Month: April 2014

I am impressed by a nov­el of the wan­der­ing Jew that avoids its clichés. Judas is not Cain; nor is he aim­less, but he has a pur­pose. He is not just try­ing to keep him­self alive by blood. He seeks some­thing from John Vian­ney, from Max­i­m­il­ian Kolbe, from Ray­mond Bre­viary. It is only Fr. Bre­viary, in the end, who under­stands what will both defeat Judas and give him what he is real­ly seek­ing. He is able to do so because he is the first to devel­op a rela­tion­ship with Judas. Mr. Ver­mont uses all these tra­di­tions, but his nov­el is not defined by them. It reorders genre for its own par­tic­u­lar pur­pose.