The Boomer Bible

I can't remember how exactly I found out about R.F. Laird's The Boomer Bible- I feel like Maddox's website was involved somehow- but when I read about it it sounded pretty good and thus picked it up a few years ago. Surprise surprise, I didn't even crack the book open to the first page until last week. Fellow blogger Stan has given it high praise for being a cynical look at history and religion, so I was excited to give this one a shot. It should be noted however that the book is written in the style of The Bible and as such comes with a tremendous length, so I feared it might get pretty boring. For the most part, this wasn't true- the whole book was a delight to read and I have few criticisms, most of which came up because I'm not the target audience of the book- the baby boomer generation. The Boomer Bible was published in 1991, and as such covers topics which were a bit more specific to society twenty years ago. Anyway, to give you an idea as to how the book works, I figured I'd give a brief description of some of the many sub-books of The Boomer Bible. The book begins with an introduction from two men who have discovered the Bible as if it was some long-forgotten artifact, a relic of a punk movement in Philadelphia. One believes that the book should be read with an open mind, the other claims that no attention at all should be paid to anything in there. After this, the book jumps into its most daring section- the Past Testament. The Past Testament begins with a few books dedicated to the Big Bang, the evolution of man, and some ancient history- the Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks. From here on, Laird gives a cynical history of the world in terms of which country is most important for brief periods of time. He does this in the most offensive way possible, highlighting how stupid pretty much everyone in history has been, and using racial slurs aplenty. After this, Laird parodies the Psalms of The Bible with the books Psongs, Psayings, Psomethings, Pnotes, and Pspecialties. The Past Testament then ends with fictional anecdotes of some of history's most influential thinkers- "Ziggy" (Sigmeund Freud), "Carl" (Karl Marx), and "Chuck" (Charles Darwin). While most of these were pretty poignant, some references fell flat- for instance, the book on television with a man named "Ed" was not about Ed Sullivan, but some guy named Edgar Bergen- a reference that was lost on both Stan and myself. Then Laird has a 30 page diatribe about how awful and predictable television has been and will remain; I disagree and think that while there are always going to be terrible shows, t.v. has produced some great ones as well. Anyway, that about wraps up the Past Testament, in which the historical figures are all told that one day someone will come to make sense of everything. He finally does in the Present Testament, which details the meteoric rise of possible Anti-Christ Harry and his religion of selfishness. Harry gains twelve followers at Harvard (apostles?) and teaches them his way, which includes a few golden rules- never think about anything, there are no contradictions, and the important trio of desire, certainty and blame. Harry even has a last supper in which Consolation (cocaine) is served, resulting in his arrest (crucifixion) and subsequent escape (resurrection) to Rio (heaven). The rest of the Present Testament details the growth of Harry-ism and how it really doesn't change anything, because we were all followers of Harry anyway, but just thought too much. Following the Present Testament comes the Book of Harrier Brayer, basically a long list of prayers and songs that parody Christianity. The book then wrap up with A Punk Testament, in which it is revealed that a small band of punks in Philadelphia have been able to and will continue to resist the Harry movement. This part felt really tacked on- the punks don't actually put an end to Harry-ism, and their arguments against it hardly seem as strong as the arguments for it. In a way, The Boomer Bible kind of reminded me of the movies Fight Club and American History X- in the former, it seems many people got the opposite message from what the movie was trying to convey, and the latter had many passionate pro-racist arguments that made the ensuing anti-racism ones seem pretty weak in comparison. At least, my assumption was that the Punk Testament was meant to be a way to show how wrong Harry's ideas were, but it really didn't do a very good job. Perhaps that's what Laird wanted all along. Either way, the book is definitely a thought-provoking one that will have you question a good portion of your everyday life- from religion and materialism down to literature and movies. It's a big investment of your time, but in the end I think a great one as well.