A Story a Day #26: Anatole France

March 8th, 2020

"The Procurator of Judea"

Anatole France

A man in Ancient Rome is becoming old and climbs a hill. He recognizes an old friend and approaches him. At first he doesn't know who he is, but then he remembers. They have not seen each other in twenty years and discuss what they've been up to. There are some allusions to cases and wherabouts in Syria and Jerusalem. At the end, it describes an irresistable woman who appears to have joined the company of a man called Jesus.

Let me be clear, I didn't like this story at all. I barely got throught the first few pages before turning to the Internet to help me understand what was going on. Apparently this story is meant to shock people, especially religious people, who would know that the man in question was the Roman who condemned Jesus Christ. I'm not religious so I pretty obviously didn't catch this link. There are also a ton, and I mean a ton, of references to Ancient people and gods and goddesses in this. While I think I'm fairly familiar with myths and tales, this was just so much and it was too difficult for me to make any connection to this story at all. This just wasn't for me.