Book Review: The Cosmic Machiavelli

Posted on Saturday, November 24, 2012 in Book Reviews | 0 comments

by Thejendra B.S

★★★

Ever wonder what an informal chat with God would be like? Wonder no more.

The entire book is one long conversation with God. Or, rather, with one of the gods, the one who created our world in a fit of boredom. It’s a bit of polytheistic silliness and creationary imagination, meant not to be taken seriously but to give us a sideways glimpse at our own human silliness.

God just isn’t what you think he’s like. He’s quirky, sarcastic, and frustratingly uncooperative. When asked if humans “evolved from monkeys,” (I’m going to let that one slide!) God spins a more incredible tale instead. God worries little about historical accuracy, pointing out in another place that any lie “this convincing” has to be true. God is prideful while pretending to be indifferent, demanding while pretending to relinquish control, and often quite offensive. If you get through the book without being offended somewhere along the way, you’re not normal. For me, the offense came when God trots out the line about how he made Adam for Eve and not for Steve. “It’s simply not in the standard manufacturing design for a human being to go haywire and run after their own gender.” Not that I’m letting God off the hook, but he is a bit old-fashioned in other ways as well, including his taste in music and art.

The writing suffers from some stylistic oddities (the characters do not sigh, they say“sigh”) and the need for an editor, but the imagination displayed kept me reading. I did feel a little frustrated that there is no picture of the author. I looked multiple times. It’s just that this sort of book is more enjoyable if you imagine yourself listening to a friend tell about his dream, after eating too much pepperoni the night before. But in this case I couldn’t even imagine what my friend looks like! Male or female, I still don’t know. Ten or a hundred years old or bookish or beautiful or burly or all three. Maybe that’s the point—we humans are all equally silly in our stupidity.