The Dead Love Affordable Prefab Furniture

The Dead Love Affordable Prefab Furniture

My friend Julie gave me Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel for Christmas. The holiday season being busy, I've been reading in dribs and drabs. I finally got around to finishing The Stupidest Angel this afternoon.

I recommend Mr. Moore's works if you're looking for a laugh. His work reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut, with a big old dash of Douglas Adams thrown in for good measure. I e-mailed him once upon a time after reading one of his books (he lists an e-mail address in his bio), and told him as such. He took it as a compliment.

I recommend Island of the Sequined Love Nun . It's my favorite of the works of Moore's that I've read so far. I've still got a couple left to read...if anybody wants to buy me Fluke, or Lamb, I'd be their best friend (which would mean I get to sleep on your couch, so buyer beware....)

The Stupidest Angel brings together characters from a couple of his earlier novels. Theophilus Crowe, pothead constable, and his somewhat loopy wife Molly Michon (former b-movie actress) both appeared in The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. Pilot Tucker Case's adventures in the South Pacific are chronicled in the previously mentioned Love Nun....

Raziel, the titular Stupidest Angel, appears in Lamb, which I haven't read....

Anyway. A couple of my favorite lines:

The Stupidest Angel ruminates on his mission:

He didn't like the whole abstract quality of the Christmas miracle mission. "Go to Earth, find a child who has made a Christmas wish that can only be granted by divine intervention, then you will be granted powers to grant that wish." There were three parts. Shouldnt the job be given to three angels? Shouldn't there be a supervisor? Raziel wished he could trade this in for the destruction of a city. That was so simple. You found the city, you killed all the poeple, you leveled all the buildings, even if you totally screwed it up you could track down the survivors in the hills and kill them with a sword, which, in truth, Raziel kind of enjoyed. Unless, of course, you destroyed the wrong city, and he'd only done that what? Twice? Cities in those days weren't that big, anyway. Enough people to fill a couple of good-size Wal-Marts, tops. Now there's a mission, thought the angel: "Raziel! Go forth into the land and lay wast unto two good-zied Wal-Marts, slay until blood doth flow from all bargains and all the buildings are but rubble--and pick up a few Snickers bars for yourself."

And I also liked this revelation:

Nobody knows why, but second only to eating the brains of the living, the dead love affordable prefab furniture.

And, a boy ponders the theological, after witnessing murder:

A commercial came on, and Josh's mac and cheese was still surfing the microwaves, so he debated calling 911 or praying, and decided to go with the prayer. Like calling 911, you weren't supposed to pray for just anything. For instance, God did not care whether or not you got your bandicoot through the fire level on Playstation, and if you asked for help there, there was a good chance that he would ignore you when you really needed help, like for a spelling test or if your mom got cancer. Josh reckoned it was sort of like cell-phone minutes, but this seemed like a real emergency.

A fun read.