Book Description
The setting is Milwaukee, Wisconsin—if not America’s heart, then at least its liver—home to an array of breweries and abandoned factories and down-on-their-luck Eastern European immigrants. The year is 1989.
Revolutions are sweeping through the nations of the Eastern Bloc. Communism is unraveling. And nobody feels this unraveling more piquantly than Yuri Balodis—a fifteen-year-old first-generation American living with his Latvian-immigrant parents in Milwaukee’s Third Ward.
It’s a turbulent time. And when Yuri falls in love with Hannah Graham—the daring daughter of a prominent local socialist—chaos ensues. Within weeks, Yuri is ensnared by both Hannah and socialism. He joins the staff of the Socialist Worker. He starts quoting Lenin and Marx indiscriminately.
His parents, of course, are horrified and deeply saddened. They try to educate him, to show him why, in their opinion, communism has ruined so many lives. But Yuri is stubborn. And his ideological betrayal will have more serious consequences than breaking his parents’ hearts.
Red Weather is by turns funny and bittersweet, tinged with a rueful comic sense that will instantly remind you of the absurd complications of love. Pauls Toutonghi’s stunning debut novel is at once reminiscent of Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets the da Vinci Code.......2006-11-29
I picked up this novel after reading favorable reviews. I truly enjoyed the first 50 pages of this book. Having grown up in the Milwaukee area in the 1980's, I recognized my home town in the novel. I enjoyed the characters in Yuri's life such as his parents and his cousins. He describes his family life with such humorous honesty. I really enjoyed the way he met Hannah and became seduced by her socialist perspective. I was looking forward to getting to know her better. I thought he had the makings of a great plot as Hannah's socialist ideals would conflict with his parents' experience of the U.S.S.R.
And then ...
I thought this novel got lost in a bunch of plot twists designed to entertain the reader more accustomed to the standard movie thriller. Towards the end of the book the action is fast and furious. All this action obscures the richness of the characters. Hannah, for example, never emerges beyond the Communist caricature. We never learn why she is attending an inner city high school even though she lives in a posh suburb. So many plot turns prevent us from learning much about Yuri's family - such as his mother, his uncle, his uncle's wife and his cousin.
I put down this novel worrying about how the success of the da Vinci code is influencing the new generation of American writers. Must every novel have a simple screen play that will appeal to some Hollywood producer? Must every rich story include car chases, car crashes and people jumping off balconies? I get the sense the Pauls Toutonghi could have written a much better book, but he perceives the need to "dumb-down" his story for his audience.
DELICIOUS!.......2006-11-09
Wow! Each paragraph brings unexpected & unforced giggles that seem to just creep up! Paul's insight into people, their motivations, aspirations & daring is refreshing, to say the least. As a Latvian-American familiar with Latvian pagan tradition, I am just amazed at his delicacy of spirit & understanding of the sources of this tradition's solace and power - e.g. sitting in a tree. What a broad vision of the human spirit! Savor each word!
Nebrauc tik dikti, tie nav tavi kumelini!
WOW!! What a wonderful book.......2006-10-12
I loved this book. It took me longer than usual to read it, about two weeks. I just wanted to savour it and not end it. I loved the "cast" in the book and found my heart racing at the anxiety of the narrator! The capturing of the 2nd generation aspect was DEAD ON (2nd generation Persian_italian here). WOW WOW WOW!!! Pauls, come to CA so I can lavish you with praise. My new favorite author. Just ordered another of his works.
Serendipitous find.......2006-09-10
I found this novel while browsing in a book store and am so glad that I ran across it. It is a gem of a book--a delightful look at the immigrant experience and father/son relationships. I look forward to reading whatever else Toutonghi writes in the future!
Overcast Weather .......2006-09-07
We Latvians are a small nation, but oh, we are a proud people! We are a nation beaten and battered by many wars over many hundreds, even thousands of years, but our culture and life sense still thrive: the Latvian language is one of the oldest in existence today, still actively used. Perhaps that is our greatest source of pride, then: we are survivors.
When Pauls Toutonghi's new novel, Red Weather, came upon the literary scene, I was greatly pleased. I've been an avid reader in both languages - Latvian and English - since earliest childhood, but however many good books I read about the war and later experiences of Latvians immigrating to other countries and cultures, it was rare to come across a worthy tome in English. History books, yes, but far more rare, a good attention-grabbing novel that I could proudly share with non-Latvian friends.
