. First I had a problem with the fact that he happened to be an expert in Aramaic who finds these lost gospels in Aramaic after in explosion in an Iraqi museum and then he is able to smuggle them out of Iraq in his brief case through at least 2 check points into Canada. Then he is able to translate the text within a week and he happens to be an atheist. Now that may not sound like a bad start to a book, but everything happened so fast and easy. He then tries to shop the idea of the Gospels for a book, and publishers turn him down except for a small publisher that advances him $250,000 for content that could be life changing and generate so much interest because it is the find of the century. Throughout the whole time, Theo does not worry about or mention the fact that he stole the gospels and someone might want to sue him or kill him to get them back. He just goes about his life reading reviews from Amazon, which Michel Faber actually writes some reviews in the book about the Fire Gospels. Theo goes about thinking about his ex-girlfriend, sleeps with one of his publishers escort, and does signings at Borders and Barnes & Noble. Jump to the end, he is held captive by a Christian and a Muslim who think that these Gospels will lead people to Judaism. So they make Theo say that he made it all up so that people will not believe the book. Oh, he keeps these 2,000 year old scrolls in his apartment unattended without the proper precautions to handle these rare and ancient scrolls. While he is held captive, Theo's mind wanders without any real thought to his own mortality. No serious discussion is made into the impact that his finding has had on the whole of the population of believers and non-believers. My girlfriend also pointed out the clever use of the name "Theo" as in Theology for the main character. I could have seen this book go in so many directions and wished that it did. (less)

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Mar 12, 2009 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars

AT first glance, The Fire Gospel looks like the latest in the inslaught of Da Vinci Code-type historical thrillers about dashing professors who save the world by solving ancient mysteries.

But that would be underestimating author Michel Faber, whose bestselling 2003 novel The Crimson Petal And The White tuned the Victorian novel on its head. In The Fire Gospel, he destroys all of Dan Brown's novelistic conventions in this darkly funny send-up of the genre.

Meet potbellied, grumpy, freshly-dumped T...more AT first glance, The Fire Gospel looks like the latest in the inslaught of Da Vinci Code-type historical thrillers about dashing professors who save the world by solving ancient mysteries.

But that would be underestimating author Michel Faber, whose bestselling 2003 novel The Crimson Petal And The White tuned the Victorian novel on its head. In The Fire Gospel, he destroys all of Dan Brown's novelistic conventions in this darkly funny send-up of the genre.

Meet potbellied, grumpy, freshly-dumped Theo Griepenkerl. An academic from the Toronto Institute of Classical Studies, he is in Iraq on a mission to persuade the tiresome curator of an Iraq museum to loan his institute some of the exhibits when a bomb explodes, killing the curator.

In an example of the sardonic humour that pervades the book, Faber writes: "Theo wished he'd been a little warmer to him, not quite so guarded. It seemed sinful to have considered somebody a pain in the ass two minutes before they got killed."

But that's not all that happens. A hollow sculpture of a pregnant goddess is cracked open in the blast, and on the floor lie nine papyrus scrolls. They are written in Aramaic, the language Theo happens to be one of the world's leading experts in: "The coincidence of finding an Aramaic memoir - to have it literally falling at his feet - at a highly dramatic moment in his life, was too astounding to ignore."

Even more astoundingly, the scrolls just happen to be the letters written by a man named Malchus who, in between describing his physical ailments -- "My flesh is yellow, my eyes are yellow, the hairs fall from my head, and my innards make noises when all else is quiet" -- talks about his beloved saviour, Jesus, whom he personally knew.

Not only was Malchus in the garden of Gethsemane when Judas betrayed Jesus, he was present at Golgatha when Jesus lay dying on the cross. Jesus' last words, he writes, were not "It is finished" but "Please, somebody, please finish me."

