don't quite know the point he is trying to make. both novellas are a little all over the place. but remain interesting. the man is an interesting take on jesus but again. ( )

The Man Who Died
An alternate ending to the Messiah story with the main guy surviving, but suffering disillusionment and nausea in addition to his executive wounds. He must travel, in mufti, incognito, until he finds healing in the hands of a pagan, Greek-speaking, Egyptian priestess expatriated to Lebanon.

There on her villa, watching the dying of the day, the slaves going home to the hill--"It was the life of the little day, the life of little people. And the man who had died said to himself: 'Unless we encompass it in the greater day, and set the little life in the circle of the greater life, all is disaster.'"

But not by the old way: he has outlived that mission. "What a pity I preached to them! A sermon is much more likely to cake into mud, and to close the fountains, than is a psalm or a song." With the priestess he has been able to touch another and to be touched by her. He must move on, but the touch lingers and the touch is the portal to the greater day, the greater life.

The ending brings new meaning to "He is risen," and "In my Father's house are many mansions." Enlightening, perhaps, to some; offensive, perhaps, to others. ( )

http://www.slywy.com/bookreviews/st-m... ( )