Messiah

Name: Messiah
Brand: Brilliance Audio
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: Gore Vidal
ISBN: 9781799751441

Author: Gore Vidal

Narrator: Patrick Lawlor

Unabridged: 9 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Published: 03/03/2020

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Messiah traces the collapse of Christianity and the rise of the next great religion of Western civilization: Cavism. Founded by undertaker John Cave, Cavism holds that it is a holy thing to die. Packaged by a marketing genius, the new religion conquers the world more quickly than any prior memeplex, but pockets of resistance remain. Eugene Luther, formerly an apostle of Cavism, now a hunted apostate, writes his memoirs as a last gesture of freedom while the noose of a totalitarian religious state tightens around him.A blend of satire and secular prophecy first published in 1954, Messiah anticipates the rise of televangelism and engineered religions such as Scientology (Vidal met L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s), and prefigures the great religio-dystopian novels of the era: Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.

About Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was born at the United States Military Academy at West Point. His first novel, Williwaw, written when he was 19 years old and serving in the army, appeared in the spring of 1946. He wrote 23 novels, five plays, many screenplays, short stories, well over 200 essays, and a memoir.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on November 25, 2013

as always, you can read more about plot, etc. by clicking here; read on for the shorter version. If ever there was a reason to take a break from reading what's on the New York Times bestseller list or from current fiction, this book is it. Going onto the favorites list for 2013, this novel is simply......more

Goodreads review by Adrianna on June 24, 2011

A brilliant (and oddly prescient) satire. With Messiah, Vidal offers a skewering criticism of organized religion, the politics behind it, and its far-reaching ramifications in a manner that is at once humorous, intelligent, and bone-chillingly accurate. While the subtle wit and deadpan snark that ch......more

Goodreads review by K.J. on January 29, 2010

OK, the first chapter is very heady, but after that the book is just fantastic.......more

Goodreads review by Aedan on April 28, 2021

He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty boy.......more

Goodreads review by Daphna on November 20, 2024

The novel is well written and quite a captivating read. It's the story of the creation of a new power structure that, within a short period, takes over most of the inhabitants of the world. It is centered on a newly engendered and radically fundamental ideology. It enthralls the educated, the non-ed......more