Book review - Vidal novel #7 - "Messiah" by Gore Vidal

Vidal's last completed published novel before a considerable hiatus is a spoof on religion - specifically, the Jesus Christ story. Once it started in that I was fine with it, but it took a while to get going - excessively wordy at the start, too, as opposed to the relatively uncomplicated prose of his earlier novels, and with all these segues like a person ravishing a garden. But once the character of John Cave came along it was fine, and kept getting better and better. The satire is sharp and believable - I agree with the writer that it would make a good movie (A Face in the Crowd wasn't dissimilar). It remains clever until the end - the philosophy of Cave is kind of like a warped version of Vidal's own philosophy, the idea of having it told from a POV of Cave's ghost writer is a good one, there is excitement, the scene of Cave's death is well done, there is an unexpected twist in the battle within the religion following Cave's death. Vidal could have gotten a bit more excitement over his character fleeing into exile at the end (I guess he figured that there wasn't much point since we know from the beginning he got out OK), and also, again, he falls a bit short in the emotional stakes - his narrator is so superior and detached we never really feel he's in love with Iris... or Cave, for that matter. But a very strong book. Some of the dialogues are reminiscent of the best of G B Shaw.