Pure genius
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If you're anything like me, this book will make you laugh out loud and occasionally cause you to take a long hard look at the way you see the world. As Christians we do tend to become far too serious for our own good and Adrian Plass helps us to laugh at ourselves. This is an extremely encouraging and uplifting book, though, and I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't believe that God has a sense of humour! Anyway, who could resist finding out why bacon sandwiches and salvation create such a perfect combination?
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cuddly teddybear meets naughty schoolboy
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Adrian Plass began his (ho hum) literary career by ripping off the title of the Adrian Mole Diaries and amusing us by proving that there isn't much difference between a confused 37 ¾ year old Christian and a typical spotty adolescent 24 years younger. He has failed to mature in the 20 years since - mercifully - and has become the cross between cuddly teddy bear and naughty schoolboy that continues to amuse a Christian public that knows that it is being too solemn and earnest for it's own good.
This dictionary style book is a kind of `Greatest Hits of Adrian Plass'. This removes the need for all those devices comic authors must usually employ to link the jokes together. You know. Like a story. No doubt it also means that Adrian's wit will now appear in even more sermons, talks, and, God help us, lectures than ever before, as speakers can now access it alphabetically by subject.
Some of this is side splittingly funny, some of it is `Oh no, he can't have said that!!!!!!` Some of it is worryingly perceptive. Sadly the book does not smell of Bacon Sandwiches. Hence I am only giving it four stars.
If you like this style of Adrian Plass book I recommend his earlier 'Clearing Away The Rubbish', if you like that book you should enjoy this one.
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Dark, light, funny, painful - and well worth the wait.
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'I hope that Bacon Sandwiches And Salvation will make you laugh, or at least smile, and also that you will not hurt yourself too badly when you trip over the occasional serious or whimsical bits.' So Mr Plass warns his readers before ushering us into his satirical, sometimes contraversial, frequently flippant and wonderfully engaging worldview. And I have to say, he couldn't have hit the nail any firmer on the head. This book made me laugh at loud, and then stutter, swallow hard, blink a few times and ponder each new, fertile patch of turf Plass pointed out in his usual unexpected way. There were gentle slopes leading to great pastures and great big walls of growth that slammed you in the face and made you wonder how he'd sneaked that one up on you.
It's not as easy to read as much of his earlier work, probably purely because it's not a novel, but the dictionary-style layout makes it easy to dip into at random intervals when you feel like a spiced bite to liven up your daily reading. It feels a lot darker than perhaps would be expected as well, and there were times when I put it down in despair after feeling yet another of Plass's blunt insights slice away the varnish and expose a flash of white bone, in both myself and the church. But despite the ouches, this book paints an accurate, funny portrait every Christian will recognise and is well worth the read. Plass's lyrics under 'Anglican' sum up his message rather well: church life can be foolish, strangled, trendy, dusty, awkward, puzzling, stupid, ghastly and tender - but the coffee's always free.
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