[.ca] The Eternal Footman (ISBN 015601081X)

From Amazon.com:
"Homo sapiens is an amazing animal.... Get God and Aristotle off its back, and miracles start becoming the norm," theorizes a hapless human in James Morrow's The Eternal Footman. Capping off the hilarious trilogy that began with Towing Jehovah and Blameless in Abaddon, Footman tells the story of what happens after God is undeniably dead. If His giant, deteriorating corpse in the first two novels wasn't enough, now His holy skull stares down from orbit like a melancholy moon, offering daily proof to the Western world that there's nobody left to pray to. Cirrus clouds rimmed God's skull. He appeared to be wearing a white toupee. At least there weren't any ads today. Why the Vatican permitted the multinationals to aim their lasers at His brow was a mystery she couldn't fathom. Contemplating the Cranium Dei was depressing enough. You shouldn't have to read COKE IS IT in the bargain. Depressing? That's not the half of it, as Judeo-Christians, sure at last that nothing but blackness awaits beyond death, become "Nietzsche-positive" and are stalked by the leering embodiments of personal apocalypse. Nora Burkhart's son Kevin is the first of millions to succumb to the awful symptoms of abulia, the fatal result of death-awareness. Western civilization crumbles while Nora struggles to take her comatose son to a legendary clinic in Mexico, where a strange, powerful man is rumored to have a cure. Meanwhile, a spiritual sculptor finds inspiration in a new pantheon after his masterpiece is mangled by the Vatican--but the new gods may require the ultimate sacrifice. This is James Morrow, after all, and despair is always accompanied by enlightenment in his satirical morality tales. Taking cues from Dante, the legend of Gilgamesh, and an imagined debate between Erasmus and Martin Luther, Morrow finds redemption for humanity in the simplest acts of decency. Giant stone brains, God's evil intestines, and the still-guilty captain of the oil-spilling tanker Valparaiso make memorable appearances in The Eternal Footman, a worthy finish to Morrow's trilogy, and a fair but passionate defense of "the West's greatest gift to the world, the miraculous faculty of rational doubt." --Therese Littleton

The best of the 3!:
As with the other 2 books in this trilogy, I couldn't put it down. I thoroughly enjoyed this last book, which was the most nontheism-in-action. "Abbadon" got a bit bogged down in the philosophical for my tastes, whereas this book had a straightforward narrative with few forays into the philosophy. The Corpus Dei now the malevolent Craneo Dei, hovers over the book like a wraith. The struggles of Gerard and Nora compelled me to find out how it would end. And bringing back Anthony Van Horne and Cassie Fowler caused this reader to smile. There are a couple of "Rowlingesque" touches in this book. Naming Nora's fetch "Goneril" was a wonderful stroke, and the scene with God's Entrails was literate South Park. I howled intermittently through this book (which was a problem as I read it at my cubicle at work). Also the visions of the future were hopeful and refreshing. I liked that there was commentary about today's big issues. One thing that's unfortunate, but I'll mention it. This book was written before 9/11. I wonder how Morrow's future work will alter its course after the disaster. Coming up with a post-organized religion way of life, as well as a postcorporate world is becoming more and more urgent. Possibly even emergent. I couldn't help but think about 9/11 through the trilogy, perhaps inevitably because the towers were prominent in "Towing Jehovah" as the Valparaiso passed them on its way out to sea.

The Most Complex Addition to the Trilogy:
"The Eternal Footman," the final book in James Morrow's Jehovah Trilogy, serves as an interesting capstone to the series. It's much different from the other books; not so much about psychology or philosophy, it's more a re-telling of the tale outlined in The Book of Revelation, although with an obvious Morrow twist. As such, it might not appeal to the same kinds of readers that the other two books attracted, but "Footman" is in no way a lesser book because of it. Years after the trial at The Hague, God's body disassembled itself piece by piece, His intestines swimming through the ocean like a gigantic snake and His skull sits in geosynchronous orbit over Times Square. The Vatican rents His skull for advertisers, so people are treated to Microsoft and Coca-Cola ads 24/7. But, it causes other problems as well... In Nora's struggle and the development of the Temple in Mexico, Morrow reveals the ultimate philosophical lesson in his Jehovah Trilogy: that human value should not be created by external things, even God. It's what Nietzsche referred to as the "metaphysics of the hangman," and is echoed by those who claim that if there is no God, there is no point in living. That is what the plague victims seem to think, and that is what the Antichrist seeks to capitalize on. It is also what God wants humans to grow beyond. It's the ultimate religious/existential lesson, one that Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and even Heidegger stressed in their works. It is also one of the most complex philosophical concepts to communicate, and Morrow manages to do it in one novel (actually, the setup was there through all the books). Old characters are brought back, and new ones introduced. Like "Blameless," "Footman" is a walk in the forest to read, pleasant and dense without being oppressive. Morrow again finds the correct mix of story and philosophy by which to tell his tale, and by so doing weaves as juicy and delicious a narrative for which one could ask. "Footman" is much heavier than his other works, and is not simply the tongue-in-cheek satire of the first two volumes. ...

I loved the cover...:
After the first two books of this trilogy, The Eternal Footman was somewhat a let down. I think it strayed too far away from the dead body of God, and went to far into this post-apocolypitic-plague plot. I find the idea of a two mile long body of God and it's effect on people made for more interesting stories.

Ho-Hum:
This is the third installment in Morrow's "God-head trilogy." He should have left it at just the first two. While his first two books often pushed his ridiculous atheistic views, at least they were interesting stories. This one is just plain dull. His writing style has become so cumbersome. I can imagine him sitting at his typewriter and consulting a thesaurus with each sentence he writes. It's as though his ego needs to try and prove how intelligent he is to the reader. However, he comes across as bombastic and boring. There were many times that I almost gave up on finishing the novel because it was lulling me to sleep. I won't go into the details of the story since so many other reviews have already done that. However, I will recommend that you pass this book up. At least, check it out from the library and don't waste your money.

Atheist's Doomsday:
This is the final work in Morrow's excellent trilogy on the "death" of God. Unlike the wacky and satirical "Towing Jehovah" and the extremely intellectual "Blameless in Abaddon," this third installment takes on the tones of Stephen King or Dean Koontz in a slightly creepy doomsday scenario. Here God's giant corpse from the previous books finally decomposes, with the skull ascending to the sky and orbiting the Earth, constantly reminding all of humanity that God is really gone. A psychosomatic plague of death wipes out most of the western world before people come to their senses and embrace a new age of rationalism. Once again this is all a vehicle for Morrow's highly structured Atheist theories. He's not an agnostic who believes nothing, but an intellectual who has arrived at Atheism through reason and research. This novel continues to represent Morrow's theology, which is surely thought provoking regardless of your religious persuasion. Unfortunately, this installment is the weakest of the trilogy, with Morrow's post-apocalyptic wasteland showing little imagination or creativity (see King's "The Stand" for a better example), followed by visions of a politically correct future world of enlightenment that are too rosy for belief. Also, the conclusion takes way too long wrapping up too many subplots. But still, Morrow's highly articulate and visionary trilogy will never cease to provide food for thought.