This explosive material, translated by Theo along with copious footnootes, transforms the former loser into a bestselling author who has sexy women falling into bed with him. Faber takes a knowing dig or two at the circus that is the publishing world, such as when Theo's publisher gives him the snappy nom de plume of Theo Grippen, and when his book is displayed "amongst the latest bestsellers about sexy criminologists, celebrity footballers, loveable drug addicts, conspiracy theories, and the national trauma of 9/11 refracted with unbearable poignancy through a literary fable about an anorexic New York teenager and her imaginary friend Kuki."

But fame, of course, comes with strings attached, and Theo must pay the price for unleashing his controversial discovery onto the world. On a related aside, this slim novel is part of publisher Canongate's ongoing The Myths series, in which ancient myths from different cultures are reimagined by contemporary authors, including Alexander McCall Smith, Margaret Atwood and Su Tong.

As one might guess from the title, the source myth for The Fire Gospel is the myth of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from Zeus to give to humankind, and who was punished by being chained to a rock and having his immortal liver eaten by an eagle everyday. Similarly, Theo gets his comeuppance, though the consequences are too ambiguous to be truly satisfying.

Still, Faber has made the ride so enjoyable that it is hard to begrudge him the shaky landing. And amidst the satire and farce is a meditation on the nature of religion and belief, and how sometimes gaining the truth can be a hollow achievement.

In one of the most unexpectedly poignant parts of the book, a reader writes to Theo on his book's amazon.com page: "In my life as a Christian I had lots of arguments with aetheists and read lots of anti-Christian books and my faith remained strong. It's funny that poor little Malchus, who loved Jesus so much, and you, who don't seem to have any agenda that I can see, should be the ones to turn off the Light of my life. Actually, it's not funny at all... Thanks for nothing."(less)

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Feb 09, 2009 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was first attracted to this book by the title, then by the idea of a "gospel" being discovered that was written 2000 years ago, by someone who actually knew Jesus and was written to tell the truth about his life (more specifically his death), unlike the gospels we know which were probably written a couple hundred years after his death and written with a clear personal agenda. I was also drawn by the fact that it's a small book, unlike the enormous non-fiction tome I am also currently reading a...more

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Feb 05, 2009 LJ rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary_post_1945, international, male_author, novel

THE FIRE GOSPEL (Novelette-Theo Griepenkerl-Int’l-Cont) – Okay
Faber, Michal – standalone
Canongate, 2008, UK Hardcover – ISBN: 9781847672780

First Sentence: The museum curator swung open another antique door and, as if on cue, a lion’s head fell off its body.

Theo Griepenkerl, an expert in Aramaic, is visiting a war-looted museum in Iraq, when a bomb explodes leaving him alone in the museum. While looking for safety, he passes a newly damaged artifact and finds it housed nine papyrus scrolls.
These...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Dana Burgess rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had very high expecttions for the Fire Gospel and it met about half of my expectations. The beginning is gripping and promises high, dangerous adventure. Sadly, the adventure it provides is fairly mundane and not really dangerous ... until the end ... well almost the end. The end end was rather disappointing. What I loved about this book was: the humour - dark, smart, witty, made me chuckle; the exploration of human nature and possible human responses to facts that challenge deeply ingrained b...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Lachlan rated it 4 of 5 stars

After Saramago's Gospel According to Jesus Christ, I've read another gospel book. It couldn't be more different, except that both books present JC as a human being with a natural terror of dying by torture. His last words on the cross were 'Somebody stop this!', at least according to Malchus, who, as you may remember from the Book of John, was a servant of Caiaphas, the high priest who was behind the plot to kill Jesus. The main character of Faber's book is a Canadian linguist and world expert i...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Cora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mythology, religion

On a trip to Iraq to arrange the loan of antiquities, liguistics scholar Theo Griepenkerl discovers nine perfectly preserved papyrus scrolls that contain the eyewitness account of Jesus' last days and his death. Believing he has just found a goldmine, Theo smuggles the scrolls out of Iraq and publishes their translation. The publication of the translation, which he calls the Fifth Gospel, brings much more than fame and fortune to Theo. The account contradicts some of the information from the Bib...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Damaskcat rated it 3 of 5 stars

Theo – a Canadian academic – comes close to losing his life when visiting a museum in Iraq which is bombed. He finds some miraculously well preserved scrolls in the wreckage written in Aramaic from the time of Christ and takes them with him back to Canada. He realises when he starts to translate the scrolls that he has discovered something of vital importance – the fifth gospel written by an eye witness to the death of Christ on the cross.

