Ok, this got a little personal in a few parts...this book just spoke to me that clearly.
Thanks to the intervention of a fellow MWM member, I was finally able to get my hands on a copy of “Behold the Man.� I read in the course of about 2.5 hours one night last week and was very impressed. I’ve read many of your works, Mike, and few have failed to impress me in some way or other and although I think some of your more recent works contain some of the most mind-blowing literature I’ve read; this piece spoke to me on many levels.
I can definitely see how this novel is among your most celebrated. The demystification of the events of New Testament have become fairly common place in recent years and people of my generation, I think, have become fairly inured to it; yet, “Behold the Man� still seems so fresh and original. Its use of modern psychology and the motivations of Karl Glogauer were so fascinating that it would make for an interesting read even outside of the context you chose. Yet, for all of its deconstruction of Christian Mythology and dirty realism what spoke to me most was the protagonist himself.
Throughout the novel I often found myself mildly disgusted, not with the novel, but with myself. I could truly understand Karl Glogauer. Up until the last two years or so, I felt much the same about life as he did and was tormented by many of the same questions. Several events of his life, such as his turning away of his first love and his emotional masochism throughout, seemed to be taken directly from my own experience. His conversations on humanity, religion, and psychology spoke directly to my own past. This obvious empathy with the character served to bring to the surface my past struggles with self-loathing, cynicism, and masochism. I was not at a happy point in my life at the time and often fell into depression, with which I am still struggling. I saw in him the same failures I saw in myself, and to some extant still do. I feel it is only natural to be turned off by this under appreciation of one’s self. While reading his tale there many times I wanted to reach out and slap him; tell him to get over himself and move on with life. But, I think what I really wanted to do was slap myself because I knew that whatever I try to say that same darkness is lurking within me (if you’ll forgive the melodramatic wording). I am not saying I suffer from a Messianic Complex, although it is possible I might or at least used to, but I do think I still have a bit of the hopeful martyr in me and that knowledge it mildly disturbing, especially when seeing what can come of it.
I am not saying I think I would ever want to become a martyred messiah, but I had problems picturing Karl as anyone but myself, and that was unnerving.
I have to wonder what your motivations were in writing that book. Were you being deliberately controversial just for sake of being controversial? Were you trying to express your own doubts and anxieties? Or, was this just a way to explore certain aspects of psychology?
I also found myself wondering if there was something in the minds of people during the mid-late sixties that brought ideas of Messiahs and martyrs to the surface. Many of the most famous biblical epics come from this era and the theme found itself into some of the literature of the time; “Behold the Man� and Frank Herbert’s “Dune� are the first of these that comes to mind. Although, admittedly, Dune has the Messiah idea twisted and altered to suit what is essential an ecological novel. Still, the presence of a Messianic figure seems to be fairly common for the time.
What really set Behold the Man apart, in my opinion, was its exploration of the mind of a messiah/martyr. I thought you handled this in a very interesting way by internalizing most of the story and building the character bit by bit through flashes of his personal history and putting it all in cotext with the later "interpretation" of the Gospels.
In all, I’d have to say it was an excellent book if for other reason than it gave me so much insight into myself. No matter how much I tried to dislike Karl (and I think I disliked him for what I saw as his complete foolishness), I was forced to turn those emotions onto myself because of the endless parallels between his psychology and my own. It was the level to which this disturbed me that impressed me.
Well done, and thank you.
Thanks to the intervention of a fellow MWM member, I was finally able to get my hands on a copy of “Behold the Man.� I read in the course of about 2.5 hours one night last week and was very impressed. I’ve read many of your works, Mike, and few have failed to impress me in some way or other and although I think some of your more recent works contain some of the most mind-blowing literature I’ve read; this piece spoke to me on many levels.
I can definitely see how this novel is among your most celebrated. The demystification of the events of New Testament have become fairly common place in recent years and people of my generation, I think, have become fairly inured to it; yet, “Behold the Man� still seems so fresh and original. Its use of modern psychology and the motivations of Karl Glogauer were so fascinating that it would make for an interesting read even outside of the context you chose. Yet, for all of its deconstruction of Christian Mythology and dirty realism what spoke to me most was the protagonist himself.
Throughout the novel I often found myself mildly disgusted, not with the novel, but with myself. I could truly understand Karl Glogauer. Up until the last two years or so, I felt much the same about life as he did and was tormented by many of the same questions. Several events of his life, such as his turning away of his first love and his emotional masochism throughout, seemed to be taken directly from my own experience. His conversations on humanity, religion, and psychology spoke directly to my own past. This obvious empathy with the character served to bring to the surface my past struggles with self-loathing, cynicism, and masochism. I was not at a happy point in my life at the time and often fell into depression, with which I am still struggling. I saw in him the same failures I saw in myself, and to some extant still do. I feel it is only natural to be turned off by this under appreciation of one’s self. While reading his tale there many times I wanted to reach out and slap him; tell him to get over himself and move on with life. But, I think what I really wanted to do was slap myself because I knew that whatever I try to say that same darkness is lurking within me (if you’ll forgive the melodramatic wording). I am not saying I suffer from a Messianic Complex, although it is possible I might or at least used to, but I do think I still have a bit of the hopeful martyr in me and that knowledge it mildly disturbing, especially when seeing what can come of it.
I am not saying I think I would ever want to become a martyred messiah, but I had problems picturing Karl as anyone but myself, and that was unnerving.
I have to wonder what your motivations were in writing that book. Were you being deliberately controversial just for sake of being controversial? Were you trying to express your own doubts and anxieties? Or, was this just a way to explore certain aspects of psychology?
I also found myself wondering if there was something in the minds of people during the mid-late sixties that brought ideas of Messiahs and martyrs to the surface. Many of the most famous biblical epics come from this era and the theme found itself into some of the literature of the time; “Behold the Man� and Frank Herbert’s “Dune� are the first of these that comes to mind. Although, admittedly, Dune has the Messiah idea twisted and altered to suit what is essential an ecological novel. Still, the presence of a Messianic figure seems to be fairly common for the time.
What really set Behold the Man apart, in my opinion, was its exploration of the mind of a messiah/martyr. I thought you handled this in a very interesting way by internalizing most of the story and building the character bit by bit through flashes of his personal history and putting it all in cotext with the later "interpretation" of the Gospels.
In all, I’d have to say it was an excellent book if for other reason than it gave me so much insight into myself. No matter how much I tried to dislike Karl (and I think I disliked him for what I saw as his complete foolishness), I was forced to turn those emotions onto myself because of the endless parallels between his psychology and my own. It was the level to which this disturbed me that impressed me.
Well done, and thank you.
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