Now the first book I read of his was an autobiography of sorts. Well he called it an autobiography and he went into how he became a comedian by talking about the things in his life that made him what he is today. At the time it was an amazing book since it broke the traditional mold of biographies and he sprinkled in jokes from his set here and there to keep you on your toes. Now unlike say George Carlin, he didn't simply copy and paste the jokes from his specials, he actually either expands on them to make them funnier or provides insight that allows you to understand the joke better.

So in this novel it starts out with more of the same in his autobiography, talks about his experiences of being a Jew sprinkled with pieces from his set, I kept reading because as he describes Judaism in his voice you can tell he knows the subject well enough to take pop shots at its fallacies. Next up he starts to bash each and every religion he came across, can't bash one without the other, and later in the book he bashes those some would consider the more "fun" of the fundamentalists in each sect.

Now in this book you may wonder,"Hey this guy publicly bashes each religion in his set and is an admitted Atheist, what possibly can he add to the religious discussion?" Which is a fair question since if it were a chuckle fest on religion the book would get very old very quickly. However he provides something else into the fold that was totally unexpected and what makes the book stand out, personal experiences ala biography style on religion as a whole.

Have you ever heard of mysticism? Most people in college may see it in their selection of classes and might take it for a religious study credit (i.e. me). However what Mysticism is defines as the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the Other, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight(Thanks Wikipedia). Lewis is not an atheist, he is a mystic.

Shocking isn't it? In the early days of history these people are lynched at lunatics for going against the grain of their own religion and preaching what their experience with god was, since they claimed it was an internal struggle instead of an external being. I bring this up for the fact that Black goes into his life and how he practices this in a banter that invites you to the idea and notion that at the end of the day religion is working against what should be ideally an internal struggle for what is and is not.

In my opinion this make this novel from a chuckle fest of religious bashing into an insightful riot of laughter that makes it stand out in the comedic section. The frankness of some of the things he did (he even admitted to visiting a spiritual commune and the Baker's compound for goodness sakes) and his reaction to it all makes this a must read. This is for anyone who is willing to accept bashing of what they believe in and enjoy a little romp into some of the fun side of religious discussion as well as some additional insight they may or may have not considered.

That is all for now, and until next time remember to bring your apple to the guru or you will not receive the knowledge.

	Donating gives you access to the Premium Member Download Area, where you can download full Episodes in MPG and IPOD Video formats. You also get access to Extras, Bloopers and Commentaries! Donate today and help keep this site running, cause it's damn expensive!
You can view copyright info here	>

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form