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Anne Rice’s second book in her hugely ambitious and courageous life of Christ begins during his last winter before his baptism in the Jordan and concludes with the miracle at Cana.
It is a novel in which we see Jesus—he is called Yeshua bar Joseph—during a winter of no rain, endless dust, and talk of trouble in Judea.
Legends of a Virgin birth have long surrounded Yeshua, yet for decades he has lived as one among many who come to the synagogue on the Sabbath. All who know and love him find themselves waiting for some sign of the path he will eventually take.
And at last we see him emerge from his baptism to confront his destiny—and the Devil. We see what happens when he takes the water of six great limestone jars, transforms it into cool red wine, is recognized as the anointed one, and urged to call all Israel to take up arms against Rome and follow him as the prophets have foretold.
As with Out of Egypt, the opening novel, The Road to Cana is based on the Gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship. The book’s power derives from the profound feeling its author brings to the writing and the way in which she summons up the presence of Jesus.
“Convincing and compelling. Another winner.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“[A] beautifully observed novel . . . Rice undertakes a delicate balance here: if it is possible to create a character that is simultaneously fully human and fully divine, as ancient Christian creeds assert, then Rice succeeds.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Anne Rice knows how to make that old story come alive for her readers.”
—Susan Larson, The Times-Picayune
“A powerful account of Christ’s humanity while staying true to orthodox Christianity. Her well-drawn, believable supporting characters add to a vivid captivating story . . . a novel that both religious and secular audiences can appreciate and enjoy; highly recommended for all fiction collections.”
—Library Journal (starred)
“Rice, whose books have sold more than 75 million copies, couples her writing talents with the zeal of a recent convert and a passion for historical research in Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, an intriguing followup to Out of Egypt . . . Remarkable for Rice’s prose and rich sensory detail.”
—Cindy Crosby, Christianity Today
“[The Road to Cana] succeeds in treating Yeshua’s humanity as an essential part of his divinity . . . And Ms. Rice can deliver hypnotic, incantatory prose that celebrates Yeshua’s ascension. . . . Many readers will be lured by the promise of simply rendered holiness to The Road to Cana.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Roles don't come a whole lot juicier than playing Jesus, so James Naughton hit the jackpot when he got to read Rice's first-person account of the life of Jesus-or Yeshua, as Rice has it. Naughton has a booming baritone-the voice of a born leader. As Jesus, he offers quiet strength and a touching sense of compassion. If the material is overly familiar, for obvious reasons, Naughton handles it well. His pronunciation of the Hebrew terms with which Rice studs the text is nimble, and his reading is hushed without being overly sappy or faux spiritual. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 4). (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Rice's second offering in this series (after Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt), a meticulously researched work blending fictional events and characters with biblical ones, covers the life of Yeshua bar Joseph in his 30th year as he struggles with decisions about his future life. James Naughton (
—Nancy Reed
Anne Rice is the author of twenty-seven books. She lives in Rancho Mirage, California.
Rice wrote Interview with the Vampire, she said later, "without ever realizing I was writing about loss. I was writing about my daughter's loss [Rice's daughter died in 1972]. And I was writing about my loss of Catholic faith long before that, because I had lost my faith in the year 1960, when I first went to college."
After her first book, Rice continued to write about loss -- and about vampires, witches and demons -- for more than 25 years. She also wrote, under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, the Beauty series, an erotic retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty; writing as Anne Rampling, she published two other novels, Exit to Eden and Belinda.
But it is as the queen of gothic fiction that Anne Rice's fans know her best. Her fans are passionate about her, and she returns the sentiment, e-mailing tirelessly with them and occasionally posting on their blogs. She also adores communing with them in person on book tours: "They give me personal, priceless and unforgettable feedback and verification of what I have achieved for them in my books," she once explained in a Salon interview.
After Blood Canticle was released in 1993, her readers, accustomed to an output of one book a year, kept asking her what was coming next. "And I've told them, 'You may not want what I'm doing next'," she said in a Newsweek interview.
They were in for a surprise. In 1998, Rice had returned to the Roman Catholic Church, and in 2005 she published Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a novel about the childhood of Jesus, narrated by himself.