Now, here's Pauls. With one Latvian parent, it is my understanding he has grown up in the Milwaukee area, active in the Latvian community and, having visited Latvia, is well-acquainted, one would suppose, with the culture and something of the nation's history. For these reasons, I read the novel with high expectation and excitement.
Pauls' writing abilities do not disappoint. Still quite young, he has already accrued an impressive publishing history, and has won the Pushcart Prize. His descriptions are lively, his storyline pulls us along, his sense of humor is intact.
And yet. The further I read, the more I realized, no, this was not going to be the book that I would pass on to Latvians I know, or to non-Latvians I'd like to invite a little more intimately into my multi-cultural world. The novel works as an entertaining read for non-Latvians, perhaps, but for those who do know the history and culture, well, not so much. I think my sense of humor is healthy, but I can't help feeling, for instance, that describing Latvians visiting the United States as being so dense as to put ketchup on every possible food, even bananas, craving to taste the American life, is taking the joke into the much less fun realm of ridicule. Or the Latvian mother as so eye-rollingly lacking in self-awareness as to walk Milwaukee streets wearing a Pabst hardhat with a beer can on it as if she were wearing a Parisian fashion statement. Surely not. I cringed in embarrassment. Humor is often built on slapstick and exaggeration, but would those who have no other knowledge of Latvians, perhaps never will have any other exposure than this novel, think this is what it means to be a Latvian? Bumbling fools?
Perhaps even more worthy of remark are some historic inaccuracies. Although this is a fictional work, even fiction must keep its feet firmly on factually solid ground before branching into fantasy. One such example is the allusion to Latvia's president, Karlis Ulmanis, and his attempt to escape to Finland during the Soviet invasion of World War II (see page 166). In fact, President Ulmanis held his place, broadcasting over the radio waves to the nation even as the Soviet tanks crossed the Russian border, keeping down the panic and requesting all to remain in their places, thus saving many Latvian lives. He was taken by force from his office by the occupying army, and was never seen alive again. Educated guesses are that he was deported to Siberia, where he died in a Gulag (concentration camp), but his body has never been found.
Having finished the novel, wondering at how very different the author's experience of his Latvian roots and culture were from mine, indeed from anyone I have known with Latvian roots and having gone through the immigrant experience, I wanted to think - hey, there's always the exception to the rule. If by 1989, when this story is set, any Latvian immigrant I or my family knew had established themselves in relative financial security (the fictional Balodis family still lived in squalor), had attained some measure of their new country's education and achieved something of their own immigrant American dream, then the Balodis family was certainly a lone exception to the rule. Nor could I imagine my own father, or fathers of my friends, being so easygoing about the political lines the young man in this novel, Yuri (Juris), crossed in his lovelorn relationship with a socialist girl (my own, and dare I say any typical, Latvian father, would have gone through the roof, to put it very, very lightly).
As a reality check, I shared Red Weather with my parents, who shared it with several of their friends. Their reactions were the same. They expressed admiration for the author's skill, but also expressed a pained disappointment in the skewed image of Latvian immigrants to the U.S. The image the book leaves is of a people who are gullible, not particularly industrious, and rather dim-witted.
An opportunity lost. My subjective opinion, but I'm sure shared by more than a few of my countrymen and women.
Average customer rating:
- Truly Hearfelt
- Graphic SF Reader
- Most satisfying read I've had in a while
- Blue? Bland!
- Disappointing
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Spider-Man: Blue
Jeph Loeb
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0785110623 |
Customer Reviews:
Truly Hearfelt.......2007-09-22
One of my favorite Spider-Man stories, let alone Jeph Loeb stories. It truly is a heart-felt journey, and I was glad I took it.
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03
This isn't too bad, somewhat pretty, but not overly interesting. Seems a decent excuse for them to draw some retro high school hip chicks, I suppose. Throw in Spidey's rogues gallery, as well. It is perhaps trying to hard to get that balance between retro and modern enough to appeal to the kidlets of today.
Most satisfying read I've had in a while.......2007-07-15
I'm a big fan off Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb. I love the work they've done with Batman, and out comes another fantastically told story.
