Marylise Thill

Critical reading: "The Book against God" by James Wood - Reliable or Lies? Marylise Thill

Scholarly Essay from the year 2009 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 14, University of Louvain, language: English, abstract: The Book Against God is a debut novel written by James Wood, a famous book critic. This book portrays Thomas Bunting's life. This 26-year-old man is married to Jane, a famous pianist. Thomas is supposed to write a Ph. D. in philosophy. However, he started it seven years ago and he still has not finished it. He is in fact a man that is unable to finish something that he has begun. Instead of finishing it, he has started writing another book, The Book Against God (BAG). This is his private project, as he says, in which he "copies out apposite religious and anti-religious quotations, and develops arguments of his own about theological and philosophical matters." This quotation shows that he is an atheist and that he wants to write a book about it, which he considers to be his "life's work". Thomas has also many other bad habits like lying, never paying bills, no earning money, being unclean ("[...] I was no fan of bath or shower."), etc. All this leads finally to a separation with his wife. However, whenever reading, given it is a book or an article on the internet, the reader should always be critical and not believe everything that is there in black and white. He should always keep that in mind. This essay will specifically treat about that critical reading: Is the narrator reliable or not? Can the reader trust him or is he a real liar? The argumentation will be based on several examples in order to be more explicit.