Head in a Bag

Life presents few mysteries to Upton Sinclair; but there are one or two problems he would like to see tidied up. One is the matter of the Christian faith, which has deceived the gullible minds of many, from St Augustine to Albert Schweitzer and Nicolas Berdyaev. The narrator (Mr Sinclair in a cellophane nosebag) meets Tom Strawn, an American young man of sub- average intelligence. Tom Strawn has met an angel, and has been given the power to perform miracles in order to reform the world. He orders a celestialpage 244 TV set; he fixes a young lady’s car – so far, an amiable Superman without tights. Soon he is making dollar bills out of air, a miracle which moves the narrator to deep religious feeling. To any rational mind it is clear that a man whose name is Tom and who has read Tom Paine must be a twentieth-century Apostle Thomas.

The tale becomes drearier as it proceeds. The new apostle creates a synthetic cult which inevitably suffers from the corruption of its officials. Miss America without makeup, chosen for her suggestibility, is made ready for miraculous pregnancy without fertilisation. But instead Tom Strawn, with the first glimmer of intelligence he has shown, marries her and breeds a child by normal means. They are admirably suited. In this dreary little tract Mr Sinclair plainly intends satirical comment on the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ, and on the love and reverence given by believing Christians to His Mother, of whom the old ballad says –

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless;
King of all kings
As her son she chose.

Has Mr Sinclair discovered no more than this in a lifetime of rational humanism? A man with a bag over his head can see no stars – a pity it is such an old, dry bag, smelling of mousedirt and woodshavings and the crumbs of long-departed social enthusiasm.

1955 (117)