The entire story of The Testament of Mary is contained in this quote:
I was there. I fled before it was over but if you want witnesses then I am one and I can tell you now, when you say that he redeemed the world, I will say that it was not worth it.
As Mary suffers her own old age, she bitterly reflects on her son's life and death. Her protectors are attempting to write the first of the gospels and try to bully her into giving them the narrative they're looking for; one with patterns of divinity. She holds firm, remembering the happy and quiet -- thoroughly normal -- family life they had enjoyed before Jesus was lured to Jerusalem to seek his fortune, as were all the young men of his age. She blamed reports of Jesus' growing narcissism on the crowd of "misfits" he travelled with, and by the time she saw him at the wedding of Cana, he was already lost to her, a stranger. Although she fled from Cana when she realised how dangerous it was to be around Jesus, Mary did go to Jerusalem when she learned her son was to be crucified. She watched the mock trial in horror and was present as Jesus carried his cross, was nailed to it, and was hoisted into the sky. Again she was afraid of being captured, so Mary escaped with her companions and was not present at Jesus' death or burial, doomed to live out her days with anger and regret. Although Mary asserts to her protectors that "it was not worth it", they have already decided on the "official" version of events:
"You were there," my guide said. "You held his body when it was taken down from the cross."
His companion nodded.
"You watched us as we covered his body in spices and wound his body in linen cloths and buried him in a sepulchre near the place where he was crucified. But you were not with us, you were in a place where you were protected when he came among us three days after his death and spoke to us before he rose to be with his father."
I decided to read The Testament of Mary when it was shortlisted for the Man Booker, and at 104 pages, I wonder how this slim volume will stack up against the other finalists. This was certainly well written, much of the language lovely and lyrical (and nicely contrasted with quotes from Jesus, straight from the Bible, which sound stiff and formal by comparison: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?") And while there may be those who find the manipulation of facts by the early chroniclers to be subversive or heretical, I didn't find this to be any more offensive than Jesus Christ Superstar (by which I mean not offensive at all). Whether it's Judas trying to prevent Jesus from believing his own hype in the musical or Mary wondering how she can save her son from the fatal path he's on in this book, it's interesting to imagine the New Testament from the perspective of the entirely human characters who people the Bible. And who in the Passion story, next to Jesus himself, has a more compelling narrative than the mother who watched her son die?
As a mother myself, Mary's experience of watching her son tried and crucified was the most poignant part of this book for me, and although I understand that Mary fleeing before Jesus actually died (but the chroniclers putting her at the scene anyway) is the key fact of this story's plotline, that felt like a literary manipulation to me, and therefore a bit of a cheat. That might be because I was overwhelmed when I saw the Pieta at the Vatican when I was 18; that the image of the dead, adult Jesus cradled in his mother's arms made such an emotional impression upon my psyche that I can't imagine a world in which that did not happen. I know that that speaks more to the artistry of Michelangelo than the literal truthfulness of the Bible, but such religious art is as much a part of our Western cultural history as the books and laws and sciences. As an aside, I read today that Richard Dawkins believes that Bible study is important even to atheists, and this is something I have always thought, myself -- whether a person is Christian or not, an understanding of the Bible is an important key to understanding the history and culture of Europe and the countries they colonised.
I liked that the question of Jesus' divinity was left unanswered. Witnesses reported miracles to Mary, her own cousin swearing that she had seen Lazarus dead and buried for four days before Jesus raised him. (I also liked that Lazarus is a kind of Monkey's-Paw-zombie-careful-what-you-wish-for character.) This questioning keeps Mary human and relatable.
I lived mostly in silence, but somehow the wildness that was in the very air, the air in which the dead had been brought back to life and water changed into wine and the very waves of the sea made calm by a man walking on water, this great disturbance in the world made its way like creeping mist or dampness into the two or three rooms I inhabited.
And I found it interesting that in her exile in Ephesus, Mary begins to worship the ancient mother goddess, Artemis. Looking into who this goddess was I see that her temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and perhaps not surprisingly as a literary device, worship of Artemis was not unlike the Marian Cult that arose in the Catholic church.
Overall this was a quick and thought-provoking read, leading me to look up some further facts (like when did Joseph die? Why don't I know this?) It was well-written and interesting, but as for its place on the Man Booker shortlist, I'll need to read some of the other titles before I can make any comparative judgement.
One other thing this book made me think of is: I remember being at the old folks' home where I delivered papers as a kid (at maybe 11 years old) and one old man confronted me, asking if I was a Catholic. I answered yes and he pulled out a Bible, showing me where it states that Jesus had brothers and sisters, proving that the Virgin Mary was a lie, therefore Catholicism is all hooey.
I was defenseless against this attack, having never heard this before, and when I told my mother about it later, she was livid. (As she worked at the Home as the Recreation Director, she saw it as an attack on her, through me.) Reading The Testament of Mary, I found it interesting that Mary was all alone, as though she had no other children to take care of her in her old age, and remembering this childhood trauma, it prompted me, for the first time, to look into the controversy. The differing interpretations of the Greek word adelphos, whether it always means "brothers" or if it can mean simply "kinsmen", was some interesting knowledge for me, and in the end, the most satisfying part of this book happened off the page, in my wandering over the internet, trying to fill in the blanks of what I don't know.
For this reason, if no other, I would recommend this book.
