Single Combat by Dean Ing (1983)
This sci-fi novel tells the story of Streamlined America, an alternative version of the United States which has been scaled down considerably in size after a nuclear war against China and India leaves all three of these countries devastated, with Canada and Mexico having jumped in to occupy vast regions of the US that are contiguous to their own territories.
What is interesting about this book for me is that it places the new capital city in Salt Lake City with Blanton Young, the fictional head of the LDS church, as president.
While some Mormons might be offended at the portrayal of a corrupt nation headed by Mormons, they shouldn't be. Young is just a bad apple who distorts and even fabricates news in order to keep his hold on power. The Twelve are his puppets whom he plots to keep in the dark and even murder to further his wicked agenda. And like other Americans, I think that Mormons understand the risks associated with any religious organization being in power.
I don't know who Dean Ing is, but I suspect he's had more than just a little experience with Mormons because he seems to have a lot of the details about Mormon culture and Utah down pat. Interesting story and worth a read.
The Word by Irving Wallace (1972)
This novel tells the story of the discovery of the Gospel of James, the brother of Jesus, a fictional version of a story that has, in fact, happened at various times in recent history when such writings as the Dead Sea scrolls (Essene writings) and the Nag Hammadi (Gnostic) texts came to light. I don't know that some of the more insidious conspiratorial acts which occur in the novel (eg. people being harassed and even killed to protect the status quo in the various Christian denominations) actually occured in these factual scenarios, but if you believe what books like The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception have to say, then perhaps you believe they did. Even if the truth lacks the intrigue of the fictional account, though, what modern scholars (such as Robert Funk and his associates of the Jesus Seminar) have uncovered about the life of Jesus makes for fascinating reading.
To me, the mark of a truly great book is how well it reads 20 years or more after it was written (and, of course, how it translates from one language/culture into another). The Word fares pretty well, I would say. Wallace draws on a wide varity of philosophical ideas from the history of Christianity to make the story interesting. This is evident in the many quotes from Kant, Luther, and others peppered throughout. On page 212, for example, he quotes Heine who considers the Bible "a book containing sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfillment, birth and death, the whole drama of humanity, large and wise as the world, the Book of Books."
The discussion of materialism and how it relates to Christianity on page 53 certainly still have relevance for us in the year 2000 and will for generations to come.
Interesting aspects of translation come up, as well. For example, on pages 138-9, he discusses the famous Isaiah mistranslation of 'virgin' where 'young woman' would have been appropriate which derives from a mistranslation in the Septuagint. He also discusses the Gospel of Peter and other actual finds from recent history, interweaving their stories into this fictional account.
The author, Irving Wallace, has led an interesting life. When I stumbled across The Word in a thrift store a couple of years back, I purchased a copy of a non-fiction title of his, as well. The Sunday Gentleman contains re-prints of various investigative pieces he wrote for the New Yorker early in his career. Some of these pieces are fascinating. One example is his interview during the 1960s of two sisters who had at one time run a brothel for a very exclusive clientele in Chicago.
Steps by Jerzy Kosinski (1968)
I really enjoyed Being There when I first read it back in 1982. So when I recently stumbled across another title by the same author in a used bookstore, I decided to pick it up and give it a try. I was very disappointed. Steps is, to my mind, a typical Czech novel in that it intermingles weird sexual tales with gruesome examples of sadistic behavior to include sado-masochism and political repression. Kundera is another Czech author whose works are very popular in this country. I don't particularly share this enthusiasm, although I have enjoyed one or two of that author's novels (just as I enjoyed Kosinski's Being There, I suppose).
It is, of course, understandable that people living in a repressive climate like that of Czechoslovakia before the 1990s would tend to write about what they've experienced and that their works would, therefore, be darker and more sinister than writings coming out of America or other Western countries. Still, I like my literature to have a point, and Steps doesn't seem to me to really go anywhere.
