Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Год выпуска: 2002, ISBN: 2002, Издательство: HarperCollins Publishers, Жанр: Современная проза, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years — except Biff.
Ever since the day when he came upon six-year-old Joshua of Nazareth resurrecting lizards in the village square, Levi bar Alphaeus, called "Biff," had the distinction of being the Messiah's best bud. That's why the angel Raziel has resurrected Biff from the dust of Jerusalem and brought him to America to write a new gospel, one that tells the real, untold story. Meanwhile, Raziel will order pizza, watch the WWF on TV, and aspire to become Spider-Man.
Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung-fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes — whose considerable charms fall to Biff to sample, since Josh is forbidden the pleasures of the flesh. (There are worse things than having a best friend who is chaste and a chick magnet!) And, of course, there is danger at every turn, since a young man struggling to understand his godhood, who is incapable of violence or telling anything less than the truth, is certain to piss some people off. Luckily Biff is a whiz at lying and cheating — which helps get his divine pal and him out of more than one jam. And while Josh's great deeds and mission of peace will ultimately change the world, Biff is no slouch himself, blessing humanity with enduring contributions of his own, like sarcasm and café latte. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more — except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala — and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.
Lamb is the crowning achievement of Christopher Moore's storied career: fresh, wild, audacious, divinely hilarious, yet heartfelt, poignant, and alive, with a surprising reverence. Let there be rejoicing unto the world! Christopher Moore is come — to bring truth, light, and big yuks to fans old and new with the Greatest Story Never Told!

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

“Would you stop it please?” I pleaded.

“But I love these people,” Josh said.

“You do, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“He was going to kill you.”

“It happens. He just didn’t understand. He does now.”

“Glad he caught on. Let’s find the old lady.”

“Yes, then let’s go back and get another one of those hot drinks,” Joshua said.

We found the hag selling a bouquet of monkey feet to a fat trader dressed in striped silks and a wide conical hat woven from some sort of tough grass.

“But these are all back feet,” the trader protested.

“Same magic, better price,” said the hag, pulling back a shawl she wore over one side of her face to reveal a milky white eye. This was obviously her intimidation move.

The trader wasn’t having it. “It is a well-known fact that the front paw of a monkey is the best talisman for telling the future, but the back—”

“You’d think the monkey would see something coming,” I said, and they both looked at me as if I’d just sneezed on their falafel. The old woman drew back as if to cast a spell, or maybe a rock, at me. “If that were true,” I continued, “I mean—about telling the future with a monkey paw—I mean—because he would have four of them—paws, that is—and, uh—never mind.”

“How much are these?” said Joshua, holding up a handful of dried newts from the hag’s baskets. The old woman turned to Josh.

“You can’t use that many,” the hag said.

“I can’t?” asked Joshua.

“These are useless,” said the merchant, waving the hind legs and feet of two and a half former monkeys, which looked like tiny people feet, except that they were furry and the toes were longer.

“If you’re a monkey I’ll bet they come in handy to keep your butt from dragging on the ground,” I said, ever the peacemaker.

“Well, how many do I need?” Joshua asked, wondering how his diversion to save me had turned into a negotiation for newt crispies.

“How many of your camels are constipated?” asked the crone.

Joshua dropped the dried newts back into their basket. “Well, uh…”

“Do those work?” asked the merchant. “For plugged-up camels, I mean.”

“Never fails.”

The merchant scratched his pointed beard with a monkey foot. “I’ll meet your price on these worthless monkey feet if you throw in a handful of newts.”

“Deal,” said the crone.

The merchant opened a satchel he had slung around his shoulder and dropped in his monkey feet, then followed them with a handful of newts. “So how do these work? Make them into tea and have the camel drink it?”

“Other end,” said the crone. “They go in whole. Count to one hundred and step back.”

The merchant’s eyes went wide, then narrowed into a squint and he turned to me. “Kid,” he said, “if you can count to a hundred, I’ve got a job for you.”

“He’d love to work for you, sir,” Joshua said, “but we have to find Balthasar the magus.”

The crone hissed and backed to the corner of her booth, covering all of her face but her milky eye. “How do you know of Balthasar?” She held her hands in front of her like claws and I could see her trembling.

“Balthasar!” I shouted at her, and the old woman nearly jumped through the wall behind her. I snickered and was ready to Balthasar! her again when Josh interrupted.

