Start with Monty Python's Life of Brian. Add a tablespoon of Fight Club and half a cup of Forrest Gump. Blend in a pint of Stranger in a Strange Land. Bake for 400+ pages. That's Lamb, a novel (2002) by Christopher Moore. It's subtitled "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal". By turns, Lamb is silly, naughty, theologically naïve, and distressingly predictable. What it's not, alas, is funny or loving. The Pythons managed the mock-Jesus schtick more cleverly and compactly, with genuine soul and sympathetic spirit.

Unlike its crispy archetypes, Lamb's prose stumbles. Moore's protagonist invents coffee (with cream and sugar), matches, and pencils. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. And? Perhaps in another medium, Lamb could have worked — graphic novel, anime, campfire story. On paper? Not so much ...

(cf. Cut the Volume (2004-03-05), Forrest Gump (2007-05-14), Stranger in a Strange Land (2009-12-11), ...) - ^z - 2013-11-14