They come in a wide variety of genres, and some threads are never picked up again. Nevertheless, when each novel finally comes together, it is beautiful. While the lives of characters and communities are revealed, CoDex is really about storytelling itself.
Codex A Trilogy is a farcical, funny, and over the top parable in three parts. Codex is a compilation of three novellas published between and Codex is chock full of interesting mind-bending tales but hangs together only after great effort.
For those who like a destination in their reading material, this is probably not to your taste; there is a destination but it's obscure. But those who like rollercoaster reading, with lots of dips, surges and thrills but no clear destination, will find it right up their alley. What are the stories that define us, what are they saying, and why do they matter? Early on we meet the Archangel Gabriel, who has been commanded by God to blow his horn and bring on the Apocalypse; apparently God has finally judged the human experiment a failure.
But as Gabriel brings the horn to his lips he is overcome by a new sense—carnal lust. The moment passes and the horn remains silent. Cheated of his great chance, Gabriel destroys his horn.
Now there can be no apocalypse! Gabriel has been tricked by Satan's plan to forestall the end of Mankind by enticing him with lust and distracting him from blowing his horn: it's nothing personal, just business—at the Apocalypse Satan will run out of a steady supply of souls to torment, and we know that slack business is the fear of every businessman; Satan wants to keep his shop open.
We also encounter a young virgin [aren't they all young? This is a reference to the medieval legend of the "Lady, the Lion and the Unicorn" in which a wild unicorn is tamed by a young virgin and amity reigns between humans and animals.
This one is thought to represent a sixth sense that people don't share with animals—the human pleasure in material things. In other words, Codex is a complex mix of stories and symbols, each interesting in itself and woven together to say something.
But what? The book will stick to you like peanut butter to bread as you try to answer that question. The closest answer comes in the epilogue, where Gabriel gets his horn back. Off we go!! This gives a flavor of the ride you are in for if you start Codex: The protagonist in Part 1 is a girl named Marie-Sophie. Marie-Sophie is the blending of those two competing Christian creation myths.
The square is adorned by a statue of a gilded chick running in mid-stride; the statue honors a chick that once saved the town from a "berserker. Our glide path approaches an inn that was once was a brothel. The house is slowly disassembled before our eyes to reveal its rooms. We see Room 23, riddled with peepholes in the walls so that guests could see the lascivious behavior of the room's occupants.
We arrive at a bedroom where the servant girl Marie-Sophie is sleeping; she is deep in a dream. We enter the dream and find her in conversation with the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel is in a rare good mood: he has finally received God's permission to blow his horn and bring on the Apocalypse. But wait! Gabriel is suddenly distracted by a voice, the voice of a young woman. The man, Leo Loewe, has a broken leg and is very ill.
His only possession is a hatbox with very significant contents. While visiting him Marie-Sophie discovers that Karl has a dual personality—as Karl Maus he is a decent young man in love with Marie-Sophie, but as Herr Maus he is a lustful satyr bent only on ravishing her. Suddenly, we're back with Gabriel being distracted by a dreaming woman: who is she? No, it's not as we thought Marie-Sophie. It's Lilith, Satan's female assistant, who arrives with other fiends from Hell to tell Gabriel that his horn-blowing had been stopped by the trickery of none other than Satan: the Devil doesn't want Mankind to disappear—what would Satan do without new souls to torment?
Gabriel is so angry at this hoax that he loses his interest in horn-blowing and throws his horn into the sun, where it melts. With that, the gates of both Heaven and Hell slam shut—the souls of all future dead must wander in purgatory until the gates are reopened.
Take That! Soon after Marie-Sophie's rape Leo's cover is blown and two Gestapo agents arrive at the inn to escort Leo and his hatbox to headquarters.
But just as they are stepping over the threshold to leave the inn a remarkable thing happens—Time stops, leaving them—and the universe—poised at mid-step. Take a breather. You are one-third of the way through Codex: It's been a remarkable journey, but those little gray cells are flagging. So while Time has stopped, put the book on "Pause" and get a snack from the kitchen. Let's Go! Push "Play. Suddenly Time restarts and Leo, guided by the Gestapo agents, steps through the door of the inn and into a waiting hearse.
As they pass a harbor he escapes and finds his way to a boat headed for Iceland. His trip is larded with interludes of story-telling; for example, Leo's tells his ship-mates how the Nazis turn their concentration camp prisoners from men into zebras at the concentration camps.