Theo manages to land a lucrative publishing deal and find...more

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May 10, 2012 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John … and Malchus. The discovery of an ancient text by an Aramaic scholar is the basis for this fun story which winds its way from the war-torn buildings of Mosul in Iraq to the publishing houses and cities of the USA.

The ancient text at the centre of the story is another Gospel – this one written within just a handful of years of the death of Jesus by one who was right there – unlike the accepted gospels which were written some 30-50 years after the events. Malchus – does...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

Full review here.
If you wanted to be churlish, you might accuse Canongate of slightly cheating when it comes to this novel. Clocking in at 200ish pages of large, wide margined text in hardback, this is really more of a novella, and has much more of a short story feel than something like The Crimson Petal and the White, or even Under the Skin (his first novel, which was adapted from a short story – a fact that becomes kind of apparent with a bit of a panicky, tacked on ending, even while the whol...more Full review here.
If you wanted to be churlish, you might accuse Canongate of slightly cheating when it comes to this novel. Clocking in at 200ish pages of large, wide margined text in hardback, this is really more of a novella, and has much more of a short story feel than something like The Crimson Petal and the White, or even Under the Skin (his first novel, which was adapted from a short story – a fact that becomes kind of apparent with a bit of a panicky, tacked on ending, even while the whole novel is still excellent). But if you didn't get it out of the library like a sucker, you'd still have forked £12.99 out for it. It's not very literary to mind about 'value for money', and of course there's more to it than a simple word count, but still, guys, come on. There's a limit to the number of notes I'm going to want to write down the side. I could fit another novel in there.

Anyway, that's a minor, tight-fisted quibble, but there's no getting away from the fact that this book also does feel a bit like an eked out short story. That in mind, it's still an entertaining and intelligent read. Theo Griepenkerl, an Aramaic scholar with a failing love-life and a fairly unsympathetic penchant for self-pity, discovers a perfectly-preserved scroll in an Iraqi museum during a bomb blast. Eschewing the normal channels for academic discovery, Theo smuggles it back to the US to translate it himself, only to find that he has stumbled on a fifth gospel of Christ's life. Despite the incendiary nature of the material, Theo struggles to get it published - Malchus, the gospel's author, has an irritating classical chronicler's tendency to write about his bowel complaints and parental disputes alongside his more incendiary revelations about Christ's final moments. (As a past student of Medieval History I loved this touch - medieval chroniclers are all about the digestive transit and 'nocturnal emissions' as well as the deifying. This is pretty much the only thing I actually retained from my studies.) But he finally manages it through a niche publisher, the book becomes a bestseller, and Theo becomes an overnight sensation, albeit a controversial one. Without giving too much away, some of the revelations about Christ are less than palatable to various religious groups, and Theo soon finds himself a target as well as a celebrity.

The view of the literary world is deliberately satirical, making fun of the author's book-tour exhaustion, bafflement at fans, and of course, the fear of the amazon.com review (these particularly tickled me!). But at the same time it satirises the pseudo-religious thriller, the Da Vinci Code style protagonist who uncovers a new truth, only to have the established institutions after him and his inevitably beautiful female new ally. Theo is neither morally upstanding nor wedded to a larger idea of the 'Truth' - he simply wants to get his own back on his girlfriend for leaving him, and maybe make a bit of money too. He briefly meets the Dan Brown-esque sidekick in the beautiful agent's assistant who organises him, provides him with security and of course sleeps with him, but as the plot takes a bizarre and farcical twist away from that formula, she's powerless to follow. So Faber both makes fun of these books, the industry that produces them (he's advised to change his name to 'Theo Grippin' to make it more accessible. And 'gripping', I guess) and the readers who demand a certain kind of satisfaction from them.

