i, lucifer By Glen duncan book review

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***Spoilers…duh***

I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan is a 2003 satirical novel told from the first-person perspective of the Devil in a continuous stream of consciousness. The premise of the story is to show the experiences of the present- and the past- from the most hate and deviant character known to man. A character that is perceived to be separated from any bounds morality and get them to live as an ordinary human.

The story begins with the deal. Before the end of the world, God offers Lucifer a chance at redemption. If he can live as a human for one month without committing major sins, he can return to Heaven. Lucifer gladly accepts this one-month trail, mainly to escape the physical agony he’s been in since his fall from grace. Lucifer takes over the body of Declan Gunn - which is an annoying anagram of the authors own name- and tried to live out his life as the depressed, suicidal London writer. Lucifer immediately hates the body, the clothes and the sad life Declan has been living and used his connections with demons to gain thousands of pounds so that the Devil could comfortably start his holiday.

Redemption was not sought after by the Devil. The Devil did what he did best and indulged heavily in sex, drug and alcohol. Oh, and the odd 99 flake ice-cream. Also, whilst inhabiting Declan, Lucifer writes a screenplay and his own alternative memoir. He retells biblical events (like the Garden of Eden, the Creation of Adam and Eve and his original fall) from his own point of view, criticising God’s behaviour as cruel and hypocritical. As the month goes on, Lucifer starts to feel physical pain when trying to sin as angelic intervention tries to prevent him committing any acts of evil. It makes Lucifer begin to understand that human evil is mostly self-imposed rather than caused by him. He also learns how complicated, difficult and tempting ordinary human life really is.

At the end of the trail, the angel Raphael visits to see if Lucifer will ask for forgiveness but he is defiant to the very end and refused to submit or apologise even that the very end. Even with the knowledge that he will face eternity alone because Lucifer believes that he has the power to create his own world like God.

I found this book slightly difficult to get through, not because it’s badly written or has bad pacing, I just find novel that have a continuous stream of thought difficult to get into. I struggle to find the right rhythm of the book when it is in this format. Saying that, I did find a lot of the book humorous, so it was an enjoyable read just difficult. However, I did roll my eyes when seeing that the writer’s name in the novel was just an anagram of the authors name. It came across as very egotistical and obnoxious. Yet, someone who is writing a novel from the perspective of the Devil must have an ego to them to pull it off. Duncan does pull is off to be fair to him.

I give this book a 3 out of 5 as it was amusing at times but the fact that I found it tedious to get through means it cannot be more that a 3.