X-rated 'Book of Genesis' hits book shelves

October 29, 8:53 AMAtlanta Astrology ExaminerPatricia Lantz

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          Book cover/Robert Crumb/W.W. Norton & Co.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells stories of lust, drunkenness, nudity, polygamy, harlots, men pimping their wives, masturbation, penis cutting, incest, a 90 year old woman who becomes pregnant and a father who offers his virgin daughters up for strangers to rape. Oh My!! Defiantly a book you'd not want children to get their hands on but of course ever since Luther and Gutenberg the Bible has been available to the masses ~ both young and old.

“The Book of Genesis Illustrated” is one of the most compelling and intriguing books to hit the bookstore shelves in 2009.

A banner on the book's cover brags “The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!” And the author, Robert Crumb, states in a brief introduction ~ "If my visual, literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis offends or outrages some readers,which seems inevitable considering that the text is revered by many people, all I can say in my defense is that I approached this as a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes."

So Who is Robert Crumb ?

Crumb is best known as one of the founding heroes of underground comics. He created iconic characters such as Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural. Crumb became famous in the late 60's when characters like Mr Natural, Snoids, Vulture Demonesses, Eggs Ackley and many others made him a neighborhood celebrity in the San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury area. By the early 70's Crumb was already well known in the youth counter-culture when Fritz the Cat made it to the big screen and catapulted him into mainstream notoriety.

It's common in our time to see comics address things that are not really comic at all and this had it's origin in Crumb's often passionate and perverse style and his vision of just how much the comics could say and do.

As the book editor for the the LA time writes ~ “...that's the beauty of "The Book of Genesis Illustrated," how perfectly Crumb's style fits the material, which is a narrative (or a set of narratives) about human passion”

Images are fundamentally different from words. While writing and reading stimulates the left brain unless we can form an image in our mind we remain only a dispassionate observer. Images themselves produce a more intuitive and holistic style of thought. Images touch our feelings and emotions ~ they draw us into the story and we often find ourselves identifying and empathizing with the characters. CHECK OUT SOME OF CRUMB'S ILLUSTRATIONS FOR GENESIS 19

David S. Ulin, book editor of The LA Times, has this to say ~

“Still, the Bible? That's a stretch, especially for an artist such as Crumb, who has been accused of trafficking in racist and sexist stereotypes. Certainly, he's licentious, dirty even, his comics littered with big-boned women, busty and curvaceous, dominated by smaller, less-powerful men. But that's the beauty of "The Book of Genesis Illustrated," how perfectly Crumb's style fits the material, which is a narrative (or a set of narratives) about human passion, after all. This is rough stuff, full of lust and jealousy, in which Jacob steals his brother's birthright, and later, his sons kill a town full of men to avenge the defiling of their sister, Dinah. God is here, but he is mercurial, pitiless, willing to wipe out creation with a flood to purge the world of wickedness, yet somehow powerless to stop wickedness from reemerging once the Earth repopulates. Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac, even Jacob wrestling with the angel: The point of these episodes is awe, in the most terrifying sense of the word -- awe at a universe that defies our reason and in which we must continually make adjustments to survive.”  (emphasis mine)  Read entire review
 

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Patricia Lantz is a practicing astrologer and hypnotherapist living in Atlanta Georgia. She can be reached by calling (678) 763 0552 or by visiting her home on the web at www.astrology-hypnotherapy.com. Patricia is also the Astrology Editor for All Things Healing,  an online community for spiritual and healing practices.