What about the "Kingdom"? This is a book rich, very rich (an "epic" as its author described himself). Lots of information for less varied, sometimes downright opposed on themes. So that's the history of early Christianity, when Jesus died and rose again, but finally gone, and that it was his disciples, or even people who have not known during his lifetime (including Paul) that preach in his name and establish churches everywhere around the Mediterranean. But it's not just that, it is even nearly as simple. This is also a confidence in these few years when Emmanuel Carrère believed. He was a Christian, he spent mornings to comment in notebooks the Gospels, he baptized his son, and he was interested in depth to Christianity mysteries. And in fact, this book comes from there, from this period of twenty years ago, he had preferred to bury and forget. But it's even more than that, puisqu'Emmanuel Carrère is no longer a believer today, he clearly outlines in his book that his approach is primarily that of an investigator eager to restore historical truth, rather that of a believer trying to convert his readers. It relies in particular on the process of Ernest Renan and his "Life of Jesus" in which he tries to account, objectively, from the Life of Jesus of Nazareth, as a man rather than as Messiah. Here, finally, is the same, Emmanuel Carrère restores us péripéthies Luke, author of one of the four Gospels that are the very foundation of Christianity since his meeting with Paul, his decision to take up the pen to tell all that, Jesus, the Temple of Jerusalem, the clan war between the early Christians, spread to Rome, stalking organized by Nero after the fire, the massacre of Christians and Jews, in short everything you knows little and badly, which eventually led to this absurd story of resurrection become the most practiced religion in the world for centuries and continue to this day. But all this does not give you my opinion on the book. And again it's complicated. Overall, I liked this book, more specifically, I preferred some other passages. Emmanuel Carrère astounds us with his knowledge of biblical texts but also books that revolve around these texts, and also the basis for his novel. It touches us confidence that grants us by showing us the strange part of his life when he began to compulsively believe in God. It makes us think also we are presenting the historical truth and its own assumptions, showing us that our world is as it is today thanks to (or because) of minute details, little moments of history where everything could have been interpreted differently, narrated differently, where certain actions could have been done otherwise. Why do we have circulated the sound of a resurrection after finding the empty tomb of Jesus? And if the Romans had made the body disappear precisely to prevent the development of a cult around this man, who died of an atrocious manner, sentenced by Pontius Pilate, probably under the influence of the Jewish court of Israel? Everything is of course to a hypothesis, but still, it makes you think. But also, Emmanuel Carrère is a balance, as in his previous books, between narrative and informative autobiography. And finally mixing the two is really exciting, since we find in this story of another time, another age of all contemporary references (especially the parallel between the Jewish sect at the time and the Soviet Politburo). And also because we are witnessing, in these 630 pages, the gradual transformation of the author, who finally manages to be consistent with this period of his life when he was so different from himself and if paid in religion. And that's what I finally found the most beautiful, beyond the historical, and philosophical and theological questions. A new book of Carrère that does not disappoint.