I did not grow up with Gwen Stacy. I'm not a rabid Spider-Man fan. In fact, you might not even call me a rabid comic book fan. I enjoy them, but I'm more casual. I like short run series, and this is one of the best ones I've read in a while.
It was honestly one of the most satisfying reads I've had in a very long time.
Blue? Bland!.......2007-07-11
Blue is a well drawn work. Tim Sale's art does not disappoint nor do Steve Buccaletto's colors.
Where Blue stumbles is the horrible, trite "humor" spouted by Spidey during his fisticuffs.
Jeph Loeb is a talented writer and should have made Spiderman's banter humorous not cliched and wretched. It's a very irritating distractor.
Ultimately, Blue fails to deliver anything new or original to Spiderman's early days. It's a decent work but nothing special.
Disappointing.......2007-07-01
Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale worked a lot of magic for DC with their various Batman mini's and Superman For All Seasons, but their work for Marvel has never come close to the excellence the pair achieved together for the rival company. Daredevil: Yellow was good, and detailed the love of Matt Murdock and the late Karen Page, and Spider-Man: Blue more or less follows the same blueprint. Spider-Man: Blue is basically a love letter to Gwen Stacy, the first true love of Peter Parker who met an untimely and tragic death at the hands of the Green Goblin. Sadly though, much of Loeb's attempts to coax emotion out of the reader fall flat, and before you know it, Blue becomes too overly boring, and sadly, even feels overlong as well. Tim Sale's artwork on the other hand is beautiful and a sight to behold to say the least. His renderings of Gwen Stacy are reason enough alone to check out this TPB, but Loeb sadly comes up short. All in all, Spider-Man: Blue is a disappointing work from Loeb and Sale, but it's still worth checking out for Sale's gorgeous visuals alone.
Book Description
Hollywood heavyweight Reginald Hudlin (House Party, Boomerang) has already brought you his searing vision for Black Panther. Now, he's teaming up with red-hot artist Billy Tan (X-23) to shake up everyone's favorite web-slinger by turning Peter Parker's life upside down. He's got an incredible new pad (you won't believe where), a new job, and - although he doesn't know it - a new nemesis who's everything that Peter isn't. But first, Spider-Man's got to deal with a more pressing problem - a shape-shifting super-villain who's developed a nasty habit... and will do anything to feed it. And wait - who's that hitting on Mary Jane!? Collects Marvel Knights Spider-Man #13-18.
Product Description
A special stand-alone story set in the recent past of the wall-crawler's career! Haunted by nightmares, plagued by a world that doesn't understand him, Spider-Man makes a fateful deal with Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson!
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Spider-man: Blue #1 (My Funny Valentine) Vol. 1 July 2002
Jeph Loeb
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
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ASIN: B000RJ3OY8 |
Product Description
"My Funny Valentine"
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Spider-man: Blue #4 (Autumn In New York) Vol. 1 October 2002
Jeph Loeb
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
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"Autumn in New York"
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Spider-man: Blue #6 (All of Me) Vol. 1 April 2003
Jeph Loeb
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
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Product Description
"All of Me"
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Batman Shadow of the Bat #1 (Collector's Set with 3-D Pop-Up, 2 Posters, Bookmark, & Blue Print of Arkham Asylum - DC Comics)
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Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars
Leigh Brackett
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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The outlaws of Mars (Ace book)
Otis Adelbert Kline
Manufacturer: Ace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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Book Description
Deepens and refreshes our view of early Christianity while casting a disturbing light on the evolution of the attitudes passed down to us.
Customer Reviews:
Ugh, not again........2007-05-27
That's it, last time I buy a book buy Pagels no matter how enlightened she is. This is the second time I've wasted money on a Pagels book because of a misleading title and synopsis. I'm tired of her misrepresentation, and the wtf look on my face after reading is simply not attractive. This is supposed to be a book about how Christians came up with the idea that sex is inherently evil and ended up being about beavers in their natural habitat. For all you literal people, that was called sarcasm.
The design of Genesis.......2005-11-12
Two creation accounts were later joined in GENESIS. In the first four hundred years Christians regarded freedom as the primary message of GENESIS. In Jesus's time anti-pagan feelings were strong among the pious and rural Jews. John the Baptist may lived with the Essenes. Jesus warned of the coming day of judgment. Rabbis, teachers, came to replace the hereditary caste of priests.