"It's the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming announced that he'd been born again," wrote David Gates in Newsweek.
But as Rice sees it, Christ the Lord represents the fulfillment of a longing that has been in her books, and in her soul, all along.
"This subject is in no way a departure from that of my previous works; no one who knows my work could possibly think so," she said in a Q&A on her publisher's Web site. "The whole theme of Interview with the Vampire was Louis's quest for meaning in a godless world. He searched to find the oldest existing ‘immortal' simply to ask ‘What is the meaning of what we are?' I was always compelled to seek the ‘big answers.'"
Christ the Lord received mixed reviews, but many critics were as impressed with the book's style as its ambitious subject matter. "Rice's book is a triumph of tone -- her prose lean, lyrical, vivid -- and character," noted Kirkus Reviews. Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times Book Review: "Even in biblical times and in the Holy Land, Rice retains her obsessions with ritual and purification, with lavish detail and gaudy decor. But she writes this book in a simpler, leaner style, giving it the slow but inexorable rhythm of an incantation. The restraint and prayerful beauty of Christ the Lord is apt to surprise her usual readers and attract new ones."
Some of those usual readers, of course, are now wondering whether she will write any more vampire novels. Will the vampire Lestat ever return?
Anne's response, from her publisher's Web site: "I can't see myself doing that. My vampires were metaphors for the outsiders, the lost, the wanderers in the darkness who remembered the warmth of God's light but couldn't find it. My wish to explore that is gone now. I want to meet a much bigger challenge."
"My first job was as a cafeteria waitress at a Walgreen's cafeteria over the drugstore on Canal and Baronne Street in New Orleans when I was sixteen years old. What a plunge into reality. Canal Street was then the only downtown in town. And I was in fact a boarding school student and unbeknownst to the principal, Sr. Felix, took this job on weekends. When she found out, she did not approve of a St. Joseph's Academy girl being a waitress. I was undeterred. I had discovered that I could turn time into money. I never forgot that lesson. The crashing boredom of childhood was over!"
"I was employed from then on a shocking variety of low level jobs, including grill cook at a huge downtown cafeteria in San Francisco. I had to be there at 5:00 a.m., and once while I was en route on a bus, a drunken man fell asleep against me. The conductor had to wake him up for me to get off, poor guy. I think he'd staggered out of an after hours club. I was a crack waitress, a receptionist, a claims examiner, a theatre usherette in a big Cinerama house, and must have seen It's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World over one hundred times while standing there with a flashlight. My last job in the straight world -- after motherhood -- was that of proofreader for a law book company. I hated it. Then my devoted husband Stan, who was already teaching and had been for some time, said, 'Stay home and write, I believe in you.' And I wrote Interview with the Vampire."
"I was a painfully slow reader. Never really read a novel for pure pleasure until I was 35. It was Ordinary People by Judith Guest. Thought it very good."
"How do I unwind? There are different levels to unwind. The primo way for me is to read history or some form of involving scholarship. A good book on an obscure subject. The recent bestseller Krakatoa by Simon Winchester was a wonderful example! That's a delicious unwind book. And there are others out there like that. The British writers seem especially good at it. But I can't get enough on how or why the Roman Empire fell. That's my idea of a good evening. To be in Florida with the deck door open to the roar of the waves, and a good book open to pages on the decline of paganism."
"But! There is another kind of unwind. The gripping fiction bestseller that takes two days. The Da Vinci Code is a good example. Every now and then I have time for that. I was smiling all the way through it. At one time in my life, I had read everything I could find on the Knights Templar (see First Way to Unwind, above), and on Opus Dei, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and so I was just tickled by what the author did with the material. And of course, I couldn't stop reading. Such cleverness, such a puzzle and right up to the last page."
