A repetitive, demanding and thoroughly amazing novel from the creator of “Catch 22.” “God Knows” tells the story of the Biblical King David in his own voice, as the fabled Goliath-slayer remembers his life and its complication on his deathbed. As he nears the end, David can’t help but retrace his life in his mind, returning again and again to certain formative events: the murderous rage of the previous King, Saul, David’s still-steaming lust for wife Bathsheba and the rebellion and death of his son, Absalom.
It’s natural for David’s mind to retrace these formative moments, the ones that brought him to his throne and also delivered such heartbreak. But it can make for slow reading, especially at the beginning of the book, when David’s musings are untethered from the story that brought him to his current royal, debilitated state.
It’s only as the story builds that we move from his decline to his rise: playing the lyre for Saul, slaying Goliath, becoming a hero and then running from the king that sees him as a threat. We move through banditry, rebellion, the pains and pleasures of many wives, and the hard politics of managing a ruling coalition. There’s also his lust for Bathsheba, which leads David to send her husband to his death in battle, a sin that ends the communion he previously had with the Lord.
“Did I kill Uriah to avoid a scandal or because I already had settled in my soul that I wanted his wife?” he wonders. “God knows. For not only is the heart deceitful in all things, it is also desperately wicked. Even mine. This danger in being a king is that after a while you begin to believe you really are one.”
Heller’s David is a fully human creation, both sharp and sentimental, despairing and proud, always ready with a joke or a bit of vulgarity. See him reflect on his showdown with Goliath, “I knew I was good. I knew I was brash. I knew I was brave. And with Goliath that day, I knew that if I could get within twenty-five paces of the big son of a bitch, I could sling a stone the size of a pig’s knuckle down his throat with enough velocity to penetrate the back of his neck and kill him, and I also knew something else: I knew if I was wrong about that, I could turn and run like a motherfucker and dodge my way back up the hill to safety without much risk from anyone chasing me in all that armor.”
The action is centered in the Middle East in Biblical times, but David’s voice speaks outside the frame, referring to his statue by Michelangelo (he’s not a fan), telegraphs, the Babylonians and all the uneasy history to follow. He’s savvy and smart, a contrast to his son Solomon, who’s humorously portrayed here as an oaf who poaches all his best lines from David.
The title itself is a clever one. On one hand, it sums up the uncertainty of human lives–who knows why God does anything? But on the other, it outlines David’s real gripes with the Lord: the king refuses to speak to him anymore, put off forever by the death of his infant son with Bathsheba, who was killed by God as punishment for the adultery and murder that forged their relationship.
Heller does an amazing job veering from Mel Brooks-level humor to palpable pain and pathos, often on the same page. David is tired of living, but he’s not tired of reliving his life in his own head, wondering about the events that shaped him and planning revenge for the slights he’s endured. Tonally, the book reminded me of John Barth’s “The Sot-Weed Factor,” another irreverent take on a historic subject. “God Knows” has a world-class author committing himself to a singular voice all the way through a moving ending. It takes a while to grab you, but after a certain point it’s a pleasure just to follow along.