Viewed in this way, you can forgive the kind of two-dimensional figures that appear - the shallow, bitchy girlfriend, the cynical, overworked publisher, the unhinged fans and the equally unhinged religious extremists who attack him. As a reworking of the Prometheus myth, it works well - not too didactic, not too slavish to the original. It satirises the notion that world-changing discoveries are necessarily made through noble intentions, but equally shows through the media circus how this modern Promethean fire, this 'inflammatory discovery' ends up being a circular, confused kind of a revelation. It makes an impact, but it doesn't necessarily change the world. That the book ends in a kind of farce is, in a way, the only course of action open to a plot which would otherwise become another religious thriller. Like Malchus's account of Jesus's death, the end is entirely underwhelming, but that is, after all, the point.(less)

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Nov 25, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, magic-realism, lit-english

Fairy tale? Myth? Legend? Religion? What do thses terms means?

Well, I'm not answering the question. You figure it out. But Faber does deal with the question in this book.

Part modern morality tale, Faber's Canongate volume attacks the play of religion in the media? What play I hear you ask? You mean 24 and its Muslim terrorists?

No, though one of the best sections of the book have a Muslim and Christian working together. I mean the whole Shroud of Turin, Da Vini Code, tomb of Jesus' brother, gospe...more Fairy tale? Myth? Legend? Religion? What do thses terms means?

Well, I'm not answering the question. You figure it out. But Faber does deal with the question in this book.

Part modern morality tale, Faber's Canongate volume attacks the play of religion in the media? What play I hear you ask? You mean 24 and its Muslim terrorists?

No, though one of the best sections of the book have a Muslim and Christian working together. I mean the whole Shroud of Turin, Da Vini Code, tomb of Jesus' brother, gospel of Judas thing. Each time something like that comes out it gets news time and magazine covers, yet it doesn't really seem to affect anyone who believes in a certain way, if you know what I mean. It doesn't distrub, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

The title of this book comes from an alternate title to the discovered "Fifth Gospel" which Theo finds, and publishes, more concerned about translation then religion. Reactions vary, and the novel is far more a critque of the media then of religion. If you are reading this and thinking it is anti-Christian or religious, I would still reccomend the book. There is something about the last page of the book. Something that can be taken many different ways. Faber is closer to the Terry Pratchett way exploring religion than the Phillip Pullman.

Actually this book seems to be really about fame and the truth behind the ideas of truth. Which is what the Canongate series seems to be really about.

Think about it. We live in a meida flooded society, at least most of us. Yet, few people can grasp the allusions that flood us everyday. I'm not talking just about Disney version of stories. I'm talking about an Ice Age Christmas (Christ wasn't born then, so how is there Christmas?), a song about irony with examples that are not ironic, comparing any mainstream politican to Hitler, and Lady Gaga's "Judas" song. People don't understand terms like Samson Scenrio, or see a connection to 13 and Christ and his Apostles (forget about Balder). How about the "let's boycott Snapple because there are slaves on the label"? (Ever hear of the Boston tea party?) Here in America, people root for sports teams and do not see or know about the references of the names - Baltimore Ravens, Green Bay Packers, Sixers (okay, Utah I'll give you. But the Utah Jazz was the New Orleans Jazz). They don't know why the Trojan man is the Trojan man.

Or that Puss in Boots predates Shrek.

The media convinces us that we know more, when in fact we know less. Here in America, for instance, we have Thanksgiving for Black Friday (which I heard a newscaster on the BBC say was named for the traffic. Huh?).

This is what Faber is writing about.(less)

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Apr 13, 2011 harryknuckles added it

The Fire Gospel ~ Michel Faber
The Fire Gospel is a very modern take on the story of Prometheus. According to Wikipedia, Prometheus "stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while an eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day".