GENESIS commands be fruitful and multiply. Jesus reversed traditional priorities. He celebrated the single and childless. Within a century of Paul's death ascetic aspects of Jesus's message spread rapidly. Chrisitians attacked the gods and the imperilled pagans.
Christians in different provinces showed great diversity. Christians were distinguished for their moral rigor. Some Christians resented being told what to think and how to behave by the bishops. Some sought to know God directly through gnosis. Gnostics constituted an institutional threat.
After Constantine, heresy became a crime against the state. Jesus had said there were no grounds for divorce. Paul spoke of marriage in negative terms. Paul and Jesus sought to prepare for the end of the world. As the religious basis of society, Christians were to look to one another. They claimed moral equality. Some Gnostics believed in an internal source of desire and action.
Augustine was joyful when he gave up ambition and embraced celibacy. The ascetics were athletes for God. Augustine de-emphasized free-will and affirmed secular government in qualified fashion. He offered a theology of politics. The Christian view of freedom changed as Christianity became the religion of emperors.
All things old are new again..........2004-10-02
Elaine Pagels is perhaps best known as the author of the popular text, `The Gnostic Gospels', highlighting a lesser known arena in early Christian history. Her reputation is somewhat controversial, as is her writing, but one thing is certain - she is a good writer, interesting to read, and she will make her readers think. This particular book, `Adam, Eve and the Serpent' deals with issues surrounding sexuality and gender, a hot topic in the social and cultural situations of today, but similarly of concern throughout much of Christian history. There is a tug-of-war between `traditional values' (leaving aside that there are various traditions) and `revisionist' or `modern' ideas, and few are in agreement over where the boundaries should be drawn.
Pagels explores some of the ways in which these traditional roles of gender and patterns of sexual expression arose to become so powerfully ingrained in western Christian society. To this day, most people make the appeal to the early chapters of Genesis both as the paradigm for what God intended for the world as well as the explanation, if not the actual instance, of sin and evil encroaching upon the world. Pagels begins with a copy of the first few chapters of Genesis, and traces ways in which ancient Jewish and early Christian communities interpreted these chapters.
Each chapter in Pagel's book highlights a particular theme. The first chapter looks at the understanding of Jewish culture of the early Genesis stories that would have formed the world view of Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles and church leaders, all of whom were born and raised into this Jewish culture. Jesus and Paul do not seem to see original sin as being a sexual sin or act, according to Pagels, and humanity after Adam and Eve are still called to make a moral choice out of freedom that goes beyond sexuality.
Later chapters deal with the development of interpretation in light of the political and social situation, first as an oppressed minority, then later as a significant political presence in the empire. Pagels also devotes a chapter to looking at the Gnostics and their views toward gender and sexuality, the radicality of which sowed some of the discord between their community and the greater orthodox church. Pagels then devotes considerable space to the Augustinian development of ideas of sexuality, gender and human nature in relation to Genesis, as all subsequent Christian viewpoints in the West have some relationship, pro or con, to the Augustinian foundations. The prevailing idea of original sin as being sexual derives largely from Augustine (although some of it is based upon misinterpretation).
Pagels discusses briefly the issues of exegesis (interpretation) versus eisegesis (reading into the text, or projection) - it is often said that one can find most anything one wants in the bible by interpretation; Pagels has been charged with this as well. However, as an explanation of the ways in which certain texts were understood and passed on, Pagels is a good voice to include - her scholarship and research support is sound, and her interpretations fit within reasonable limits. This is a book that introduces the reader to ideas perhaps unknown, intriguing, and certainly worthy of conversation.
The Village Reader Review.......2004-07-14
Jesus interprets Genesis 1 to 3 in a radical new way, and the subsequent four centuries of orthodox and Gnostic Christians resulting thought process leads to modern ideas on relationships.
In first century Jerusalem there was conflict between the pagan Rome and Jewish culture and religion. There were also a struggles between Jews that had an accommodative posture toward Rome (led mostly by the upper classes and Priests that had the most to lose) and those, mostly more conservative and rural, that resisted Roman influence. In modern terms, Jesus was a resistance leader.
