Some historical novels are too long, too detailed, and too much about the history and not the characters and story. T. Byram Karasu's new book "Of God and Madness" is none of the above; it's a Bildungsroman that reads like a fusion of Guenter Grass and John Irving.

There are quite a few awkward and outlandish sexual scenes that aid in the spiritual development of the religiously confused protagonist Adam. The first is with his French teacher. He is in his early teens; she performs fellatio in order to extract a painful kidney stone. But this is all part of Adam's spiritual upbringing. He is in love with the instructor but faces a religious predicament because she is Christian, and he is the illegitimate son of the last Ottoman sultan and one of his Jewish concubines.

In much the same way that Guenter Grass's Oskar marches around historical Germany in "The Tin Drum," Adam wanders through the first 50 years of 20th-century European history. He is born in 1905 and exiled as a member of the royal family when Ataturk modernizes and Europeanizes Turkey in the 1920s; as a Jew, he lives through the Vichy France of WWII; and as a refuge, Adam lives and works under the British and Jews in late 1940s Palestine.

While moving about in these key historical moments Adam explores his religious heritage. He goes from being a Christian, to an Atheist, to a Jew, to a Muslim and to finally being spiritually found. The totality of his experience brings the protagonist to the realization that the essence of these three Abrahamic religions are the same, and that all the infighting is pointless.

What really matters is the spiritual and moral health of the individual, as he or she relates to others.

Adam's friend, a "Hodja" (a custodian of a mosque), drinks alcohol on the first day of Ramadan, and to Adam's protest replies: "Dear Adam, neither eating nor fasting unites one with the Creator. Neither the avoidance of drinking nor the other 'haráam' of the Qur'an nor the strict obedience to all its shari'ah — Islamic law — will bring you to the presence of Allah when you die. What matters is experiencing the presence of God in the present … Don't confuse the civilizing principle of religion with its spiritual intention. The latter is not a material at all but an evolution toward a blissful state — bag? — in dwelling in the divine."

This is the culminating lesson that Adam learns through his encounter with Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He fails to become an adherent of any, but gains from each of them. By the end of the book, he has discovered that he need not find a religious label for himself, but should instead live his life as it is and as it has happened. The historical relevance of his life becomes meaningful, and "Of God and Madness" exhibits a beautiful interpretation of a historical period through the spiritual development of one person. As the protagonist himself says toward the end of the book, "Being is not something to be studied but lived. Take life on."

"Of God and Madness" is a great and relatively quick read. It touches on all sorts of relevant topics and gives a very intelligent interpretation of the roots of the present Israeli conflict through an honest personal interpretation of all the religions involved.

Rating: 5 out of 5