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God God by Alexander Waugh St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books 342 pp.; $24.95

The American dust jacket of God is not nearly as compelling as the UK edition. Same William Blake portrait of the Almighty crouching in front of the moon, with clouds in the back and foreground, same flowing gray beard pushed to one side by some mighty wind, same lightning bolts leaping from God's split fingertips, all set against a stark black backdrop. The difference is, the U.S. edition squeezes a Karen Armstrong quote in between lightning bolts.

Not to denigrate Mohammed's favorite ex-nun biographer, but I'm guessing her blurb will cancel out the mesmeric effect that the cover used to have. This reviewer found the volume in a bookstore in British Columbia and simply could not stop ogling it. I finally bought it because I had to go home sometime.

The quote also speaks to how very differently books are marketed in the UK and the U.S. On the other side of the pond, there is a concentrated reading public for publishers to pitch to as a whole. In the U.S., the market is spread out and segmented, especially as regards religious books. A Karen Armstrong endorsement signals what kind of book this is, inviting readers of a more liberal, progressive bent and shooing most traditionalists away. But is it, in fact, that kind of a book?

Hard to say. First, it's British, and was written in and for that highly ironical non-churchgoing context. I'm as much an Anglophile as the next bloke, but sometimes I lack the right sense to tell if the author is having us on. Second, it's written by a Waugh, and they're always up to something. So when Evelyn's grandson discusses sexual ethics and Onan, well, I'm not sure how to take it when he refers to Catholic moral teaching on the subject as an abject embarrassment: typical snobby British putdown, or something else entirely?

This book is so-titled because it's about the great high God—"the Father, the Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen," as the Nicene Creed would have it—who peeks through not only in Judaism and Christianity but also in Islam and a few other scattered faiths.

Waugh's intention was to paint a composite picture of this most strange and elusive character who created the world and dallied with his greatest creation—that is, man—for a while, but who then appears to have receded. Waugh fixes the high point at God's two whirlwind speeches to Job, after which the Almighty seldom put in an appearance in the Bible, opting instead to speak through his prophets and then (as Christians believe) through his son.

A problem that Waugh struggles with through the book is one of definition: how to make the ineffable effable. His grandfather and father understood that the things of God are, at some level, a mystery. But the aptly named Alexander is undaunted. He seems genuinely shocked that (a) God evades most attempts at proof or explanation (four of Aquinas' five proofs of God's existence; Anselm's ontological argument; and Kant's sixth proof are all dismissed with a snort); (b) holy books attribute to the Almighty many contradictory statements and actions; and yet (c) at least a large plurality of men have for the longest time believed in one God who is, in some ultimate way, good.

The book has many madcap digressions about everything from a note discovered in Pascal's coat after his death to Mohammed's encounter with a pushy angel who wouldn't shut up. In fact, the digressions are usually the best parts, as they allow this Waugh display his wit and learning.

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May (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48