{"id":44,"date":"2007-05-31T21:41:13","date_gmt":"2007-05-31T21:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booklit.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/31\/ian-cross-the-god-boy\/"},"modified":"2020-12-11T16:58:33","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T16:58:33","slug":"ian-cross-the-god-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/31\/ian-cross-the-god-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Cross: The God Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>ere it not for my rather unnatural obsession as regards collecting all of the Penguin Classics, I may never have heard of The God Boy<\/em> by New Zealand journalist, Ian Cross. Written in the late fifties, this debut novel falls somewhere between Salinger\u2019s The Catcher In The Rye<\/em> (which I am yet to read) and Doyle\u2019s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha<\/em>. I believe it is hailed as a classic in his home land – in much the same way Grassic Gibbons\u2019 Sunset Song<\/em> is in Scotland \u2013 and forms (or at least once formed) part of the school curriculum \u2013 but don\u2019t quote me on that.<\/p>\n

The story is told by thirteen year old Jimmy Sullivan who is recounting the events in his life two years previous when his world changed forever. His world back then was the coastal town of Raggleton where he lived with his parents and went to Catholic school. His elder sister, Molly, lived in Wellington. Jimmy\u2019s day to day activities include going to school, hanging around with his friends, and talking with an elderly Raggleton resident (called Bloody Jack) down by the harbour. When not embroiled in such pursuits he turns his attention to the question of God.<\/p>\n

Jimmy has a problem with God. While the sisters at school feed him all the usual nonsense, his interpretation is that God is a literal being. And, when he is told that God frowns upon bad behaviour by punishing those that sin, Jimmy believes that he is being reprimanded from up on high when the family life around him begins to disintegrate. His father\u2019s a drunk, his mother has a secret abortion, and their disdain for each other grows throughout the novel. Jimmy, always thinking he is to blame, attributes their arguments to the new bike he begged for and received and even offers to give it back if that will stop the trouble.<\/p>\n

Aside from such innocence, Jimmy has some methods for dealing with the strife in his household. He calls them his \u2018protection tricks\u2019 and whenever his parents devolve into quarrel he finds solace in singing songs and plunging his hands into scalding hot water. His confusion around Catholic ritual is typically shown here in that, while he doesn\u2019t care for all that religious stuff, his songs sometimes include the Hail Mary.<\/p>\n

All through The God Boy<\/em>, Jimmy\u2019s anger grows until one day he lashes out at God and finds a new mean streak (swearing at an old lady, throwing stones at a friend, smashing a window) which, when the novel\u2019s end comes around, Jimmy believes is what he is being punished for until he realises that he is not to blame \u2013 he\u2019s made all the effort and God hasn\u2019t even lifted a finger.<\/p>\n

Like Doyle\u2019s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha<\/em>, the narration by a child makes for interesting reading as you are forced to interpret what you are being told. Jimmy, of course, doesn\u2019t know what an abortion is but by reading the clues as he describes the scene (early in the novel) you get the gist of what is happening. His monologue is punctuated with local phrases that emphasise the setting and the inclusion of a few American phrases hint that Raggleton \u2013 at its remotest \u2013 is not safe from outside influence.<\/p>\n

Overall, The God Boy<\/em> is an enjoyable portrait of a family falling apart through a young boy\u2019s eyes and for all his protests about how he doesn\u2019t care there is emotion within that allow you to see past his objections. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as engaging as Doyle\u2019s Booker winner but its nevertheless a good enough quick read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Were it not for my rather unnatural obsession as regards collecting all of the Penguin Classics, I may never have heard of The God Boy by New Zealand journalist, Ian Cross. Written in the late fifties, this debut novel falls somewhere between Salinger\u2019s The Catcher In The Rye (which I am yet to read) and Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cross-ian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Cross-Ian-The-God-Boy.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pon-I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3635,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/3635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}