The Sibyl

In his deceptively simple prose style, Par Lagerkvist reimagines the tale of the Wandering Jew and sends him to meet an old woman, a former pythia, who had been expelled from the temple at Delphi. Her attempt to find god, and the reason for her expulsion, make up the bulk of the narrative. Her god emerges as cruel, jealous of man, and served by mendacious professional acolytes. The Wandering Jew, likewise, saw Christ's cruel glare when He was denied rest on the way to Golgotha. The universality of religious experience was explored by Anatole France in books set in the transition between the pagan gods and Christianity. Here Lagerkvist follows that path to a profound result.