Behold The Man

The grandfather paradox – which states that if you go back in time and accidentally kill your grandfather you will never be born, so you cannot travel back in time to kill your grandfather, and on endlessly – is the central problem of time travel stories. Some authors ignore it, some embrace it; but what if the purpose of time travel isn't to go back and change history, but rather to go back and put history right? That is the intriguing idea behind Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man. In contemporary London, Karl Glogauer is a misfit, neurotic, homosexual, and with a messiah complex. Indeed, at one point in his childhood, he had himself crucified on the fence of the school playground. Unable to cope with modern life, he builds a time machine and travels back to meet the man he dreams of being. But when he reaches 1st century Palestine, he discovers that the historic Jesus is a drooling idiot. But Glogauer is so committed to the idea of Jesus that he starts taking on the role, repeating the parables he can recall and using psychological tricks that pass for miracles. In the end, determined to see his impersonation through to the end, he even connives in his own betrayal and execution.   The original novella won a Nebula Award. There is a line in the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Behold the Man is a powerful novel about preserving the legend in the face of the facts.