Me of Little Faith: a book review

Me of Little Faith by Lewis Black

Riverhead Books, 2008   $24.95        ISBN 978-1-59448-994-5 

 I happen to enjoy Lewis Black. I have watched a number of his routines on The Daily show, and various cable specials. This is not for the profanity/obscenity challenged, of course, but yeah it is funny. He has a certain mastery of staccato rhythm, the potty mouth stuff seems oddly appropriate, and there is also more to it. Black has a certain world-weary existential wisdom to him. It's like, yeah I thought I had seen it all, but dig this one you crazy mo**** ****** ****** ****s!

The question is, how well does this translate to the printed page. Well, mixed results. There is some really good stuff that allows Black to unleash himself fully in the ranting mode, when he reviews the history of the televangelist movement. The weird thing is that every bit of it is true. Yes, Swaggart, The Bakkers, Falwell, Robertson, and Roberts really did say those things. And mockery and hilarity are the proper replies, not impassioned political discourse.  There are other times when Black exhibits unsuspected depth, when he adds a touch of pathos from his life in exploring the fact that a certain round of golf gave him the closest thing to a religious experience he ever had- and not long afterward his golfing buddy, once of his closest friends, died at a comparatively young age within a year. Life is short, and at times bitter, he reminds us.  And comedy and religion well up from the same source: terror of the grave.

On the other hand, there are things that do not seem to work as well without that goofy ranting voice to help it along.  One chapter is a comedy routine that he did back in 1981 on where our nation was headed then (where we are now, actually). It is fairly prophetic, but somehow the humor does not translate.

I did find myself comparing this book to more "serious" books on the topic of religious doubt, such as Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian nation or the other one, the book by Richard Dawkins. I thought, well, at times this Lewis Black approach really seemed like a better way to do it. Ultimately, the bottom line value of this kind of book and this kind of thinking is to deflate certainty and pomposity. Humor does that so much better than an elaborate syllogism. The point is simple: you claim certainty Mr. Baptist on a host of moral and theological topics. I only claim certainty on one thing, and that is that your certainty is groundless. Yet with all this Black also has the grace to admit some of the really dumb things that his generation believed for about one year back in the sixties: that gurus from India actually knew something we did not, and that a busload of college kids who never even held a shovel before could form a perfect society on a farm together.

I could do without Black's nonapologetic approach to the drug abuse of the 1960's- but I give him credit for abandoning his experiment when it became clear to him that it was not providing him with cosmic insight. Cosmic insight does not come in a pill vial. Maybe it comes from the rare golf game, yeah. But only under rare atmospheric conditions.

So I guess what I am saying is that this is a "B" rather than an "A", if you seek a letter grade. There are worse ways to spend your time, and the highlights are very good here. But it is not of uniform quality.