"Interest and hobbies: well, my interests are pretty much literary, except for maintaining two pre-Civil War houses in New Orleans (both family homes, one used for Mardi Gras season entertaining), and then I do devote some attention to my doll collection, which includes a small assortment of French antique dolls -- but this part of my life is drawing to a close. I am divesting myself of possessions rather than acquiring them. I am decorating, yes, and redecorating, but cutting down on the area, and the amount of things I have to maintain. I've let go of my huge property, St. Elizabeth's Orphanage -- a monster building which used to house my doll collection and so many other things. It was the fulfillment of dreams for about 10 years for me and so many other people. Weddings, book signings, book parties, benefits, fundraisers -- all kinds of events were held there. We even hosted President Clinton there. But that chapter of my life is over. For those ten years I asked 'what if?' many times. And I found out and as the result I am a satisfied person and a happy one. But it's over."
"I guess you could call my cats a hobby. I have five of them, all Siberians and very lovable and demanding and sweet. They are keepers certainly. Other than that, I don't know that I have hobbies so much as passions, and my passions center around my writing."
"My only other diversion of late is seeing that The Witching Hour will soon be made into a television limited series -- that is, a mini-series that will extend over 10 hours. The scripts that have been written by writer-producer John Wilder are very simply wonderful -- profoundly faithful to the material and the characters. Our producer, Mark Wolper, is extraordinarily dedicated and we have the network behind us. It looks very good."
"Other news looming is that Elton John and Rob Roth are making a musical based on the Vampire Chronicles for Broadway. I've talked to Elton John several times. He's absolutely charming. I've heard the first five songs, performed by him, and they were great. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics, and will write the lyrics for all. The other people involved have top credits. The treatment I read was a wonder -- very true to the books, quite terrific. My conversation with Rob Roth was very exciting."
"What I've learned from both these experiences so far -- the television series and the Broadway production -- is that the passion of people makes all the difference in the world. And sometimes it is the passion of a few key people that moves a project forward. Sometimes one person alone goes to the hard work of getting everybody else together, and making the studio that owns the underlying rights respond. People who love the work, who want to make something of it, can be brought together by that one key person. That one key person has to believe that past disappointments or failed connections don't mean anything. When you have that sort of person, something can happen."
"I've also learned that the author of the books usually can't do it. Not unless she wants to stop being an author altogether and move to L.A. or N.Y. and become a producer."
Who is Christ the Lord? Angels sang at his birth. Magi from the East brought gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They gave these gifts to him, and to his mother, Mary, and the man, Joseph, who claimed to be his father.In the Temple, an old man gathered the babe in his arms. The old man said to the Lord, as he held the babe, “A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”My mother told me those stories.That was years and years ago.Is it possible that Christ the Lord is a carpenter in the town of Nazareth, a man past thirty years of age, and one of a family of carpenters, a family of men and women and children that fill ten rooms of an ancient house, and, that in this winter of no rain, of endless dust, of talk of trouble in Judea, Christ the Lord sleeps in a worn woolen robe, in a room with other men, beside a smoking brazier? Is it possible that in that room, asleep, he dreams? Yes. I know it’s possible. I am Christ the Lord. I know. What I must know, I know. And what I must learn, I learn.And in this skin, I live and sweat and breathe and groan. My shoulders ache. My eyes are dry from these dreadful rainless days–from the long walks to Sepphoris through the gray fields in which the seeds burn under the dim winter sun because the rains don’t come.I am Christ the Lord. I know. Others know, but what they know they often forget. My mother hasn’t spoken a word on it for years. My foster father, Joseph, is old now, white haired, and given to dreaming.I never forget.And as I fall asleep, sometimes I’m afraid–because my dreams are not my friends. My dreams are wild like bracken or sudden hot winds that sweep down into the parched valleys of Galilee.But I do dream, as all men dream.And so this night, beside the brazier, hands and feet cold, under my cloak, I dreamed.I dreamed of a woman, close, a woman, mine, a woman who became a maiden who became in the easy tumult of dreams my Avigail.I woke. I sat up in the dark. All the others lay sleeping still, with open mouths, and the