A review by John Cook.
My dear sainted Mother like most of her generation made sure that (Like Lady Bracknell) every luxury that money could buy, including christening was lavished upon me. Unfortunately my early teen years via Robert G Ingersoll rather destroyed her efforts though not the human and social concerns that came with it. Part of that process involved the rejection of the late Victorian sickly sweet images that were part of the parcel and Tsiolkas has certainly injected a far more realistic (sometimes savagely so) set of images in this amazing book. As a student of Ancient History at Uni, I became much more aware of the brutal nature of life in the times described overpoweringly here as well as the complex nature of the formation of the primitive Christian church, its personnel, internal conflicts, processes and emerging writ (holy and otherwise). More than anyone I have encountered, Tsiolkas drags us back into those issues and those times.
He clearly has had similar experiences including a loving Greek Orthodox Mum, loss of faith and wresting with his sexual nature and coming out in that religious context to a 35 year relationship. He has chosen the illumination of Saul (St Paul) on the road to Damascus as a focal point around which he explores this time and place in a series of segments that are titled Saul I II III and IV, Timothy, Lydia and the fictional Vrasus, a Roman soldier who worships Sol Invictus. Thomas also offers interest across the canvas of these sections as a sometimes almost savage illuminator. Each can be seen as a drilling down into particular events, behaviours and meditations. They occur at appropriate locations mapped at the beginning of the book by Tsiolkas’ partner Wayne Wayne van der Stelt. It is no accident that any gay reader will immediately see a parallel between Saul’s experience and the standard coming out experience. There is, as well, the regularly quoted (Folau) and routinely mis-translated text we have all had to deal with.
“Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Let me quote from some recent Tsiolkias interviews to get his own perspective on what he has tried to do.
“I understand shame,” he says. “I can’t pretend to have had the same experience as Saul, but I understand how core shame is.” There was the terrifying moment of disclosure to his parents. “I had to tell them: ‘I can’t be what you want me to be. I’ve discovered something else that’s so exhilarating and exciting and frightening. I will live my life as a gay man’. And these are people I love, my family. What will they think of me if I challenge them and their beliefs?
“That notion of that radical change in your life – that Damascus moment – is one way of me entering and trying to make sense of Saul’s character. What was it that made this man prepared to forgo family, community, history? That solace in prayer – I think that is what he discovered.”
If you want to hear more directly from Tsiolkas there is a podcast on RN at https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/peyQxXn1WQ (Friday, October 25)
I believe that Tsiolkas’ hard work has produced a truly remarkable and complex book which has a great deal of lengthily researched detail and some very confronting tales and imagery. I can see that some will attack it on the grounds of finely detailed professional research and his use of fiction while others may find the violence unacceptable. I cannot agree in either case. This is not a history but it certainly evokes time, place, belief, behaviour and sentiment in a way that readers need to understand. The violence, I feel, is a necessary counterweight to what is conventionally presented and necessary to bring the reader closer to important realities – certainly not as gratuitous as ‘The Passion of the Christ’.
There is no gay sex mentioned apart from what occurs in the background in a slave based brutal society where there was little differentiation in the sex of the individual used and probably only in the position. There is an undercurrent of homo-eroticism in Brotherhood that is undeniable but this is hardly news to anyone down the centuries to the masculine Christianity of Arnold that certainly backgrounded my early days.
There are so many insightful key passages and moments that reward understanding with regard to this very early ‘church’ that was feeling its way forward while dealing with the internal personal, doctrinal and organisational difficulties that were emerging in collections of sayings and gospels – not all of which would be recognised by its morphing into an image of the Roman state and those who have repeatedly schismed over the centuries.
As a single example I offer the moment when Able declares to a meeting in Ephesus (87 A.D.) the standard Christian message about turning the other cheek continuing ..
“… Those who do so are beloved of our Father, the Lord of us all”
Sincerely I follow, ‘Truly, it was spoken.’
But the divisions of our fellowship can be seen in the response to my brother’s words. The literate and the citizen, those born Greek, those born in Ephesus, they assent with a nod of their bowed heads. This is the wisdom and profound compassion that has brought them to the Lord. But the refugees, those fleeing from death and war, they abhor these words … As a violent shudder of the earth can carve a perpetual gorge between neighbours, so does Brother Able’s question tear apart our congregation. The success of our grand initiative is marked by how our brother’s demand fortifies one, frightens the other, and is of no consequence to many more.”
I sincerely recommend this book as well worth the time and occasional difficulty in its reading. It is the best thing Tsiolkas has yet produced and I would love to see it on a screen though I would be terrified by its bowdlerisation. I apologise for a longer that usual report. I felt is was merited.
A lot of people will recognise the cover art as ‘The Conversion on the Way to Damascus’ by Caravaggio, another neat reference to his presumed homosexuality.
BCC Library has 36 copies, audiobook, ebook.
queerreaders 