However, it is not at first clear whom this book is aimed at, nor what its purpose is. Although Mr Horan appears impressively well-read across many different fields, he fails to bridge the gap between his interesting and informative presentation of the sources of the stories of Arthur, Troy and Moses and his views on the place of religion in contemporary life. He sometimes seems to be addressing a rather Victorian audience of anxious Christians who have realised that the Bible may not be literally true. Horan is reassuring: ‘Emphatically, there is no intention of attacking religious belief in itself: quite the contrary.’ Unfortunately, he never successfully defines religious belief, seeming sometimes to see it as membership of a faith group and at others as a vague thirst for something spiritual. The tenor of his argument suggests that the story of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, whether or not it has any historical basis, should be regarded as an example of myth, something we can make use of now, and prospectively. Recognition of the value of this myth will lead us, according to the final chapter heading, to a ‘New Beginning’. How this will happen is not obvious. ‘Ancient stories’ have ‘mythic truths’ which are ‘a part of the eternity in which we and our neighbours dwell’. Somehow, ‘perhaps, we have joined the Via Transformativa’ which ‘leads on to an agenda which reaches far beyond personal redemption, to a concern for one’s neighbour, and for a planet that could be green once more’.
The word ‘perhaps’ is an indicator of a recurring weakness in this book. Early on, Horan rejects the language of assertion and certainty. ‘It is to be hoped, therefore, that I will not be caught too often using words and phrases such as obviously…of course…the fact is…we can be sure that…’ Unfortunately, these phrases are replaced by ‘perhaps’ and ‘probably’ which disarm criticism and sidestep debate.
The links between history and myth are fascinating and I enjoyed the readable recounts of the stories of Arthur, Troy and Moses. However, I would have welcomed a much more substantial exploration of the ways in which myth becomes history, of how psychological, sociological and historical pressures select and transform events and legends into myth, and of how these myths are constantly mutating to meet the demands of new circumstance.
There is a hint of this in the epigrammatic description of St. Paul’s effect on Christianity: ‘The focus of Paul’s religion was no longer on the Sermon on the Mount, but on a cross on a hill.’ Volumes have already been written on the themes and archetypes which are common to different mythologies. There is nothing new here. The ideas of Jung are mentioned but not discussed. Too often, the names of major philosophers or scientists are dropped into the text but their ideas are not explored or analysed in any significant way. Chapter One contains a rather superficial discussion of time which manages to include Einstein, Shakespeare and the Australian Alcheringa or Dream Time. Undeniably, the nature of time, human attempts to explore it and the origins of myth and religion are extraordinarily interesting subjects.
However, Horan teases and frustrates his readers by a failure to pursue or develop his ideas. For example, the penultimate chapter, in its attempts to come to terms with the notion of ‘religious belief’, first describes the Census statistics about believers, then moves to a very elementary distinction between ‘believing that’ and ‘believing in’, following up with an assertion of the validity of Christian humanism based, apparently, on the authority of numbers: ‘This approach is being taken and advocated by a growing number of writers, theologians and (encouragingly) clergy, as well as many lay people.’ If this was the intended destination from the beginning, I would prefer to have been told.
Although there are parts of this book which I found interesting and thought-provoking, I felt, finally, that it was aimed at a fairly small audience of like-minded people who would be expected to recognise and accept its ideas. For the unconvinced, or even those who would like to be convinced, its lack of philosophical rigour and the uneasy mixture of academic and casual style mean that it does not satisfy, whether approached as theology, philosophy or literary criticism.
Kathleen McPhilemy is a further education lecturer in Oxford.Her latest poetry collection is The Lion in the Forest (Katabasis,2004).
Reviewed work: Michael Horan, Jesus and the Trojan War (Imprint Academic, Exeter), 252 pp, £14.95, pbk, ISBN 9781845400811