coals in the brazier were ashes.Go away, beloved girl. This is not for me to know, and Christ the Lord will not know what he does not want to know–or what he would know only by the shape of its absence.She wouldn’t go–not this, the Avigail of dreams with hair tumbled down loose over my hands, as if the Lord had made her for me in the Garden of Eden.No. Perhaps the Lord made dreams for such knowing– or so it seemed for Christ the Lord.I climbed up off the mat, and quietly as I could, I put more coals into the brazier. My brothers and my nephews didn’t stir. James was off with his wife tonight in the room they shared. Little Judas and Little Joseph, fathers both, slept here tonight away from little ones huddled around their wives. And there lay the sons of James–Menachim, Isaac, and Shabi, tumbled together like puppies.I stepped over one after another and took a clean robe from the chest, the wool smelling of the sunshine in which it had been dried. Everything in that chest was clean.I took the robe and went out of the house. Blast of cold air in the empty courtyard. Crunch of broken leaves.And for a moment in the hard pebbly street I stopped and looked up at the great sweep of glittering stars beyond the huddled rooftops.Cloudless, this cold sky, and so filled with these infinitesimal lights, it seemed for a moment beautiful. My heart hurt. It seemed to be looking at me, enfolding me–a thing of kindness and witness–an immense web flung out by a single hand–rather than the vast inevitable hollow of the night above the tiny slumbering town that spilled like a hundred others down a slope between distant caves of bones and thirsting fields, and groves of olive trees.I was alone.Somewhere far down the hill, near the sometime marketplace, a man sang in a low drunken voice and a spark of light shone there, in the doorway of the sometime tavern. Echo of laughter.But all the rest was quiet, without a torch to light the way.The house of Avigail across from ours was shut up like any other. Inside, Avigail, my young kinswoman, slept with Silent Hannah, her sweet companion, and the two old women who served her and the bitter man, Shemayah, who was her father.Nazareth did not always have a beauty. I’d seen generations of young maidens grow up, each fresh and lovely to behold as any flower in the wild. Fathers did not want their daughters to be beauties. But Nazareth had a beauty now, and it was Avigail. She’d refused two suitors of late, or so her father had done on her behalf, and there was a real question in the minds of the women of our house as to whether Avigail herself even knew the suitors had come calling.It fell hard on me suddenly that I would sometime very soon be standing among the torchbearers at her wedding. Avigail was fifteen. She might have been married a year ago, but Shemayah kept her close. Shemayah was a rich man who had but one thing and one thing alone that made him happy, and that was his daughter, Avigail.I walked up the hill and over the top. I knew every family behind every door. I knew the few strangers who came and went, one huddled in a courtyard outside the Rabbi’s house, and the other on the roof above where so many slept, even in winter. It was a town of day-to-day quiet, and seemingly not a single secret.I walked down the other side of the slope until I came to the spring, the dust rising with every step I took, until I was coughing from it.Dust and dust and dust.Thank You, Father of the Universe, that this night is not so cold, no, not as cold as it might be, and send us the rain in Your own good time because You know that we need it.Passing the synagogue, I could hear the spring before I saw it.The spring was drying up, but for now it still ran, and it filled the two large rock-cut basins in the side of the hill, and spilled down in glistening streaks to the rocky bed it followed off and away into the distant forest.The grass grew soft here and fragrant.I knew that in less than an hour, the women would be coming, some to fill jugs, others, the poorer women, to wash their clothes here as best they could and beat them on the rocks.But for now the spring was mine.I stripped off the old robe and flung it down into the creek bed where the water soon filled it up and darkened it to where I couldn’t see it. I set the clean robe aside and approached the basin. With my cupped hands I bathed in the cold water, drenching my hair, my face, my chest, letting it run down my back and my legs. Yes, cast away the dreams like the old robe, and bathe them away. The dream woman has no name now and no voice, and what it was, that painful flicker when she laughed or reached out, well, that was gone, fading, like the night itself was fading, and gone too was the dust for this moment, the suffocating dust. There was only cold. There was only water.I lay down on the far bank, opposite the synagogue. The birds had begun, and as always I’d missed the exact moment. It was a game I played, trying to hear the very first of the birds, the birds that knew the sun was coming when no one else did.I could see the big thick palm trees around the synagogue emerging from the clump of shapeless shadows. Palms could grow in