Aramaic scholar Theo Griepenkerl stumbles upon an ancient manuscript when an Iraqi museum he is visiting is bombed. That manuscript is a supposed...more The Fire Gospel ~ Michel Faber
The Fire Gospel is a very modern take on the story of Prometheus. According to Wikipedia, Prometheus "stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while an eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day".

Aramaic scholar Theo Griepenkerl stumbles upon an ancient manuscript when an Iraqi museum he is visiting is bombed. That manuscript is a supposed fifth gospel written by Malchus, eye-witness to the Crucifixion, the servant of Caiphas the high priest, whose ear was cut off by Peter and then restored by Jesus as he was arrested at Gethsemene.
Malchus' picture of Jesus is quite different from those of the other four evangelists. It presents a far more human Jesus, shorn of his supernatural powers and by the time he has ended up on the cross has lost all confidence in his mission. Malchus' gospel goes on to describe the complete moral collapse of Peter, who after the trial of Jesus cursed the one he had followed and gave himself over to prostitutes and drink.

Griepernkerl is unconcerned with the theological implications of his find - he sees the manuscript as an opportunity for academic glory. He smuggles the scrolls home, translates them and finds a publisher to launch his book into a stunned world. As a result, he becomes the focus of the hopes and fears of a range of believers and unbelievers. The author is feted as a hero in some quarters and bitterly condemned in others. In publishing, Greipenkerl (now published as Theo Grippin) unleashes a chain of uncontrollable, and in many ways unsurprising, events. Alongside fortune and the attentions of the media (which rapidly pale) come less welcome consequences, such as the dubious accolades of Amazon reviewers (very funny) and kidnapping at the hands of religious fanatics. While the book's success brings him the fame and money he wanted, all does not really go well. Eventually, like Prometheus, ‘Grippin’ is punished for his theft and meets an inevitable fate.
Whilst not quite up there with the intense and haunting Under The Skin, 'The Fire Gospel' highlights Faber's magnificently light prose. Fire, literally and metaphorically, pursues Theo throughout the rest of the plot, as he comes to realise just how inflammatory the ancient papyrus scrolls' content actually is. As an atheist, he starts out by thinking solely of worldly pleasures - fame, money and sex - and as a result neglects to consider how his publication of a shocking new eye-witness account of Christ's death will be received.
The story rattles along and Michel Faber's writing is as perfect as ever. There is not one word out of place and the way the myth echoes in a very modern and topical story is wonderful. The satire of publishing and the media is quite brilliant. I enjoyed this immensely - Michel Faber is one of a handful of writers who rarely ever puts a foot wrong. You read his books and think they are like precious jewels. This one won't disappoint Faber fans. It's literary, fast-paced and manages to extract lots of understated humour whilst provoking thought from controversial subject matter.(less)

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Mar 13, 2011 Katie Gerrard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a short novel at 224 pages, but I think the story lends itself well to the size and you don't at any point feel that the narrative is moving on too quickly or isn't developed enough. The story covers an academic who, whilst visiting war torn Iraq to try and look after some of the artefacts, discovers by chance some scrolls. Worrying for their safety, and with his personal life in turmoil, he steals them. When he begins working on the translation of the stolen scrolls he finds that he has...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Laysee rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Fire Gospel attests to Faber’s intelligence as a writer of fiction. The story hinges on the discovery of a set of scrolls in a looted museum in Iraq, which contained the 5th gospel written by a disciple of Jesus named Malchus. On many layers, the novel reads like a parody of the Bible. The protagonist, a linguist and academician, is called Theo (Greek for God), who catapulted to overnight fame when he translated the papyrus scrolls from Aramaic. Interestingly, as the story itself is a startl...more The Fire Gospel attests to Faber’s intelligence as a writer of fiction. The story hinges on the discovery of a set of scrolls in a looted museum in Iraq, which contained the 5th gospel written by a disciple of Jesus named Malchus. On many layers, the novel reads like a parody of the Bible. The protagonist, a linguist and academician, is called Theo (Greek for God), who catapulted to overnight fame when he translated the papyrus scrolls from Aramaic. Interestingly, as the story itself is a startling revelation that shook the bedrock of Christian and Arabic faiths, the novel begins fittingly and ironically enough with John of Patmos’ words of warning against “adding to the prophecy of this Book”. Chapter titles in the novel take on names of Biblical books (Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Acts, Revelations, and Lamentations) and allude to Paul’s prison experience (in the chapter entitled “And His Chains Fell Off From His Hands”, where Theo Griepenkerl was bound by his abductors).
What moved me most was Faber’s plausible depiction of the crucifixion scene on Golgotha – the palpable humanity, ultimate humiliation, and complete loss of dignity of one who was hung on the cross. Faber captured powerfully the participation of the crowd that witnessed the passion of Christ: “All I can say is that there is a joy in seeing a difficult thing achieved…Watching their (soldiers’) exertion, one forgets the evil of the enterprise, and wishes only to add one’s strength to the labor. The soldiers groan, their faces turn red, the laden cross dips back towards the earth, and there is many a man in the crowd who leans his shoulder forward, as it were to share the burden. And many a women also.”
The incendiary devastation wrought by the 5th gospel consumed the world and Theo himself. Maybe I’m over-reading it, but I thought it fascinating that in the Epilogue, Faber seems to take a step back and laugh at himself when he concludes: “We try our best to tell a story, so that others might be led towards Jesus, but Jesus is not a story. He is the end of all stories.” Good book.(less)

