Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible! - Softcover

Goldstein, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1594483671 ISBN 13: 9781594483677

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2009

Synopsis

A hilarious re-imagining of the heroes of the Old Testament for a modern world-and the neurotic, demanding reader.

In the beginning...there was humor.

Sure, it's the foundation for much of Western morality and the cornerstone of world literature. But let's face it: the Bible always needed punching up. Plus, it raised quite a few questions that a modern world refuses to ignore any longer: wouldn't it be boring to live inside a whale? How did Joseph explain Mary's pregnancy to the guys at work? Who exactly was the megalomaniacal foreman who oversaw the construction of the Tower of Babel? And honestly, what was Cain's problem?

In Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible!, Jonathan Goldstein re-imagines and recasts the greatest heroes of the Bible with depth, wit, and snappy dialogue. This is the Bible populated by angry loners, hypochondriacs, and reluctant prophets who fear for their sanity, for readers of Sarah Vowell and the books of David Sedaris. Basically, a Bible that readers can finally, genuinely relate to.

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan Goldstein is the award-winning author of I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow and Lenny Bruce is Dead. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Ready-Made, and the New York Times. He's a contributing editor to NPR's This American Life, where his work is regularly featured. He lives in Montreal.

Reviews

Several Bible stories get a rewrite in this funny collection by This American Life contributing editor Goldstein (Lenny Bruce Is Dead). In this version, David kills Goliath not so much for his people as for laughs, and Jonah's lesser-known brother Vito fears that God's hand in Jonah's stint inside the whale has less to do with Jonah than Vito's own role in a youthful penis-touching incident. In My Troubles (A Work in Progress, by Joseph of N—), a worried father-to-be deals with the ambiguities of having one's wife knocked up by an angel. The voices of these stories sound like that of the semiobservant Jew in the book's preface, who describes one of God's failed universes as consisting of just one person—a man named Morris who sat in a room by himself, trying to decide whether to cuff his pants or let them drag. With refashioned language and reimagined motivations, Goldstein's biblical characters evoke the kind of touching truths only found at the bottom of deep barrel laughs. (Apr.)
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The deeply religious might be offended by This American Life contributor Goldstein’s often-raucous reimaginings of Old Testament tales. But the less devout may find themselves chuckling at the unholy hilarity of it all. Here readers find Adam and Eve talking to God after being banished from the Garden of Eden: “We get it,” they screamed. “You’ve made your point. Now let us back in already.” A misanthropic Noah hears a voice (inside his nose, no less) telling him to build an ark. An enterprising man operates a “Golden Calf” business to compete with the Almighty, marketing the bovine as a “more laid-back, cud-chewing lord.” Swarthy Samson, who’s been shacking up with foxy Philistine Delilah, threatens a mortal enemy: “I will make Jewish his penis with my teeth.” After killing Goliath, an unsatisfied David finds that all he really wants to do is to make people laugh. Even God gets a dressing-down in a brave new biblical world that’s part parable, part vaudeville: “He was . . . tough, stubborn, and prone to yelling in your face for pretty much no reason.” --Allison Block

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594483671
• ISBN 13: 9781594483677
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 239