The Holy

Quinn's metaphysical detective story reminded me of a long sagging rope tied to two sturdy poles at either end. It started off strong. But the book's wandering middle portions annoyed me. Quinn's other books and the provocative beginning encouraged me to endure the midstory meandering. By the end my patience was justified, and I found that the book clarified and enlivened my sense of purpose in life.

Unlike his Ishmael trilogy, this book doesn't ever become a treatise on animism. I respect Quinn's discipline in stopping short of trying to explain Everything. The nature spirits/gods who gradually take predominance in the narrative aren't philosophers. What they're concerned about is the diminishment of life on Earth caused by humans. After all the psychic sleight of hand, The Holy is an ecological plea for us to love the place and the planet where we are, and to sustain the life forms that grow upon it.

Nevertheless, Quinn can't resist adding a dash of theology. He gets in his digs at religions that offer a transcendent, "aloof" God. For him, religion is earthbound. In one sentence he implies there may be something else, but that is not the subject of The Holy.

The book begins by asking why the ancient Hebrews continually worshiped other gods in preference to Yahweh. What did they get out of those gods that they didn't get from Yahweh? The unstated answer is, they got a sense of the holiness of the Earth upon which they lived their lives, and that made their lives holy. Quinn's genius is to transmit that same sense to us. ( )

You know, The Holy is pretty much where Daniel Quinn jumped the shark for me. I loved Ishmael and My Ishmael. I liked Story of B and Beyond Civilization. The Holy, however, just didn't work. It didn't suck or anything, though people not pre-inclined to agree with Quinn might disagree. It just wasn't that good. The story was 'whatever,' and the philosophical underpinnings, usually the high point of a Quinn book, were some pretty weak tea. ( )

"The Holy" , first and foremost, beautifully interweaves the storylines of (perhaps 10?) different characters. This alone is an incredible feat of the author, and reason enough to give the book a read. It tells the tale of an old man who hires a detective to find out why the Jews abandoned their old Gods some 2000 years ago. This seems an impossible task at frist, but the detective slowy uncovers the true identity of these "gods" left behind by the semites, and the magnitude of the situation at hand.
The entertaining plot alone keeps the reader turning the pages. Simultaneously, the reader searches to discover not only the answer to the detective's question, but also the underlying theme that we know Quinn is using the book to put forward.
In summary, the book provides an enthralling plot, while at the same time revealing an important message Quinn wishes to tell the reader regarding the ideas outlined in the "Ishmael Trilogy". ( )

Somehow this guy wrote a paranormal detective story that doesn't act all that paranormal. Quinn doesn't bother over a debate as to what these "others" or "gods" are, which is always disappointing, but there's so much examination as to how individuals would react to sudden changes in their moral compasses and the world they understand, I wonder how he kept this as a novel. Comparing it to Story of B and Ishmael, I didn't think he had it in him. Read this to enjoy a series of obscure allegories playing with concepts that we, day in and day out, consider as real as dirt. Although I still don't understand what half of them mean. The other half are perfect, but the transitions between these ideas is not so fluid, which might be a strength for Quinn's purposes, but doesn't play with the conventional idea of what makes a good piece of fiction.

Also, what the hell is that timid middle-finger exposition at the end of the book; if you don't like objectivity, don't write in the third person, okay, Dan? Christ. ( )