A poet I dated briefly in college once showed me his notebook. “Of course,” he said, turning to one poem, “Every Jewish man has to write a poem about the Messiah.”
So began my fascination with literary messiahs. I just finished one: “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an Oprah pick from last fall. It’s odd to see Jesus portrayed as a Latin lover, though Marquez gives clues. Florentino’s love letters that help Fermina through her widowhood. His voice like the Holy Spirit. The persistent and undying nature of his love. His love for widows and prostitutes.
Often sexual, literary messiahs are portrayed as one of two Old Testament characters. Some authors portray Christ as Hosea, the husband of an unfaithful wife or prostitute. Others, like Marquez, portray Christ as David, the adulterer who seduces a true love he believes married the wrong man. Some stories, like “The Princess Bride,” blend both.
Hosea is an emasculated husband who dutifully and dispassionately stalks his cuckolding wife. David is the complex, risk-taking, passionate rogue women secretly desire, but are discouraged from marrying.
In my experience, conservatives favor the pro-marriage Hoseanic messiah; liberals the sexier Davidic messiah.
My favorite literary Christ is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the Gospel according to Nick Carroway. This Prohibition-Era novel, which predicted an America divided into red and blue states, ranked second in the top 100 novels of the 20th Century.
Again, the hints are there. Fitzgerald describes Jay Gatsby as a son of God, who has visions of ascending into heaven and attempts to rescue Daisy Buchanan from her cruel Capitalist husband, Tom. Gatsby’s fellow bootleggers are 12 men with Jewish surnames, one of whom betrays him. Gatsby takes the fall for Daisy’s sin, committed under the highway billboard “God,” who sees everything. In an allusion to the Book of Revelations, Gatsby reveals himself to Daisy In a Manhattan hotel room, with wedding music in the background, as the man who truly loves her, only to have Daisy protest she loves both of them (God and money).
It’s downhill from there.
So began my fascination with literary messiahs. I just finished one: “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an Oprah pick from last fall. It’s odd to see Jesus portrayed as a Latin lover, though Marquez gives clues. Florentino’s love letters that help Fermina through her widowhood. His voice like the Holy Spirit. The persistent and undying nature of his love. His love for widows and prostitutes.
Often sexual, literary messiahs are portrayed as one of two Old Testament characters. Some authors portray Christ as Hosea, the husband of an unfaithful wife or prostitute. Others, like Marquez, portray Christ as David, the adulterer who seduces a true love he believes married the wrong man. Some stories, like “The Princess Bride,” blend both.
Hosea is an emasculated husband who dutifully and dispassionately stalks his cuckolding wife. David is the complex, risk-taking, passionate rogue women secretly desire, but are discouraged from marrying.
In my experience, conservatives favor the pro-marriage Hoseanic messiah; liberals the sexier Davidic messiah.
My favorite literary Christ is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the Gospel according to Nick Carroway. This Prohibition-Era novel, which predicted an America divided into red and blue states, ranked second in the top 100 novels of the 20th Century.
Again, the hints are there. Fitzgerald describes Jay Gatsby as a son of God, who has visions of ascending into heaven and attempts to rescue Daisy Buchanan from her cruel Capitalist husband, Tom. Gatsby’s fellow bootleggers are 12 men with Jewish surnames, one of whom betrays him. Gatsby takes the fall for Daisy’s sin, committed under the highway billboard “God,” who sees everything. In an allusion to the Book of Revelations, Gatsby reveals himself to Daisy In a Manhattan hotel room, with wedding music in the background, as the man who truly loves her, only to have Daisy protest she loves both of them (God and money).
It’s downhill from there.
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