thy journey, as I believe in mine. I must. For I have grievous need of another human touch of hand in these dim and dismal times.
Synopsis of Novel
The beggar boy, the main character of this book, was the adopted son of Christ but was abandoned by the disciples after the crucifixion.
As a young man, he returns for seven days to the City to take up ‘his Father’s work, in an attempt to rectify his ‘distance’ from humanity, from his own soul, his own destiny.
He uses logic, reason and an appeal for human compassion to try to bridge to the people of the City but finds over and over only failure for himself as he cannot be ‘ inside the people’ as Christ could.
Each time he sees this deeply as his own self-failure.
In Chapter Seven the young Beggar leaves the City in the company of a strange new prophet and comes upon a village carved out of hope and salvation but slipping again into despair.
Chapter one to three...Deals with concepts of creation, man, god; in that a god will have no greatness more than the man which creates it, and it, the man. Beggar boy sells mirrors to be the idols of their personal gods. Then , he must fight in court to disprove the crime of fraud against the people.
Chapter four. Beggar boy interrupts a ‘beating’ by schoolmaster of young boys. The discussion explores crime vs. punishment as a tool of ‘change’.
Chapter five. Beggar explores extremes of poverty, leadership and tyranny as he progresses from poor hovels to an execution pit to the king’s audience. He pleas for the lives of condemned slaves. Explores concepts of social order, tyranny, freedom.
Chapter six. Beggar interrupts argument amongst three brothers over law vs. assisted suicide for their father. The concept argued is wether conscience of ‘I’ is above conscience of communal law.