Bibliograph

Messiah, Gore Vidal

Type

Label

Messiah, Gore Vidal

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

Messiah

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

38508346

Responsibility statement

Gore Vidal

Series statement

Penguin twentieth-century classics

Summary

The story of the creation of a new religion, Cavism, which quickly comes to replace the established but failing Christian religion. When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dustWhen John Cave, a mortician by trade, appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Aided by a relentless public-relations campaign and supported by a "theology" whipped into existence by a historian besotted with love for one of Cave's alluring disciples, Cave's message proves irresistible. Things really start to get out of hand, however, when the notion of "voluntary death" creeps into the doctrine and the world's population is invited to depart from life in "pleasant establishments". A deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy first published in 1954, Messiah eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and "Do", the guru of Heaven's Gate

Classification