Product Description

Thanks to the latest breakthrough in computer software, a cyberpunk- known bleakly as The Hacker- is destroying the tapes that describe the mission of Jesus Christ and His Gospel or Good News. The Sacred Story is vanishing rapidly. Fortunately one tape is Hackerproof, that of Timothy, who in his youth, was Robin to Saint Paul's Batman. Now, in Timothy's old age, Saint Paul comes to him in a vision and begs him to write down the True Gospel, otherwise all is lost. And thanks to the wonders of modern techonology, a TV crew will pre-record, live from Golgotha, the Crucifixion in order to boost NBC during the upcoming ratings battle. Will it take place or not? Will the Hacker manage to destroy all the records, including Timothy's? Will Jesus's weight problem be an image problem in the light of today's high standards? Tune in to Gore Vidal's classic of the greatest story never told- until now.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #244717 in Books
• Published on: 1993-09-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'A marvellous specimen of parodic invention.' THE OBSERVER 'Vidal's prose is a jangling mixture of Hollywood tough talk, biblical jargon and rampant camp. His japes at the expense of religion, history and taste add up to a work of highly serious humour. Iconoclasm at its most challenging and witty.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Wonderfully outrageous' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'in the tradition of MYRA BRECKENBRIDGE, MYRON and DULUTH, but more pointed and more daring.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Vidal camps it up with a faultless blend of smut, wit and fiendishly irreverent satire.' THE TIMES

About the Author
Gore Vidal has received the National Book Award, written numerous novels, short stories, plays and essays. He has been a political activist and as Democratic candidate for Congress from upstate New York, he received the most votes of any Democrat in a half-century.

Customer Reviews

One of my favourite re-reads
'Live...' is one of those books I go back to and read again every couple of years. 5 stars may seem like a lot, especially as much weightier books have got less from me, but I love this book. The premise is simple yet very clever. Travellers from the late twentieth century attempt to go back in time to film the crucifixion, whilst in the future an unknown hacker is erasing the gospels. The visitors from the future try to persuade St. Paul's right hand man, St. Timothy, to anchor the TV show 'Live From Golgotha' and also to write a new gospel and hide it where it would be dug up in the future and save Christianity. As the book progresses St. Timothy becomes more confused as to which future traveller he can trust, which version of the gospel is true (the ones being erased, the ones told to him by St.Paul, or none of them) and even who was actually crucified.
Those not familiar with Vidal should be warned that the book is very surreal, and not supposed to make sense in a literal way. Vidal skips over all the usual complaints about time travelling conundrums by ignoring them. If you are the sort of person who worries when a book stretches credibility too far, then don't read this one. The surreal feel and humour are ever present, and the characters almost wink at you out of the pages, imploring you not to take any of it too seriously. There is also an element of contraversialism. St. Paul is a flamboyant gay tap dancing clown, St.Peter is thick, St. Timothy is a randy young adonis and Jesus has a hormone imbalance. Again, the easily offended should look elsewhere, but I don't think that this irreverant approach is simply to shock. There is a serious,and well made, point to this book. It is a satire on the way religions evolve over time, and the way the bible story could have been changed to suit different interests. The future visitors, Paul, Peter, the hacker, all strive to alter Timothy's gospel to tell the story the way they want it told, and to give the version of christianity that suits them. I think that the idea of lack of objective truth when re-telling history is planted firmly into the (albeit bizarre) story. I love this book for its irreverance, its silliness, its humour and its point, and don't think that it should be dismissed lightly because of its tone. It is very cleverly written, and is a fun and cerebral read.

Brilliant idea drowning in american controversialism
The idea of the plot in "Live From Golgotha" is so simple it's genius: the battle about transmitting live from the crucifixion of Jesus. I wonder why nobody has got that idea before. That alone is enough to deserve one star. But the story itself does not deserve more than an additional two stars. It drowns in overexposed attempts to be controversial, in the typical american way of wanting to provoke the authorities of moral. This novel is a mixture of the movies "Back To The Future" (I, II and III), "Life Of Brian" and "12 Monkeys" and the filmatization of "The Last Temptation Of Christ". Gore Vidal has a lot of good ideas but he does not seem to tidy up in order to "kill his darlings". However, Vidal's humour has a certain level, balancing on the thin line between Woody Allen'ism and blasphemy. (Being an atheist, I am not the right person to judge whether the author actually does step over the line and into blasphemy). But the story fades, in and out. Mostly out towards the end of the book. Compared to the expectations you start with, knowing the plot, it fades to disappointment. So reading "Live From Golgotha", you get some good laughs, a few chills because of Vidal's close-to-blasphemy, from time to time some excitement about how the story is going to develop... but in the end, closing the book, the feeling is kind of empty.

Confusing and frankly silly
This is a book striving to be outrageous, but ending up to be a sort of exercise in locker-room humour. Irreverence is lost when nothing is taken seriously, and the time-travel story of someone who wants to film Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is told in a series of confusing time-hoppings. Ok, there are some laughs, but, all in all, this novel is very minor Vidal. Read Julian, Creation, and The Jufgment of Paris, instead.