Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer's Reviews > The Death of Jesus

I will tell about the boat that brought us here, and how you and I went looking for Inés and found her. I will tell how you went to school in Novilla, and how you were transferred to the school for delinquent children, and how you escaped and we all then came to Estrella. I will tell how you went to senor Arroyo’s academy and were the best of all dancers. I do not think I will say anything about Doctor Fabricante and his orphanage. He is best left out of the story.

I re-read this book on its publication back to back with re-reads of its two predecessors, the flawed experiment “Childhood of Jesus” and the execrable “Schooldays of Jesus”.

My lengthy review of the first and more despairing review of the second are here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This book starts three years after the second book – but otherwise unfortunately carries on just where that volume left off.

It opens with David playing a game of park football – when he, Inés and Simón’s are approached by Doctor Fabricante, the owner of a nearby Orphanage, asking David to assemble a team to play the orphanage team.

Things rapidly spiral out of Inés and Simón’s control. David’s 7-year old insistence on telling everyone they are not his parents, has by now changed into self-identification as a misunderstood orphan and he quickly agrees (against Inés and Simón’s wishes) to join the orphanage and become a ward of the owner, while effectively baselessly accusing Simón of some form of abuse.

Much of the rest of the book takes place in a hospital where David is taken after a mysterious illness, one which (hardly surprisingly given the book’s title) claims his life.

The Dostoevsky Wannabe from the second book makes an unwelcome (to Inés and Simón) reappearance - now as an enthusiastic follower of David rather than a passion-driven murderer.

The reader can add to the list of unwelcome reappearances: interpretive dance; cod mathematical philosophy; the “He, Simón” device (so effective when used by Hilary Mantel, only effective here if the author is setting out to annoy readers - albeit that would explain much that mystifies me about this trilogy); and the general character of David.

We also have the feeble Douglas Adams impression from the first book reappearing – as the number 42 takes on a sudden significance linking back to the reference there surely?

To this is added a new downside – at least for this reader.

I had always been wary of the “Jesus” in the title of the books – however any analogy seemed thankfully absent. However, in this book the analogies come thick and fast: David says “I am who I am”; and “it is not yet time”; at one stage he is spoken of as “David, in whom I am well pleased”; people speculate if he walked out of the room where his dead body lay; at one stage he tries to make a wolf-life dog and lamb lie down; later we have a sacrificed (for dog food) lamb; David has followers who talk about the revolutionary message he wanted to give; there are biblical references to Solomon and Samson among others.

Overall I found this trilogy extremely disappointing – the first book had its merits, the other two did not.

One can only wish the advice in the opening quote was taken except that the academy as well as the orphanage was best left out.

I cannot tell you how much I dislike these cheap paradoxes and mystifications