Smile on the void: The mythhistory of Ralph M'Botu Kitaj

Smile on the void: The mythhistory of Ralph M'Botu Kitaj is a 1981 science fiction novel by Stuart Gordon, pen name of Richard Gordon, depicting the strange and spectacular life of a Messianic figure named Ralph M'Botu Kitaj.

Plot summary

In the frame story, Kitaj's life story is told by an unreliable narrator - John Hall, a former Science Fiction writer who had been Kitaj's secretary and companion. Hall quotes a journalist asserting that "anything written about the Messiah Kitaj tells more about the writer than the subject" - which seems applicable to the writer himself, who to a great deal tells his own history and inner life rather than Kitaj's.

As recounted by Hall, Kitaj was born at the embattled Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. He was smuggled out, eventually adopted by an aristocratic French family. When his adoptive parents died while on safari, Kitaj remained in Africa and became the apprentice of a shaman. High in the Rwenzori Mountains, he conducted an intensive love affair with a witch woman. This led to the birth of a son - and to a murder.

Later on, Kitaj managed to become the richest man in the world - and then threw away most of his fortune while on quest for spirituality. Letting go of worldly cares, he answered a suppressed vocation which he had felt since his childhood. In 1992 he spectacularly disappeared into thin air at Venice, after promising to return in 1999 (a future date at the time of writing) as "A New Messiah for The New Millennium".

Much of the book is devoted to describing Kitaj's spiritual experiences and his "inner journeys to enlightenment", using such terms as "mythreality" and "newconsciousness". Various issues remain unclear, such as Kitaj's supposed telekinetic powers, or the involvement of UFOs from Sirius in his life and career.