a drought. Palms didn’t care if the dust coated every branch. Palms went on as if made for all seasons.The cold was outside me. I think my beating heart kept me warm. Then the first light seeped up over the distant bluff, and I picked up the fresh robe, and slipped it over my head. So good, this, this luxuriously clean cloth, this fresh-smelling cloth.I lay back down again and my thoughts drifted. I felt the breeze before I heard the trees sigh with it.Far up the hill was an old olive grove to which I loved to go at times to be alone. I thought of it now. How good it would be to lie in that soft bed of dead leaf and sleep the day away.But there was no chance of it, not now with the tasks that had to be done, and with the village charged with new worries and new talk over a new Roman Governor come to Judea, who, until he settled in as every other Governor had done, would trouble the land from one end to the other.The land. When I say the land, I mean Judea and Galilee as well. I mean the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, the Land of God. It was no matter that this man didn’t govern us. He governed Judea and the Holy City where the Temple stood, and so he might as well have been our King instead of Herod Antipas. They worked together, these two, Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, and this new man, Pontius Pilate, whom men feared, and beyond Jordan Herod Philip ruled and worked with them as well. And so the land had been carved up for a long, long time, and Antipas and Philip we knew, but Pontius Pilate we didn’t know and the reports were already evil.What could a carpenter in Nazareth do about it? Nothing, but when there was no rain, when men were restive and angry and full of fear, when people spoke of the curse of Heaven on the withering grass, and Roman slights, and an anxious Emperor gone into exile in mourning for a son poisoned, when all the world seemed filled with the pressure to put one’s shoulder to it and push, well, in such a time, I didn’t go off to the grove of trees to sleep the day away.It was getting light.A figure broke from the dark shapes of the houses of the village, hurrying downhill towards me, one hand upraised. My brother James. Older brother–son of Joseph and Joseph’s first wife who died before Joseph married my mother. No mistaking James, for his long hair, knotted at the back of his neck and streaming down his back, and his narrow anxious shoulders and the speed with which he came, James the Nazirite, James, the captain of our band of workers, James, who now in Joseph’s old age was head of the family.He stopped at the far side of the little spring, mostly a broad swatch of dry stones now with the glittering ribbon of water gurgling through the center of it, and I could plainly make out his face as he stared at me. He stepped on one big stone after another as he came across the creek to me. I had sat up and now I climbed to my feet, a common enough courtesy for my older brother. “What are you doing out here?” he demanded. “What’s the matter with you? Why do you always worry me?”I didn’t say anything.He threw up his hands and looked to the trees and the fields for an explanation.“When will you take a wife?” he asked. “No, don’t stop me, don’t put up your hand to me to silence me. I will not be silenced. When will you take a wife? Are you wed to this miserable creek, to this cold water? What will you do when it runs dry, and it will this year, you know.”I laughed under my breath.He went right on.“There are two men as old as you in this town who’ve never married. One is crippled. The other’s an idiot, and everyone knows this.”He was right. I was past thirty and not married.“How many times have we talked about this, James?” I asked.It was a beautiful thing to watch the growing light, to see the color coming to the palms clustered around the synagogue. I thought I heard shouting in the distance. But perhaps it was just the usual noises of a town tearing off its blankets.“Tell me what’s really eating at you this morning?” I asked. I picked up the wet robe from the stream and spread it out on the grass where it would dry. “Every year you come to look more like your father,” I said, “but you never have your father’s face really. You never have his peace of mind.”“I was born worried,” he confessed with a shrug. He was looking anxiously towards the village. “Do you hear that?”“I hear something,” I said.“This is the worst dry spell we’ve ever had,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “And cold as it is, it’s not cold enough. You know the cisterns are almost empty. The mikvah’s almost empty. And you, you are a constant worry to me, Yeshua, a constant worry. You come out here in the dark to the creek. You go off to that grove where no one dares to go. . . .”“They’re wrong about that grove,” I said. “Those old stones mean nothing.” That was a village superstition, that something pagan and dreadful had once taken place in that grove. But it was the mere ruins of an old olive press in there, stones that went way back to the years before Nazareth had been Nazareth. “I tell you this once a year, don’t I? But I don’t want to worry you, James.”
