Books › Behold the Man
Behold the Man
First published 1969 · 600 pages
A provocative, fatalistic descent into the psychological roots of myth and martyrdom.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like watching a slow-motion train crash of the soul. It is a steady, claustrophobic journey that pulls you out of modern existential drift and drops you into the gritty, unforgiving dust of antiquity. The narrative is steeped in a fatalistic mood, where every step forward feels both entirely chosen and terrifyingly inevitable. Moorcock's prose is unsparing and psychologically dense, stripping away the gloss of myth to expose the raw, bleeding humanity underneath. It is a deeply provocative experience, challenging the boundaries between faith, delusion, and history. This is a story for readers who love New Wave science fiction that turns the lens inward, offering a bleak but brilliant exploration of how desperately we need our saviors and what it costs to become one.
- Mood
- fatalistic
- bleak
- claustrophobic
- hallucinatory
- Tone
- provocative
- cynical
- philosophical
- unflinching
- tragic
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the burden of myth · existential despair · self-fulfilling prophecies · psychological projection · the nature of martyrdom
- The writing
- Direct and unsparing, blending gritty historical realism with the hallucinatory intensity of a psychological breakdown.
- The arc
- Begins in aimless modern alienation and descends into a terrifying, inevitable embrace of a doomed historical destiny.
- Who it's for
- Fans of New Wave science fiction who crave provocative, philosophical narratives that deconstruct myth and religion.
Content notes
- religious subversion
- crucifixion
- mental illness
- sexual content
- existential dread
About the book
Karl Glogauer is a disaffected modern professional casting about for meaning in a series of half-hearted relationships, a dead-end job, and a personal struggle. His questions of faith surrounding his father's run-of-the-mill Christianity and his mother's suppressed Judaism lead him to a bizarre obsession with the idea of the messiah. After the collapse of his latest affair and his introduction to a reclusive physics professor, Karl is given the opportunity to confront his obsession and take a journey that no man has taken before, and from which he knows he cannot return.
Upon arriving in Palestine, A.D. 29, Glogauer finds that Jesus Christ is not the man that history and faith would like to believe, but that there is an opportunity for someone to change the course of history by making the ultimate sacrifice.
Description from Open Library.
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