So in my post on book 14 I quoted a poem by Ron Currie, Jr. In another place in the poem he talks about a book he wrote in which he writes about a Sudanese refugee camp. I check out the book, it’s call God is Dead, and I’m intrigued. The public library has it, I start reading it at about seven last night and I read until I finish it.
It reads like a bunch of interconnected short stories all responding to the premise of the first chapter, that God was incarnate in a refugee girl who is killed in a camp and whose body is then eaten by dogs. People realize that she was God when the dogs gain human awareness and are able to communicate telepathically with humans. One of the dogs relates that story in a later chapter.
It is such a strange book that I really wish I had someone else who had read it so I could talk about it with them. In part the book is saying things about the problem of evil – God repents for not preventing suffering and the description of suffering in the refugee camp is tough reading. In fact, there are many places where this is tough reading. Murder, suicide, war, abused dogs. I need to think about it more. Or convince a friend to read it so we can talk.
60 Before 60 