Pagels argues the conflict was partly due to Jesus' interpretation of Genesis. In Genesis 1:28, the basis for marriage was procreation - and by Jewish law, marriage without children was grounds for divorce. Christ turned the law upside down. When asked what the grounds for divorce were, his answer, in Matthew 19:4-6, is that there are none. "This answer shocked his Jewish listeners and, as Matthew tells it, pleased no one".
After the crucifixion, but long before the Reformation, two groups competed for the heart and soul of Christianity - the orthodox and Gnostics. The same Scriptural texts supported radically different viewpoints. Orthodox Christians read Genesis as "history with a moral" - and their viewpoint was "a proclamation of moral freedom". Pagels implies this led to the development of the rights of man, democracy and equality under the law. Gnostics believed that Genesis was a "myth with a meaning". They argued that Genesis could not be read literally because it didn't make sense. There were two different creation texts which didn't agree (Genesis 1:26, 27 and 2:7); they questioned if Adam and Eve could hear God's footsteps (Genesis 3:8) and wonder why God an omniscient God would ask "where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). They looked for a deeper meaning to scripture.
For four centuries orthodox and Gnostic waged a philosophical battle for the heart of Christianity. Orthodoxy won, and only now, nearly sixteen hundred years later, are some of the early arguments and texts being reexamined, after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts in 1945 and the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. This well written, probing, thought provoking book is a part of a reexamination of the development of religious thought.
The many influences of one myth..........2004-05-22
"Adam, Eve, and the Serpent" is a brief, fascinating introduction to the world that shaped early Christian thought. Pagels writes that, during the first four centuries of the common era, there were many different schools of thought about religion, almost as many as there are in the contemporary American setting that she writes.
In this book, she examines how one myth -- the story of the fall of Adam and Eve-- shaped different religious thinkers. Some, like Augustine, took it as an illustration of the inherantly sinful nature of people, and used the story to flesh out his highly influential beliefs about original sin. Other religious thinkers, like Gnostics, saw the myth as an allegory about the spirit (Eve) within the flesh (Adam) and even went so far to see the serpant as an early foreshadowing to Christ. The fall wasn't a bad thing -- it was an allegory of emerging spiritual consciousness.
Readers may be surprised to discover just how influential the Adam and Eve myth really was. For many under Roman rule, it was the first introduction to a notion of human equality-- all people were equal creations of God-- and a spark that lead to contemporary American concepts that "all men are created equal." (Just to be accurate, in both of these periods it was only men who were seen as equal, and no consideration was given to women, slaves, etc...) Pagels points out that an idea like this, which the American founding fathers took to be 'self-evident' is in fact an empirically unprovable concept, and philosophers like Aristotle would have found it absurd.
Elsewhere in the book, Pagels provides an interesting window into Christian attitudes about celibacy. I was surprised to learn a life of renunciation was seen as a freedom from the responsibilities of family life -- my modern mind was more trained to see it as a purely religious concept, not a practical one.
Pagels has a succint, controlled writing style that is hypnotic. In just 154 pages, she covers a lot of ground. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and would be curious to see other treatments of the singular influence of certain Bible stories.
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Adam and Eve and the serpent in Genesis 1-3
Elaine H Pagels
Manufacturer: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Sex
| Health, Mind & Body
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General
| Christianity
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ASIN: B00071DD9C |
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Adam Eve & the Serpent
Elaine Pagels
Manufacturer: RANDOM HOUSE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Pagels, Elaine
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000TXY5VI |
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Adam Eve and the Serpent
Elaine Pagels
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
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Pagels, Elaine
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Religion & Spirituality
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ASIN: 0297793268 |
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Adam, Eve & Serpent
Elaine Pagels
Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Pagels, Elaine
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0517055694
Release Date: 1990-10-13 |
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Adam, Eve, And The Serpent
Elaine Pagels
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Pagels, Elaine
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000NUNRI4 |
Average customer rating:
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Adam, Eve, and the Serpent
Elaine Pagels
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Pagels, Elaine
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000GJP7H6 |
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Adam, Eve, and the Serpent-
Elaine Pagels-
Manufacturer: Random House, Publisher-
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Pagels, Elaine
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000O6FQ22 |
Product Description
BEAUTIFUL BRAND NEW. NO REMINDER MARKS [H]. THREE BOOKS IN ONE. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS ...ADAM, EVE AND THE SERPENT, , AND THE ORIGIN OF SATAN. NUMBER OF PAGES IS AN ESTIMATE ONLY, IT APPEARS WELL OVER 1000 LARGE.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful book!!!.......2006-08-07
This is a highly interesting book. I also recommend it to anyone looking for speculative "answers" about Christianity.