1. In the Christian New Testament, the Gospel of John records that Jesus' first miracle happened at the wedding feast of Cana, where water was changed into wine. Also in the Christian New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew states that, before performing any miracles, Jesus first entered the desert, where he was tempted by the Devil. Rice's first title for this book was The Temptation. Why do you think she changed the title to The Road to Cana?
2. Rice has customarily written in the first person, which offers the reader a particular insight into the inner life of the protagonist. In The Road to Cana, does the first-person narration give us insight into the inner life of Jesus? Is the intent of God elucidated? Discuss how revelations of Jesus' personal life are meaningful for contemporary Christians.
3. In The Road to Cana, Jesus says, "What I must know, I know. And what I must learn, I learn."Thomas Aquinas explicated Jesus' human intellect as having a threefold font of knowledge: divine knowledge, infused knowledge, and experiential knowledge. With regard to Jesus' experiential knowledge specifically, how does Avigail contribute to Jesus' experience and knowledge of love? Does he learn about human love? Discuss whether experience and knowledge can help one to love more humanely.
4. Discuss the divine power that Jesus demonstrates as God’s son in The Road to Cana. In chapter 22, how does Jesus overpower Satan?
5. The New York Times Book Review of Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt states: "Ms. Rice retains her obsessions with ritual and purification. . . . She writes this book in a simpler, leaner style, giving it the slow but inexorable rhythm of an incantation." Are the Christ the Lord books a prayer for Rice? Discuss instances in The Road to Cana where Rice has written rituals of purification and incantation.
6. Which of the four Christian gospels most influenced The Road to Cana? Which gospel stories are distinctly portrayed? Discuss whether these gospel stories inspire rites of maturity for all Christian faiths today.
7. First-century Jewish women worshiped in the Ezrat Nashim—the Women's Courtyard—which was located beside or behind the men's place of worship. How does Rice's scholarship and penchant for historical authenticity enable her to accurately depict the role of Jewish women in first-century Palestine? In The Road to Cana, does Jesus criticize, whether by word or by deed, this masculine/feminine segregation? Discuss how new understandings of masculinity and femininity have influenced today's religious practices.
8. The Gospel of John is the only biblical source that mentions the wedding feast at Cana. In John’s account, Jesus' mother, Mary, informs him at the wedding feast that the wine has run out. It is Jesus' reply to her that has mystified many throughout the centuries. In the final chapter of The Road to Cana, Rice quotes this reply: "Woman? . . . What has this to do with you and me?" Catholic saints, Christian biblical scholars, and homilists have attempted to explain this seemingly callous rejoinder, but their explications vary. How does The Road to Cana treat the mystery behind this dialogue between mother and son? Discuss whether Rice lends a mother's tenderness to the scene.
9. Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ (2004) focuses on the suffering and death of Jesus. In what ways does Rice's Jesus differ from Gibson’s? Specifically, when does Jesus, as depicted in The Road to Cana, show real human passion?
10. In an essay posted on her Web site, Rice says of her own writing career: "[My earlier novels] are not immoral works. They are not Satanic works. They are not demonic works. . . . The one thing which unites [my works] is the theme of the moral and spiritual quest. A second theme, key to most of them, is the quest of the outcast for a context of meaning." Is The Road to Cana Rice's attempt to show Jesus' spiritual quest?
11. Jesus, the narrator of The Road to Cana, begins by positing a solitary question: Who is Christ the Lord? Discuss whether this question has been answered by the end of the novel. If not, will this question ever be answered?
Anonymous
Posted April 1, 2008
Anne Rice has done it again! Through this new book, she has again presented our Lord Jesus Christ from an inspiring and historical viewpoint. The writing was so vivid that I felt as if I was seeing the story unfolding as it happened. Anne's research is amazing. She brings to life the background of Jesus with all of its culture and human presence. For those who desire to experience and know more of the day-to-day life of Jesus, this book is a must read.
