A guest review by Jayne White
I've held off reading this book for months because I got to Naomi
Alderman's The Liars' Gospel first. Having rather enjoyed that one I found
that my appetite for reimaginings of the New Testament was quite sated. However,
now this book - Tóibín's third Man Booker nomination - has reached the
shortlist and is second favourite with the bookies as I write this; I think
it's time to take a look.
Much has been made of the size of the book. It's a short one; I read it in
less than an hour. It has a single narrative voice and Tóibín has already
adapted it twice as a stage monologue, once before publication and again
afterwards.
The beginning of the story is promising. Mary is lying low after the
crucifixion with some of her late son's followers. She tells us how they
question her over and over and write down her story as they wish to. There is a
growing sense of menace here as Mary knows what she remembers isn't what they
want to hear and her vistors are not respectful. She feels she is nearing the
end of her life and begins to tell us her story.
The drama of the beginning is quite engaging. However, for me the book
starts to fall apart when we begin to go over stories covered by the gospels. There
are four official gospels each telling differing versions of the story of the
life and death of Jesus. Traditionally the gospels get rather mashed together
to form the version that most Christians know. For example, Matthew's version
of the nativity has wise men, Herod and the slaughter of the innocents while Luke's
version has a stable, an angel and shepherds and a lot of divine revelation. Mark
and John don't have nativity stories at all.
The same principle applies to the Catholic teachings about Mary. They're
derived from a mixture of biblical references and traditional meditations. If
you know catholic theology as Tóibín does and as I do, you will spot very
quickly that the premise of the book is that Mary's story specifically and
emphatically contradicts each traditional teaching. Once you've realised that, your reading experience falters as you start
ticking off all the items you realise are on the agenda, and the experience is
rather like watching a ham-fisted magician who can't do sleight of hand and is
revealing all his tricks.
Tradition - Jesus performed his first miracle (water into wine at a
wedding) at the urging of his mother.
Mary's version - It wasn't his first miracle and she is at pains to point
out that she in no way suggested it to him. In fact she was only at the wedding
to persuade him to stop all this nonsense and come home.
Tradition - Mary lived a perfect life and trusted in God completely.
Mary's version - She keeps a small silver statue of the Goddess Artemis to
hand in order to whisper to it in the night and visits her temple to pray.
Now once you suspect that Mary is a blatant mouthpiece for authorial
polemic rather than an actual character, Tóibín's efforts to make you empathise
with her pain and suffering at her son's death fall rather flat. This is not
down to any lack of skill with language as much as it is to do with the author's intentions.
For example, I'm not so sold on the enhanced version of the traditional passion
scripture from St John's gospel where the bargaining with crowd is concerned. It's
a piece I know by heart in places and the added bits jar for me, but the
physical description of the crucifixion is vivid and the scene is brought to
life. However, in my opinion, you hear Tóibín's poetic voice rather than that
of Mary:
"As time passed and we stood there waiting, I noticed this hunger
spreading like contagion until I believed that it had reached every single
person there just as blood pumped from the heart makes its way inexorably to
every part of the body."
For the record, I think this is a pretty advanced medical theory for the
1st century AD. Can this novel really be a contender for the Man Booker prize
if it can't sustain its single narrative voice for 101 pages?
Having rejected the tradition of Mary standing at the crucifixion
throughout Tóibín has painted himself onto a corner as far as communicating
events afterwards. He solves this via description of a dream which evokes
images of traditional religious artworks:
"...she placed him across my lap. We both touched him. It was the
whiteness that we both noticed, a whiteness that is hard to describe. Both of
us remarked on its purity and smooth luminous beauty."
If you're still reading the story at this stage instead of analysing what
the author's doing, it might work for you.
There are elements in this novel that I think the author could have done
more with if he hadn't been in such a tearing hurry to make sure Mary denied
everything she traditionally is. We see Lazarus resurrected as a walking
corpse, still afflicted with the pain of the illness that killed him. We see
Mary drawn to the statue of the Goddess Artemis who represented the virtues
Christianity now ascribes to her. We get one or two glimpses into Mary's
memories of Jesus and a vague idea of the political situation and the danger
early Christians faced.
I'm going to make it clear here that I'm not calling for any kind of
fatwah. Jesus used fictions to communicate truths. It's legitimate to examine
scriptural stories and speculate about the intentions of the person who wrote
it. Really, doesn't all good fiction shape reality to communicate a kind of
truth? Fiction around religious characters can challenge and illuminate. Naomi
Alderman managed this for me, but in my view Tóibín could have made more impact
by playing smart rather than hard.
Follow Jayne on Twitter: @elethawhite
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