Honk if you are Jesus
That's got to be one of the best titles around. Shame the book wasn't so hot. It's by Peter Goldsworthy and is about genetic engineering in a parallel universe where in 1993 the extinct dodo was cloned and now merrily populates zoos aroung the world. Reanimating extinct species has always been one of my secret wishes about how the world could made more fun so I liked this part of it conceptually a great deal.
The author is a doctor so there was lots of convincing medical jargon about in vitro fertilisations and what's needed to locate viable old DNA but the main character of a 48-year-old virgin doctor was just really badly drawn. It was one of those books where if you stopped and thought too hard you'd find too many plotholes. Consequently I raced through it and then sat around annoyed with nothing to read. It was written in 1993 so it's funny to revisit the Gold Coast when private universities were so shockingly new.
Spoiler warning - But the title is also misleading. The book's evil genius has a nefarious plot to bring back Jesus through reactivation of his DNA, but I think the technique they used (of creating sperm by splitting ordinary cells and inserting it into an egg) would have led to the production of Jesus' kid, not the guy himself. End of spoiler
In one scene, I was reminded why I have a problem with Redgum's (and now the Hilltop Hoods') song about Vietnam called 'I was only 19' which has the line 'and Frankie kicked a mine the day mankind kicked the moon. God help me, he was going home in June'
This makes you think he was going home soon after the first Moon landing in 1969. I wasn't born then and Redgum members probably weren't either and the Hilltop Hoods definitely weren't but it's pretty common knowledge Neil Armstong made his 'one small step for man' etc speech on 20 July 1969.
And this book had a scene where student doctors in 1969 were in anatomy class with televisions on watching the moon landing in July. I reckon the songwriter either didn't think plain old 'he was going home soon' sounded quite right or he was referring to the first unmanned landing on the moon by the russians in April 1966. But really I think he just didn't think anyone would notice. But I did, and I get bothered every time I hear the song now.
The author is a doctor so there was lots of convincing medical jargon about in vitro fertilisations and what's needed to locate viable old DNA but the main character of a 48-year-old virgin doctor was just really badly drawn. It was one of those books where if you stopped and thought too hard you'd find too many plotholes. Consequently I raced through it and then sat around annoyed with nothing to read. It was written in 1993 so it's funny to revisit the Gold Coast when private universities were so shockingly new.
Spoiler warning - But the title is also misleading. The book's evil genius has a nefarious plot to bring back Jesus through reactivation of his DNA, but I think the technique they used (of creating sperm by splitting ordinary cells and inserting it into an egg) would have led to the production of Jesus' kid, not the guy himself. End of spoiler
In one scene, I was reminded why I have a problem with Redgum's (and now the Hilltop Hoods') song about Vietnam called 'I was only 19' which has the line 'and Frankie kicked a mine the day mankind kicked the moon. God help me, he was going home in June'
This makes you think he was going home soon after the first Moon landing in 1969. I wasn't born then and Redgum members probably weren't either and the Hilltop Hoods definitely weren't but it's pretty common knowledge Neil Armstong made his 'one small step for man' etc speech on 20 July 1969.
And this book had a scene where student doctors in 1969 were in anatomy class with televisions on watching the moon landing in July. I reckon the songwriter either didn't think plain old 'he was going home soon' sounded quite right or he was referring to the first unmanned landing on the moon by the russians in April 1966. But really I think he just didn't think anyone would notice. But I did, and I get bothered every time I hear the song now.
posted by Mary Bennet | 11:02 am
6 Comments:
Eeek ... Peter Goldsworthy and John Schumann are two and one year(s) older respectively than me, and we were all in our mid/late teens in 1969. Vietnam is still very real to my generation.
I'm not sure about the timing of the mine; it might mean Frankie was going home in June 1970, or it might be poetic license. I don't think there's a rule about it, though. The real question is whether imaginative literature (poetry, fiction, whatever) must get all its facts right; I'm inclined to think it should, but it's a question that's been kicked around a lot over time.
Frankie was and is a real person, Frank Hunt, a Vietnam vet buddy of Schumann's brother-in-law. Lost half his leg and still gets round in a wheelchair or on sticks, still with inoperable shrapnel in his spine.
Thanks for your comment Pavlov. I feel chastened to learn that Frankie was a real person. I hadn't really thought about it but probably assumed that the song was written well after the event like "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - which is another spine tingling song.
The scene about the Moon Landing was probably one of the best in the book (which is why it struck a chord). It made my wonder what world event moments from my uni days, if any, would stick. Most things then seemed very much 'over there' rather than affecting me, my friends or my life even though I was studying when the Berlin Wall came down etc etc and I was reasonably politically active. Probably the most important thing for us was Tianamen Square but for some reason I remember driving to a lecture and hearing about the shootings at a funeral in Dili on the car radio in 1988.
I didn't know about Frankie either until quite recently -- can't remember how I found that out. I think the song was written some time after the event, but more like ten years later than the fifty or so of the Eric Bogle song -- Schumann would have been 17 in 1969. He and three mates first got together as Redgum a few years later as an assignment/project for Politics at Flinders U, as I recall.
I can remember watching the moon landing on TV at school, and skiving off a practice exam for Matric French the folllowing year to be in one of the moratorium marches.
I'm very pleased to have stumbled across this post and these comments even if a little late. For some reason, I have now read this book three times even though I think agree it's not so hot.
And I saw the play during the Festival which I also thought was not so hot, but all the same can't stop thinking about.
The book was full of exciting ideas even if it was poorly executed. Genetic engineering and academic rivalries have a bit of novelty compared to yet another beautifully written coming of age book about suburban life. So I will go and look for more of his books. Thanks for the tip about the play.
James Bradley's "Deep Field" was probably the most recent Australian novel that excited me with both the breadth of the speculative ideas and excellent writing. I gave copies of it to four people and lent my copy till the cover fell off.
We're currently studying this novel in class and this post came up when I randomly decided to Google it. I'm so glad that I'm not young and unappreciative to think this novel 'not-so-hot' as well. I found myself with a bit of a disgusted look on my face for a lot of the book, due to Mara's character being impossible for me to relate to, Scanlon being the most disgusting person I'd every read about and the whole idea being morally wrong.
That's an interesting thing you pointed out about the baby being Jesus' son, but are you sure they were using the same princile for Jesus as for Hollis? I thought they had just found a way to extract his DNA from ancient relics.
Also do you agree that the ending was VERY contradictory and was not really logical in the way how it would affect Mara and her baby's future. I mean, first of all she makes this great build up about how bad this baby thing is, then she kills it while Mary-Beth has it, then she steals it and impregnates herself. She does not think about the fact that those crazy scientists will come running after her with torches and pitchforks, nor does she realise that it was a waste of everything if she doesn't go out into the public, and if she DOES go out into the public about it she will be brutally murdered by avid christians, and by the scientists she stole the glory from.
Hated the book, but I think Goldsworthy's way with words, they easy way that they flow, was what kept me reading it.
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