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Jul 10, 2010 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.0 out of 5 stars The impact of a hidden Gospel..., July 10, 2010

This review is from: The Fire Gospel (Paperback)
This is a short novel said to be based upon the myth of Prometheus -- the Greek god who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals. Faber's book has the main character, Theo Griepenkerl, stealing nine papyrus scrolls that were secreted inside a wall mounted bas-relief and hidden for two thousand years from a war-torn museum in Iraq, writing a translation of them into a bestsell...more

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Jan 05, 2010 Tyler Jones rated it 3 of 5 stars

While certainly one of the wittiest novels I've read in quite awhile, The Fire Gospel has the feel of having been put together quickly and without great care. The central idea is interesting but is either not fleshed out enough ("the book is too short" argument) or could have been presented more succinctly ("the book is too long" argument). The fact that the novel was written to be part of the Myth Series suggests that Faber was compelled to produce a work of certain size, and unfortunately the...more

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Jul 16, 2010 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fire Gospel is apparently a retelling of Prometheus. Since I am not 100% familiar with that myth, I'll give an overview of the plot here. (I know Prometheus stole fire from the gods and got punished... I tend to think he's the one whose liver is getting pecked out again and again on a mountain somewhere, but I am not entirely confident in my memories)

So, Theo, a Canadian, somewhat whingy archeologist, finds himself in Iraq trying to convince the local museums to give up their treasures and hand...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I anticipated not enjoying this book due to some of the other reviews I saw on this site, but despite its flaws I really liked it. Of particular interest were the contents of the so-called Fifth Gospel, written by an actual eyewitness to the events described, as opposed to the four known gospels, none of which were written by anyone who was there on the scene. Of course, in reality, there is no fifth gospel, but if there were and it matched the version here, I can easily imagine the ripples it w...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 2 of 5 stars

This story relates to the myth of Prometheus and the gift of fire. It is less a retelling and more a story with a similar theme. Theo Griepenkerl is an academic visiting Iraq on behalf of a Canadian museum to offer money for rebuilding in exchange for loans of works of art and antiquity. When a bomb goes off in the museum he is visiting and the curator is killed, he finds scrolls that had lain hidden in a piece of art for two thousands years. Theo is able to translate them from the Aramaic and f...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Tracey Mathias rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love Faber's writing: economic prose, descriptions that work because they latch onto tiny details (watching a fleck of dust in a glass of red wine...)cutting wit and good parody (the Amazon reviews are great!) I liked the anti-heroism of the main character: the way that Faber gets you to feel with him but not necessarily like or respect him. And the vein of irony in the plot: the constant undercutting of what ought to be momentous by little trivialities; of spiritual heroism by the realities o...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Pete Young rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The tenth in Canongate’s series on myths, this one being modelled loosely on the story of Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus and giving it to mortals, but there any proper connection to mythology ends and the satire begins. A cynical Canadian researcher in a ransacked museum in war-torn Iraq stumbles upon a hidden manuscript written by a man who knew Jesus, and a sudden lust for fame and money drives him to publish it as The Fifth Gospel, go on an American book tour and risk the wrath of Christi...more