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 17, 2008
This Anne Rice series gives Jesus a characteristic that encourages people to relate to him in a more realistic sense than as the Son of God. Rice¿s depiction of Jesus allows us to see him as `just¿ a man. She does this masterfully by writing from a first person point of view allowing her readers to sharing his thoughts, his conversations, and his humanity. ¿The Road to Cana¿ gives us possible insight into how difficult Jesus¿ life must have been due to the conflicts with temptations of the flesh versus the destiny of the Son of God. ¿The Road to Cana¿ begins shortly before Jesus¿ baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist and concludes with the miracle at Cana, in which Jesus casts out Mary¿s demons. For some reason, no one ¿way back when¿ thought it necessary to chronicle his whole life. Maybe it was too boring, and there was nothing significant. In my mind, his humanity as a man, and not the Son of God, is extremely significant. There are so many beautifully human moments in both of Rice¿s ¿Christ the Lord¿ books. Interestingly, Ms. Rice held to the belief that the angel came to Mary, the wise men came to celebrate his birth, and Jesus was the Son of God. This surprised me a bit. To be honest, I really expected that she would have taken a slightly different approach. I thought it would be a ¿normal¿ birth. All through this series she references the Christian story of Jesus¿ birth. I think Rice did a wonderful job of pulling me back, not letting me forget that this is a story about the Son of God. Anne Rice has branched out with the ¿Christ the Lord¿ books. As far as fans go, you either love her writing or you hate it. However, I foresee a whole new genre of reader will pick up these books and truly enjoy them. She may have some fans from her previous works that will not like this venture but if they are loyal fans, they¿ll read the ¿Christ the Lord¿ books. They may not like the story, but they will fully appreciate her writing. This particular series will not cause a decrease in Anne Rice fans at all. While I could see Ms. Rice could get much criticism for daring to write a story about something that could be construed as blasphemous, I recommend this story to religious believers and non-believers. The writing is beautiful, the humanity presented is very believable, and the story is a wonderful possibility of what could have been.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 20, 2008
You can smell the dust in Cana. You can feel the water of the Jordan as Christ felt it. It is a beautiful story every Christian should read. It shocks you by making you think about things you never thought about. I could not put it down.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 7, 2008
Sorry, I have to disagree with John, below. This is ideally Christian -- we're SUPPOSED to tell people the Bible story. Jesus Himself told stories. The Bible is a story, and a book of stories, NOT a book of doctrines and legalisms. Anne Rice may bring people to an interest in Christ and His Word that Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell could never have hoped or imagined. And Ms. Rice's book is far more scripturally accurate than the gnostic, dualistic sci-fi fantasies of the Jenkins & LaHaye series. Five stars!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 24, 2010
If you like to read biblical stories, you will like this, as good or better than red tent. I read two of her biblical books found them satisfying, educational and fun.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 26, 2008
I've often wondered about Jesus' "missing years." Rice does an amazing job of putting the reader into her thought of these years. It's as if we are walking with Jesus as he deals with these new "miracles" that he learns he has the capacity to do. Imagine being 12 years old and being able to kill the school bully and then to resurrect him! Then try to put yourself in Mary and Joseph's shoes, trying to raise a son in all the ways of their times while knowing he is destined for greatness. It's a very imaginative tale that definetly gives the reader some things to think about.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 10, 2008
I thoroughly enjoyed this fascinating novel, the second in a series and the latest from this always amazing, always surprising writer. Rice makes Jesus as wondrous, even more so, as any of her other unforgettable fictional characters. I loved it and highly recommend it! Congratulations Anne Rice! I look forward eagerly to the next installment!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 10, 2008
Run, don't walk, to purchase this outstanding continuation to Ms. Rice's first Jesus volume, Out of Egypt. This is a stirring, heartfelt book obviously wrought from a deep, abiding personal faith as well as a wealth of painstaking biblical research. It is an excellent book that can be read as both a 'great read' and a serious, moving testament to the Lord of both history and faith. A GREAT BOOK!!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 18, 2008
'CHRIST THE LORD ROAD TO CANA' is truly one of the most anticipating books I have ever read concerning the BIBLE. The interactivity of this book has caught my eye than most projects!! NONE OTHER BOOK CAN CATCH MY ATTENTION!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 6, 2008