When Leo arrives in Iceland he works as a ceramicist, creating household items from clay. While Leo has accumulated some gold, he needs a bit more. Finally, in after fourteen years in Iceland, Leo applies for citizenship. The application requires a lengthy interview by a bureaucrat, then each application must be individually approved by Parliament in public session; the Parliament will also approve an Icelandic name for the successful applicant.
The interview and the public session are uproariously funny satires of bureaucracy. Leo's search for enough gold to bring Josef to life comes to fruition in , eighteen years after his arrival in Iceland. He learns that a stamp dealer named Hafryn W. To get that tooth and its gold he enlists the help of two acquaintances: Mikhail Pushkin and Anthony Theophrastus Athanias Brown. Pushkin is a spy attached to the Russian Embassy in Reykavik; Brown is a black American theologian and wrestler whom he met on the boat to Iceland.
The three kidnap Hrafn W. They extract the gold tooth, remove the gold, melt it with the other gold collected over time, and fashion a signet ring. When the signet is impressed on the belly of Josef's clay body our narrator comes to life. The year is a momentous year in Iceland: there were 4, Icelandic births and over atmospheric nuclear tests around the world; Iceland was enveloped in a radioactive cloud that created a spike in mutations.
The first child born in Iceland in is the daughter of Mrs. Thorsteinson of Reyjavik, whose inattentive husband and biological clock caused her to engage in four copulations with complete strangers in just one night to get the job started. The child was born with the impression of a pagan symbol on her forehead and the genes of five people; she would become an economist! The second protagonist of Part 3 is Dr. Thorsteinson's only child. It is and CoDex is in the middle of decoding the Icelandic genome.
The interviews are conducted and taped by a Codex employee named Aleta Szelinska. Among those interviewed are Dr. The scene then shifts back to the midth century when an aristocratic lady named Claude Le Viste visits a weaving shop in Flanders.
Her visit is prompted by the completion of a set of six tapestries she has commissioned that tell the allegory of The Lady and the Unicorn. The completed tapestries are to be inspected by royal agents to ensure that the tapestries meet king's exacting standards.
To the great relief of the master weaver, a woman known as "Blue Thread" because of the thread-like blue tattoos on her arm, the tapestries pass muster. Go figure!
Epilogue Here the strings are tied together and the book makes some sense. Sep 27, Michelle Hogmire rated it it was amazing. I mean, this thing's got angels, werewolves, unicorns, kids made out of clay, Soviet spies with tails, black theologian wrestlers, etc--not to mention a completely bonkers storytelling frame, involving a transwoman and a genetics company, that spans over three novels: a love story, a crime story, and a science fiction story, taking place from WWII to the futu WOW WHAT?!
I mean, this thing's got angels, werewolves, unicorns, kids made out of clay, Soviet spies with tails, black theologian wrestlers, etc--not to mention a completely bonkers storytelling frame, involving a transwoman and a genetics company, that spans over three novels: a love story, a crime story, and a science fiction story, taking place from WWII to the future.
Just get a damn copy. I tend to read upwards of two novels a week. I've been busy with this for three weeks! Dense, complex and enigmatic, it's somehow about the Icelandic genome project, thalidomide and the Holocaust, all woven together with Judeo-Christian mythology and salted fish.
I think I liked it, but I feel too pummeled by it to give it five stars. I could throw around many adjectives to describe this book. I know, I know, what a daring thing to say. This way even though the book is quite long I never got bored while reading it.
The many side stories and tangents that often unexpectedly interject the main story put it in a greater context and gave it a sense of importance, and I loved finding out in what ways they were related to the main narrative. The connections that came to light in this way often surprised me but never felt forced. But the stories are not only connected to each other but also to real events. CoDex is a beautiful piece of storytelling; drawing on real events, giving life to them and commenting on them, all the while never seeming to do so.
After finishing the book I was left with a feeling similar to the one I had after watching Cloud Atlas. The story had come full circle and ended with a powerful conclusion. All the threads woven together formed an intricate picture of humanity, our history and our possible future. A picture that I will from now on carry with me and that I will probably come back to time and time again. The vitality contained in their loose ends and red herrings … is so potent that if it escapes into the head of a single reader it will be activated, like a curse or a blessing that can follow the same family for generations.
OK, it is not going to take me long to write this review because I failed to make sense of this book. Wikipedia also says The book's narration mimics the oral tradition of various folktales and religious texts, taking influence from Icelandic folklore and The Bible, with the narrato OK, it is not going to take me long to write this review because I failed to make sense of this book.