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Apr 05, 2009 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars

While visiting a museum in the Middle East, a scholar comes upon the fifth gospel as written by Malchus, a follower of Jesus Christ after his ear is healed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Needless to say, his account of Christ is about as bawdy and irreverent as they come. Theo, the Aramaic scholar who translates the gospel becomes the target of many a Christian and ends up getting kidnapped by two comical characters.

A big fan of THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE, this book fell short for me. It just...more

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Jan 16, 2011 Nikki rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: based-on-myth-saga-etc, contemporary

Fifty percent of the way through this book, I just started skimming it. The main character is not particularly sympathetic, and there's no one else really of note in that time, and the plot itself is pretty well-trodden. The myth it's supposedly based on doesn't really make an appearance in that half, either -- I normally like the Canongate series, at least as light reading, but really, not a fan of this one.

It isn't exactly fast-paced, and there's more than a whiff of male wish-fulfilment surro...more

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May 31, 2011 Elsje rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011

In de Canongate myth serie wordt steeds een mythe genomen waarbij een vooraanstaand schrijver van nu daar een roman omheen bouwt. Mijn kennismaking met deze serie was zo succesvol dat ik gelijk de rest van de serie op mijn verlanglijstje heb gezet.

In The fire gospel neemt Michel Faber de kruisiging van Jezus ter hand.

Als museummedewerker Theo Griepenkerl zijn vertaling van een aantal papyrusrollen publiceert, het ooggetuigenverslag van Malchus (ik gebruik de Engelse naam van de discipel van Jezu...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Josh Ang rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a daring novel that imagines what it would be like if a new Gospel is discovered in this day and age. What kind of impact would it have on Christianity, the other religious beliefs, especially when it throws into doubt the apostles' accounts about what actually happened at Jesus's crucifixion on Golgotha, and ultimately the Resurrection.

The narrative traces how the lost scrolls by an undocumented disciple, Malchus, (formerly Capahaias' spy involved in Judas's betrayal of Jesus) is disco...more This is a daring novel that imagines what it would be like if a new Gospel is discovered in this day and age. What kind of impact would it have on Christianity, the other religious beliefs, especially when it throws into doubt the apostles' accounts about what actually happened at Jesus's crucifixion on Golgotha, and ultimately the Resurrection.

The narrative traces how the lost scrolls by an undocumented disciple, Malchus, (formerly Capahaias' spy involved in Judas's betrayal of Jesus) is discovered by accident in a looted Iraqi museum by a Canadian academic, Theo Griepenkerl, who's something of an Aramaic scholar. What Theo eventually does with the scrolls would lead to what Faber hopes to convey as catastrophic events both for Theo, as well as the larger world. However, the effect I got from this was a little subdued.

Following rabid sales of 'The Fifth Gospel', Theo embarks on a book tour across the American cities and enjoys the glamour and adulation, which is soon undercut by the knowledge that his name is as popular as it is infamous, especially when his life is threatened.

Faber tries to weave in some plausible motivation for Theo's translating the scrolls and unleashing them on the world with these lines, a little late, I thought, in the novel:

"...he had been forced under relentless probing to uncover the illicit idealism hidden inside him: he wanted to help the human race evolve...to give them the means to break this addiction to religion, to stop worshipping the dead and start solving the problems of the living"

However, they ring hollow for this reader because there was no character build-up of Theo in the novel to lead the reader to this lofty image.

