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Gauld, Tom – Goliath

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Goliath

Goliath! That’s bound to conjure a mental image in your mind, probably complete with the idea of him being a raving, unstoppable beast. I mean, you don’t have to be religious at all to know the story of Goliath and how David took him down with a simple sling. But when you get right down to it, the Bible doesn’t have much to say about the temperament of Goliath, or how he spent his days. That gives Tom a lot of room to play with, and he takes full advantage of it here. The Goliath of this story is in the Philistine army, sure, but he prefers admin work to anything to do with war. He’s just trying to live as simple a life as he can under the circumstances, which is that the two armies are at an impasse. So somebody in the Philistine hierarchy comes up with the idea of a champion vs. champion battle to settle the war, and Goliath sure looks like anybody’s idea of a champion. It takes some arm twisting, but they eventually talk him into it, mostly because he agrees that anybody from the opposing army who sees him will be so terrified that they’ll surrender without a fight. The bulk of the back half of the book is Goliath (and his shield bearer) issuing his challenge and waiting to see if anybody will take him up on it that day. Everybody knows what’s coming, but Tom manages to make that ending funny and sad all at once. And then very quickly gross, but I’ll leave that bit a surprise for anybody who doesn’t remember the gory details of the end of the battle. Check it out, gain a new perspective on one of the oldest battles of the world! That’s almost certainly fake, but still… $16.95