You may not agree with everything -- and that's certainly OK.
But take whatever you get from this book and then go research the possibilities!
Also recommended: "What Did Jesus Really Say, How Christianity Went Astray: [What To Say To A Born Again Christian Fundamentalist, But Never Had The Information]" by Peter Cayce
I know what I know..........2005-10-30
In her prize-winning book 'The Gnostic Gospels', a book which has remained in the popular eye for the past two decades since its first publication in 1979, Elaine Pagels has put together a popular treatment of a hitherto (but since more popularly-accessible) academic-only subject. The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library were very much a topic of conversation, but always topics about which things were spoken, rather than of which things were spoken. This book helped change that in common parlance, and also served as a basic primer for those new to the field who would then proceed to more in-depth study and analysis.
In her relatively substantial introduction, Pagels goes through a history of the coming into light of the texts of Nag Hammadi, contrasting it with the more popularly known Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the Nag Hammadi texts also had their fair share of intrigue and cloak-and-dagger kinds of dealings, until finally coming into the relatively safe hands of museums and academics.
Pagels proceeds from this background with a brief history of Christian thought in the first few centuries after Christ. She particularly highlights the contrasts between orthodoxy and catholic trends, and how each relates to a gnostic point of view. What are the issues of the resurrection? Why was this taken literally? What authority is conferred upon those who saw the risen Lord, and why was it not so evenly spread (Mary Magdalene, alas, seems to have gotten the short end of the stick authority-wise, despite being listed numerous times as the first witness of the resurrection, and indeed the apostle to the apostles, proclaiming his resurrection to the unbelieving men).
Pagels then develops a political idea and structure to her analysis of the way church orthodoxy continued away from and in deliberate, direct opposition to gnostic teachings. Were the gnostics abandoning monotheism, in heretical schism from the teachings of the commonly-accepted New Testament. Complicated in this, of course, is the fact that the New Testament did not as yet exist, so many competing documents claimed authority, among them gnostic texts.
Pagels also explores gender ideas, in the imagery of God, which was much more fluid in the gnostic framework (and only beginning to be recovered in protestant and catholic circles) as we recognise that God does not have a gender, and that the image of God as mother (particularly in creative acts) is as valid in many ways as that of God the father.
The Gospel of Thomas sets up both political and gender controversies in short economy, by showing a small take on the authority struggle between Mary Magdalene and Peter for primacy in the community. Indeed, Peter seems to want to cast Mary out 'for women are not worthy of eternal life'--Jesus defends her, saying that he will 'make her male', and that indeed any who do this will be welcomed in the kingdom.
Gnostics were no fans of martyrdom--this sounds a bit strange, except that the 'proper attitude' toward suffering for the faith was important for the orthodox/catholic hierarchy, and many controversies abounded over those who held true and those who waivered. Gnostics were beyond the pale; roundly ignored and despised to the extent that their martyrs for Christianity were not recognised as being true martyrs.
Perhaps the greatest difference between standard gnostic belief and practice and Christianity as it has come down to us today is the idea that, with gnosis, one can have sufficient self-knowledge for salvation; that somehow, salvation and redeeming characteristics can come from within. This is antithetical to the idea that one is saved only by the grace of God, which comes only from God, from without, not from within. The pledge that priests take today in many denominations, that they believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to contain all things necessary for salvation, is a left-over from gnostic controversy days, who believed in other forms of knowledge.
Pagels' book is an interesting study, a fairly quick read, not too difficult, just enough for most, and the appetiser for others. Overall it still has integrity and purpose. Read together with Robinson's 'Nag Hammadi Library' (please see my review of that), it gives a fascinating view into an early Christian world, and food for thought of how different things might be today had reconciliation and dialogue replaced diatribe and exclusion.
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