Faber is adept at name-dropping pop-culture references, and they are every bit as illuminating and entertaining as cult favourites like Chuck Palahniuk and Douglas Coupland. The customer reviews Theo finds on Amazon.com are humorous in the way they come across as authentic, ranging from the deeply effusive contributions from readers who have yet to read the book, to the scholarly dissertations on the text.

Structurally, Faber starts off titling the chapters in order of the Bible; Genesis and Exodus, then he follows it up with Malchus, and then scrambling the order with Numbers and Judges, but the biblical titles become sporadic, disappears, and reappears later. One suspects Faber had a good idea but he couldn't get it going, and ended up with what appeared to be a half-hearted attempt at creating some structure, which greatly lessened the intended impact.

I would like to think that Faber had been fulfilling a contractual obligation to 'The Myths" series published by Canongate to deliver this stopgap novel. This is nowhere near his other brilliant works like 'The Crimson Petal and the White', 'Under the Skin' and the excellent short story collection 'The Fahrenheit Twins'. However, what remains intact is Faber's delicious prose, and I look forward to a more fulfilling work next time. (less)

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Jun 18, 2009 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mythology, contemporary-fiction

Woe Prometheus who brought the puny, cold, shivering humans fire to warm themselves, stolen from the gods, by no means intended for the non-divine fleshed mortals. Woe Theo Griepenkerl who brings a lost Gospel to the hordes of Christianity, a very human document recounting the last days of Jesus, as told by Malchus, not touched by the mythic alterations and connections of the later accepted Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Sealed away, revealed by an Iraqi bomb and a happenstance of plac...more Woe Prometheus who brought the puny, cold, shivering humans fire to warm themselves, stolen from the gods, by no means intended for the non-divine fleshed mortals. Woe Theo Griepenkerl who brings a lost Gospel to the hordes of Christianity, a very human document recounting the last days of Jesus, as told by Malchus, not touched by the mythic alterations and connections of the later accepted Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Sealed away, revealed by an Iraqi bomb and a happenstance of place and opportunity, Mr. Griepenkerl discovers in the belly of a two thousand year-old goddess statue (symbolism much?) an Aramaic scroll, preserved from oxygen and eyes, offering the witnessed account of Jesus' very human, very messy, death. In a fit of scholarly euphoria (and egregious ethical behavior), Theo snatches the scroll, smuggles it to Canada, translates the Aramaic, marvels at the whigny and torrid writing, pursues publishing, engages the junkets and book tour, gets threatened and harassed and other nasty things, all while delivering, without even a slight pondering as to the religious ramifications of the text he has discovered, an incendiary Fifth Gospel, soon to be heralded and maligned as the Fire Gospel.

Theo is funny, in an I'm-laughing-and-rolling-my-eyes-AT-him-not-with-him sort of way; he is a character that allows you to feel a slight touch of pity since he is rather a loser, while also inclining you to slap him about the head since he is indeed quite a loser. On the book world end, I enjoyed the very familiar scenes of book store readings and signings, the badgering of publishers and bilking of authors, the wry attempt to wring something of literary quality from pap.

This could be a fun and escapist read, yet Faber still offers that thread of mythic touchstone that I have come to cherish from this series - the modern day Promethean fire trapped within the binding of a book. Faber's epilogue contains a germ of what the whole Canongate Myth series is truly about: when he states on the final page 213, "we speak of things that cannot be spoken. We seek to store understandings in our gross flesh...we try our best to tell a story," he underscores what each contemporary author is striving toward with their accounts of mythic story. It is a beautiful and inspiring thing, this attempt to store the ineffable qualities within ourselves and our stories.(less)

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Mar 18, 2011 Karla rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Fire Gospel was a really good read. I felt bad for the main character because he goes through so much by becoming a popular novelist, in a good way and a bad way. Some of the parts in the story are a bit graphic and some of them could have been left out. Over all I enjoyed this book, but there could have been some more positive things rather than negative towards Theo, the main character. I also wanted to find out what happens to him at the end. It was a cliff hanger, just left you wanting m...more

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The Fire Gospel (Canongate Myths #12)

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