Ms.Rice should stick to her vampires and erotica. This philosphy is way out of her league, which is obvious in her writing.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 17, 2013
Warriors den
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 15, 2013
talk about enriching you spiritual life.............fiction can add color even to stories we know so well.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Bestfive
Posted March 23, 2012
Very moving presentation of scripture based story.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.7262326
Posted July 27, 2011
So nice to read about his life as a child or at least a fictjonal aspect of it
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 29, 2011
I loved how Ann Rice portrayed Christ's life. Beautifully writen.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.crusherve
Posted January 18, 2011
Although christ the lord out of egypt was poignantly beautiful, that beauty is lacking here. Instead we find out expectation and resignation, which makes it less powerful than its big brother. Nicely written as always. Christ comes out as a strange guy here, waiting for his signal. I find a most powerful character in James, big brother and head of family, but anyway, this is just me and it doesn't mean i didn'g enjoy it. go ahead and read it
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.jennysiwss
Posted May 17, 2010
I Also Recommend:
I just finished Christ the Lord; Out of Egypt and The Road to Cana, and I really enjoyed BOTH of the novels but I liked this one the best. I cried throughout both of them - not only because of the realistic imagery but because my adoration for my Savior increased (which I didn't think was possible). As a mother, the thought of being Mary seems a cruel gift and Anne Rice wrote her splendidly. The light she shed on the downtrodden woman in the Middle East is essential for teaching compassion for the past, and necessary for igniting change for the future. The families were a very human touch and I also believe very probable. The accurate history and geography was exciting to read in a fiction novel with stories and faces to bring alive boring stats. Rice's spin on John the Baptist was so cool - I bet he was a feisty piece of work! To be a strict Jew back in the day, and to hear a person speaking to Pharisees the way Rice played out the dialogue; wow! That would have been mind blowing! And the painting of Rice's pen on Jesus was beautiful. The real man that once walked this same dirt earth that we walk on; and yet the Lord? Unimaginable for me, but Rice really brought it to life. I especially loved His human love and desire for Avigail. I think there was some criticism about her character and relationship with Jesus, but what's sinful about falling inlove? Nothing inappropriate was written and the story only exalted his character. If the Scriptures tell us that He has suffered as we suffer then I believe it's very likely He would have loved a woman....someone His family would have already planned for Him to marry when He came of age. Since practically every person on planet Earth feels the heartbreak of love then I see it as a perfect opportunity for people to go to Him if He has truly felt the heartache they feel. It would also be a great example for people to live by to abstain from sin until they have made their vows to their betrothed.
I am looking forward to the next book in this series and to see what works Jesus will do with his new disciples.
The coolest part was that I wrote an email to Anne Rice to tell her how much I enjoyed the books, and SHE WROTE ME BACK! A REGULAR SCHMOE LIKE ME! Now that is an amazing author. Yes, I recommend this book - it was touching, beautifully written, imaginatively insightful, and it will get your brain working with your heart.
KDPlaster
Posted August 22, 2009
I Also Recommend:
Anne Rice does it again with Road to Cana. Once I started reading, I didn't want to put this book down. The scriptures come alive as Jesus' life unfolds in what might have been. We get a possible glimpse into the life of Jesus, his family, his friends... and his emotions. While fiction, we are reminded that Jesus was one of us and at the same time God.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.While the series has yet to become great it has taught me a lot about the time period and Jesus' family. Also a thought provoker.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Mostly I was disappointed that so much time passed between the end of "Out of Egypt" and the beginning of "The Road to Cana". Otherwise, very interesting and a good read.
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Overview
Anne Rice’s second book in her hugely ambitious and courageous life of Christ begins during his last winter before his baptism in the Jordan and concludes with the miracle at Cana.
It is a novel in which we see Jesus—he is called Yeshua bar Joseph—during a winter of no rain, endless dust, and talk of trouble in Judea.
Legends of a Virgin birth have long surrounded Yeshua, yet for decades he has lived as one among many who come to the synagogue ...