The Liars’ Gospel
Naomi Alderman
Having read it
★★★☆☆
An intriguing story, but if I’m honest, not great to read. Skipped a few paragraphs as the prose was plodding a bit but the story had some good characters (based on some valid historical research) in an interesting period of history and curious tales that you sort of wanted to read about. I suppose it was trying to have a bigger purpose, that stories come to life through lies and their adaptions by individuals with their own motives, but it felt a bit like a weighty piece of literature first, rather than just a page-turning read with a rip-roaring plot.
A good passage
There was a raving quality to Yehoshuah. As he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth, his face became red, his eyes looked wildly, angrily around the room. He quoted from the Torah and from words he’d heard listening to the sages. And she thought: is this my son? How did this man come from me? Every parent will think this about their child some day – all children become strangers to those who have them birth. This was what she told herself.
A second good passage
And again Rome, whose currency is death, can never hear equivocation. Others are weak for not dealing death, weak for seeking to avoid it. Rome’s daily business is death, her nightly amusement is the death match. Death is cheap and easy among them.
A third good passage
Storytellers know that every story is at least partly a lie. Every story could be told in four different ways, or forty or four thousand. Every emphasis or omission is a kind of lie, shaping a moment to make a point.