Animals of Faith

Things have changed in two thousand years: getting stoned today is an entirely different and more pleasant experience than it was in ancient Jerusalem; given this change, God has warranted a new report, but with some of the old cast of characters known to those inspired Hebrew authors with their priceless gift to humanity in ethical monotheism. The paradigm shift adumbrated here shakes the ancient foundation of religion, an old, lofty space smelling of cedar and incense and shimmering with burnished gold built upon a thousand paths, drawing from the same font of values and pointing to the many masks of a single God unfathomable, adopted in subjective faith, but subject now to common rejection and abuse as so many turn to science, a trade enforced by sense and secular associations like selling hope enslaved. This autobiographical novel sketches just over a decade of academic, social and romantic success, blackened by episodes of spiritual possession and mental illness. The hero wins the love of a young lady studying Chemistry at the University of Manitoba named Barb, a votary of the Grey Nuns, and then slays the dragon, Satan, by the force of language. The rough-hewn narrative offers a Rosetta stone to the lives of Zeus, William Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson, and plucks a comic crown from the brambles of tragedy. Animals of Faith illuminates a steadfast odyssey in faith with intricate connections to British literature, and especially to the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare; it wraps in radiance and everlasting hope all human life, dressing the felix culpa in modern attire. The comment of Jowett in his introduction to Crito obtains: "a good life, in other words, a just and honourable life, is alone to be valued".