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A review by korrick
Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist
4.0
4.5/5
It amuses me, sometimes, the way people judge books. They'll ban them for epithets, they'll ban them for sex, they'll ban them for witchcraft. More often than not, they'll ban them for raising uncomfortable questions in the minds of children who have not yet been conditioned to follow the proper path. Ignore, and if you cannot ignore, condemn until you can, and if you cannot condemn until you can. Eradicate.
You could ban this book for any of those reasons, much as you could ban the Bible. Either one poses much more danger than most literature deemed unsafe. For one has resulted in millenia of misguided atrocities and the other is, well. A glimpse of the New Testament's birth, before all the context, before all the history, before all the rules. Of what could have resulted without it.
The New York Times and Time Magazine both referred to it as a parable. I really have to wonder how seriously they took it. It's true that it's not that long, and has religious underpinnings. The 'conveying a truth, religious principle, moral lesson, or meaning' part, though. To put it succinctly, in comparison to this 'parable', nihilism seems vastly more definitive, even encouraging. At least the latter has an end goal.
I will admit to bias, seeing how I was raised Catholic without once grasping the concept behind it all. The question has always fascinated me, though. The meaning of existence. And what a broad field it is! Sophisticated existentialism, misinformed agnosticism, misinterpreted atheism. The hydra of faith. It's all very fascinating, really. To see what extensive lengths humanity has gone to in its attempt to reconcile the matter of its wandering in the world. All the shields it has built up between it and the dark.
If this book doesn't make you question whatever shield you have chosen, I would be worried. It doesn't matter that this is framed within the context of one of many religions. It is a human story, subject to the facts of life, the whims of fate, and the maelstrom of the mind. Ultimately, it is cruel, and strange, and will not divulge its secrets, for the truth is that it has no secrets to divulge. What it has is a chain of events that could mean one thing, or another, unless perhaps you missed a lesson here, or heard something incorrectly there, and maybe that person really wasn't the right one you should have listened to, or it was that one happenstance that really messed things up, and if it wasn't for that one specific moment in time you'd know exactly what you were supposed to do, and how things were going to happen, and what it all meant.
Chitterings in the void.
You know what, go ahead and think that this is a parable. Settle on some kind of conclusion, at least, and get it out of your head. It's not conducive to living, this kind of talk. Banning is a bit much, but temperance. Yes. Temperance is a must.
It amuses me, sometimes, the way people judge books. They'll ban them for epithets, they'll ban them for sex, they'll ban them for witchcraft. More often than not, they'll ban them for raising uncomfortable questions in the minds of children who have not yet been conditioned to follow the proper path. Ignore, and if you cannot ignore, condemn until you can, and if you cannot condemn until you can. Eradicate.
You could ban this book for any of those reasons, much as you could ban the Bible. Either one poses much more danger than most literature deemed unsafe. For one has resulted in millenia of misguided atrocities and the other is, well. A glimpse of the New Testament's birth, before all the context, before all the history, before all the rules. Of what could have resulted without it.
The New York Times and Time Magazine both referred to it as a parable. I really have to wonder how seriously they took it. It's true that it's not that long, and has religious underpinnings. The 'conveying a truth, religious principle, moral lesson, or meaning' part, though. To put it succinctly, in comparison to this 'parable', nihilism seems vastly more definitive, even encouraging. At least the latter has an end goal.
I will admit to bias, seeing how I was raised Catholic without once grasping the concept behind it all. The question has always fascinated me, though. The meaning of existence. And what a broad field it is! Sophisticated existentialism, misinformed agnosticism, misinterpreted atheism. The hydra of faith. It's all very fascinating, really. To see what extensive lengths humanity has gone to in its attempt to reconcile the matter of its wandering in the world. All the shields it has built up between it and the dark.
If this book doesn't make you question whatever shield you have chosen, I would be worried. It doesn't matter that this is framed within the context of one of many religions. It is a human story, subject to the facts of life, the whims of fate, and the maelstrom of the mind. Ultimately, it is cruel, and strange, and will not divulge its secrets, for the truth is that it has no secrets to divulge. What it has is a chain of events that could mean one thing, or another, unless perhaps you missed a lesson here, or heard something incorrectly there, and maybe that person really wasn't the right one you should have listened to, or it was that one happenstance that really messed things up, and if it wasn't for that one specific moment in time you'd know exactly what you were supposed to do, and how things were going to happen, and what it all meant.
Chitterings in the void.
You know what, go ahead and think that this is a parable. Settle on some kind of conclusion, at least, and get it out of your head. It's not conducive to living, this kind of talk. Banning is a bit much, but temperance. Yes. Temperance is a must.