“Balthasar came from here to Bethlehem to witness my birth,” said Joshua. “I’m seeking his counsel. His wisdom.”

“You would hail the darkness, you would consort with demons and fly with the evil Djinn like Balthasar? I won’t have you near my booth, be gone from here.” She made the sign of the evil eye, which in her case was redundant.

“No, no, no,” I said. “None of that. The magus left some, uh, frankincense at Joshua’s house. We need to return it to him.”

The old woman regarded me with her good eye. “You’re lying.”

“Yes, he is,” said Josh.

“BALTHASAR!” I screamed in her face. It didn’t have the same effect as the first time around and I was a little disappointed.

“Stop that,” she said.

Joshua reached out to take her craggy hand. “Grandmother,” he said, “our ship’s captain, Titus Inventius, said you would know where to find Balthasar. Please help us.”

The old woman seemed to relax, and just when I thought she was going to smile, she raked her nails across Joshua’s hand and leapt back. “Titus Inventius is a scalawag,” she shouted.

Joshua stared at the blood welling up in the scratches on the back of his hand and I thought for a second that he might faint. He never understood it when someone was violent or unkind. I’d probably be half a day explaining to him why the old woman scratched him, but right then I was furious.

“You know what? You know what? You know what?” I was waving my finger under her nose. “You scratched the Son of God. That’s your ass, that’s what.”

“The magus is gone from Antioch, and good riddance to him,” screeched the crone.

The fat trader had been watching this the whole time without saying a word, but now he began laughing so hard that I could barely hear the old woman wheezing out curses. “So you want to find Balthasar, do you, God’s Son?”

Joshua came out of the stunned contemplation of his wounds and looked at the trader. “Yes, sir, do you know him?”

“Who do you think the monkey’s feet are for? Follow me.” He whirled on his heel and sauntered away without another word.

As we followed the trader into an alley so narrow that his shoulders nearly touched the sides, I turned back to the old crone and shouted, “Your ass, hag! Mark my words.”

She hissed and made the sign of the evil eye again.

“She was a little creepy,” Joshua said, looking at the scratches on his hand again.

“Don’t be judgmental, Josh, you’re not without creepiness yourself.”

“Where do you think this guy is leading us?”

“Probably somewhere where he can murder and kill us.”

“Yeah, at least one of those.”

Chapter 11

Since my escape attempt, I can’t get the angel to leave the room at all. Not even for his beloved Soap Opera Digest. (And yes, when he left to obtain the first one, it would have been a good time to make my escape, but I wasn’t thinking that way then, so back off.) Today I tried to get him to bring me a map.

“Because no one is going to know the places I’m writing about, that’s why,” I told him. “You want me to write in this idiom so people will understand what I’m saying, then why use the names of places that have been gone for thousands of years? I need a map.”

“No,” said the angel.

“When I say the journey was two months by camel, what will that mean to these people who can cross an ocean in hours? I need to know modern distances.”

“No,” said the angel.

(Did you know that in a hotel they bolt the bedside lamp to the table, thereby making it an ineffective instrument of persuasion when trying to bring an obdurate angel around to your way of thinking? Thought you should know that. Pity too, it’s such a substantial lamp.)

“But how will I recount the heroic acts of the archangel Raziel if I can’t tell the locations of his deeds? What, you want me to write, ‘Oh, then somewhere generally to the left of the Great Wall that rat-bastard Raziel showed up looking like hell considering he may have traveled a long distance or not?’ Is that what you want? Or should it read, ‘Then, only a mile out of the port of Ptolemais, we were once again graced with the shining magnificence of the archangel Raziel? Huh, which way do you want it?”

(I know what you’re thinking, that the angel saved my life when Titus threw me off the ship and that I should be more forgiving toward him, right? That I shouldn’t try to manipulate a poor creature who was given an ego but no free will or capacity for creative thought, right? Okay, good point. But do please remember that the angel only intervened on my behalf because Joshua was praying for my rescue. And do please remember that he could have saved us a lot of difficulty over the years if he had helped us out more often. And please don’t forget that—despite the fact that he is perhaps the most handsome creature I’ve ever laid eyes on—Raziel is a stone doofus. Nevertheless, the ego stroke worked.)

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x