Finished Tu 1/2/19
I bought this on Kindle after seeing a video where James Frey said that this was his favorite of all his novels. He wrote 'A MILLION LITTLE PIECES'. I thought that 'Pieces' had more most angry point of view I had ever read, and I was expecting 'Testament' to be some kind of a black comedy, but it wasn't.
The original edition of this novel sold for fifty bucks and was made to look as if it was a legitimate bible- Interesting marketing strategy.
The story is what would happen if the Jewish Messiah returned. I was surprised to learn that this has happened a few other times. In the mid 17th century Turkey a man fit the criteria, but he converted to Islam. And in the 20th century a man in Brooklyn was that to be the messiah. This guy died in 1994.
The messiah is born circumcised, on the same day of the Fall of the Temple of Solomon, and he can detect truth from lies by his sense of smell.
The story is told through several of freinds and family who were connected to Ben Zion Avrohom (Ben Jones)
Ben was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family. His older brother converted to evangelical Christianity. Jacob beat and bullied his family, and Ben left when he was fourteen. He traveled the country- drinking and drugging.
He got a job as a construction worker in NYC and a sheet of plate glass falls on him from several stories up. He is badly cut on nearly his entire body, but he miraculously survives. He becomes known as 'The Miracle Man'. Ben's sister, Esther, sees his picture in the paper and goes to see him.
Another altercation with Jacob ensues, and Ben flees the home. He ends up in a group of people living in the abandoned tunnels of the NYC subway system. They are living under the leadership of a black man called Yahya.
This group is collecting guns for the coming apocalypse and they are raided by the police. He is placed on house arrest, but miraculously gets out of the electric shackle.
He goes back to the apartment building that he lived at and teams up with Mariangeles, his next door neighbor, and with her child, Mercedes, they travel to a house in upstate NY. This house is owned by Judith, an overweight store clerk with low self esteem.
Ben is contacted by his sister, Esther, because Jacob has almost beaten his mother to death. Ben returns to the family home and Jacob takes him to his church and locks Ben in the office. Ben starts a fire in the office and the church is destroyed. He is badly beaten by Jacob, but Ben is taken into custody for outstanding warrants on the weapons charges. He is taken to Rikers Island.
The warden contacts Ben's lawyer, Peter, and wants Ben removed from the prison. He sees Ben as a threat because he has made such a positive change in the place. Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics are getting along and the warden doesn't know how to deal.
Ben is transferred to a mental asylum where he is given a full frontal lobotomy- "It Is Finished".
Mariangeles continues to visit although Ben is completely comatose. She is pregnant with his child. One afternoon she pushes his wheelchair out on the boardwalk (near Coney Island?) and he disappears. Only his clothes remain on the empty chair.
Love Is The Answer, and she thanks all of the friends and family that were most effected by Ben's ministry.
" Religion is responsible for all ills everywhere, Ben solemnly informs us. The Bible is a stone age sci-fi text. God is no more believable than fairies. Faith is just an excuse to oppress."
"When Ben comes out of his near-fatal coma, he is in possession of the same otherworldly powers that the New Testament ascribes to Christ. Is he the Messiah? Ben is evasive on this point, but he brings a sense of serenity and peace to everyone he meets, and he quickly develops a devoted following. His charisma and refusal to acknowledge any civil authority become a threat to the established order, which inevitably leads to a harrowing and suitably mystical end."
"The hierarchies of organized religion, which Ben calls “a beautiful con . . . the longest-running fraud in human history.”
“Faith,” Ben says, “is the fool’s excuse. . . . Faith is what you use to oppress, to deny, to justify, to judge in the name of God. . . . If there were a Devil, faith would be his greatest invention.”
"These variegated narratives, sketched with incisive psychological acuity, give “The Final Testament” its own weird integrity. Through these voices, Frey has made an honest attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus to their radical conclusions; in doing so, he has created a chronicle that, despite its contradictions, moves to its own inner spirit."
Although this is clearly not a perfect book and I'm sure that it is viewed as blasphemy by many, I think that Frey really has distilled the basic and most fundamental message of the messiah- LOVE REALLY IS THE ANSWER. And, an important subplot is that the messiah (and Jesus) had nothing whatsoever to do with the rich and the powerful. He dealt with the dregs of society which in today's world really would be the homeless, the crack addicted, and the alcoholic.
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