Book review: Meeting Cain at the Cross Roads - Saramago vs Young
Cross Roads by William Paul Young was a Christmas present for my 22-year-old son and while he takes time to get around to it, I've leapt in for the purposes of review. Cain by Jose Saramago had earned a 'staff recommendation' tag at Better Read than Dead in Newtown, Sydney, and so I took their lead and bought it on a lazy Sunday afternoon. For a time I read them side by side, a literary juxtaposition : Cross Roads by a US Christian novelist famous for writing the bestseller, The Shack , who offended some religious sensibilities in the process. Events in his new novel are based inside someone's being, located in his home state of Oregon. Cain by a Nobel-prize winning, deceased Portuguese author also known for offending religious sensibilities and being a self-confessed communist, atheist and pessimist. Events in this his last book are seen through the eyes of the first child of Adam and Eve and occur at the beginning of time and space. Both tell a mess