Wikipedia also says The book's narration mimics the oral tradition of various folktales and religious texts, taking influence from Icelandic folklore and The Bible, with the narrator often expanding upon the plot by referencing these stories. In a small-town guesthouse, Leo discovers a kindred spirit in the maid who nurses him back to health; together they shape a piece of clay into a baby.
A crime story Leo escapes to Iceland with the clay boy inside a hatbox, only to become embroiled in a murder mystery. And as the story of genesis comes full circle, we glimpse the dangerous path ahead for humankind. But I am here to tell you that I found its blend of genres chaotic and I did not understand what the book was on about.
The first book, about the Jewish refugee holed up in a guesthouse, was ok. I didn't like the flippant tone of the interlocutor who interrogates the narrator, but I understood what was going on.
Except that I didn't understand the point of having a clay baby instead of one conceived in the ordinary way. The second book was about the pursuit of the thief who had stolen the gold that was crucial to the clay baby receiving the spark of life.
Maybe I didn't understand it because I am happily unfamiliar with the tropes of crime fiction. I did not understand the third book at all. It obviously has to do with a future in which Iceland trades in the DNA of its citizens and things have gone horribly wrong.
But that's as far as I got. If you are still with me after this wholly inadequate review, I suggest you read the review at The Guardian. Muttering There are times when I feel I should abandon my policy of revie wing everything I read Feb 18, Lex Poot rated it it was amazing Shelves: icelandic-literature.
From highly associative story intermingled with mythology to a more straightforward story based on latest genetic research. First book almost read like an acid trip. Even the author sometimes doubt were it is going leading to a dialogue with his alter ego. It is clear that the stories is based on golem, an anthropomorphic animated being from Jewish folklore. Second book deals with getting the golem to live but underlying story is about foreigners trying to fit into Icelandic society.
Third as mentioned is about genetics. Further the golem is narrating his live story. Dec 01, Matthias rated it it was amazing. This book is hard to describe. I imagine, Jean Paul, revived, and given a month of time to orient himself, would have written something like this, at least the first two parts.
As I adore Jean Paul, this qualification alone deserves 6 stars for the two first parts each. I am not so sure about the last part. Who should read this book? Anybody who likes intelligent humor. Don't be offend This book is hard to describe. Don't be offended ; Well, I still have no idea how to review this, but I'm doing it anyway!
At the very simplest level this is a 3 book arc of the life story of our narrator Josef Leowe, from the time his parents met in the s in WW2 europe, to his birth in Iceland , to his current life and then death in the 's - all told by him as part of being interviewed by the CoDex genetics project.
There is also an epilogue which goes full SF with him out of the picture. He's referred to pretty much entirely as The Invalid from her perspective, and she becomes tasked with grudgingly keeping watch over him. This excellently written handbook represents a major step forward for biblical studies.
A 'must-have' for any serious scholar of the Bible! White, University of Nebraska "The basic reference work on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible for at least the next decade. This is amagisterial work which is badly needed and masterfully done. Klein, Journal of Religion "Replete with examples, tables, plates, lucid definitions and explanations, as well as extensive bibliographies, the volume brings together a wealth of information not previously so accessible and makes the theory and practice of textual criticism easily understandable and visually clear.
Sanderson, Seattle University. What social conditions and intellectual practices are necessary in order for religious cultures to flourish? Paul Griffiths finds the answer in "religious reading" the kind of reading in which a religious believer allows his mind to be furnished and his heart instructed by a sacred text, understood in the light of an authoritative tradition.
He favorably contrasts the practices and pedagogies of traditional religious cultures with those of our own fragmented and secularized culture and insists that religious reading should be preserved.
In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within the earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories.
We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts. Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of the most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows that the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting.
The manuscripts that form the Greek New Testament are scattered throughout the world and are usually only accessible to scholars and professionals. These were the manuscripts read by the earliest Christians, which comprised their "New Testament. Comfort also provides an introduction to each manuscript that summarizes the contents, date, current location, provenance, and other essential information, including the latest findings.
This allows students and scholars to make well-informed decisions about the translation and interpretation of the New Testament. Volume 1 includes manuscripts from Papyrus Volume 2 includes manuscripts from Papyrus as well as from the uncials. In addition, it features a special section on determining the date of a manuscript. This two-volume set replaces the previously published single volume Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts, as it contains many new manuscripts, updated research, and higher quality images of all manuscripts previously covered.
Skip to content. The Birth of the Codex. Author : Colin H. The Birth of the Codex Book Review:. Roberts,Theodore C. The Birth of the Codex and the Apostolic Life style. Birth of Christianity. Birth of Christianity Book Review:. Israel and Hellas.
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