* Lost a loved-one prematurely, especially a child. I expect this novel provokes the strongest reactions in those who can tick at least one of the following: I weep for the times when I have failed my own child, and humbly seek forgiveness - not from God, but from the flesh of my flesh, my beloved, precious child. What use a mother who cannot help her child at their time of greatest need? She looks back for solace, to the virginal ancient goddess Artemis, even as she looks ahead, in answer to the whispered call of death. Memories which are milked and warped by protective predators with a new religion to start. Memories which hurt as much as they heal. Her greatest pain is that there was nothing.Īnd now she has nothing but her memories. She examines his faults, questions his miracles, and agonises over what she could have done differently: how she might have saved the life of the one she gave life to, how she might have saved the Saviour of mankind. Ultimately she lost him to a gruesome and humiliating death that left her vulnerable to shadowy principalities and powers. In later years, she lost him to delusions and dodgy friends that turned him into a dangerous demagogue. The first, innocuous loss, was at the temple, when he was twelve, staying behind in his “Father’s house”. She remembers how her beautiful, thoughtful child was transformed and lost to her, lost to life. Mary, mother of Jesus, is looking back at the life and death of her beloved son. I read it as a mother, sharing the agonies of another mother: grief and pain and guilt of a degree I hope I will never have to face. Militant atheists may find this too steeped in the New Testament.
“ I did not think that the cursed shadow of what had happened would ever lift… It pumped darkness… It was a heaviness in me that often became a weight which I could not carry.” The agony of wounds and guilt, yes, but the balm of forgiveness, too, I hope. I read it as Gentle, stoical, visceral pain leaches from every page, into my fingers, till my very blood is charged with it. “ I did not think that the cursed shadow of what had happened would ever lift… It pumped darkness… It was a heaviness in me that often became a weight which I could not carry.” The devout may find this too heretical. Gentle, stoical, visceral pain leaches from every page, into my fingers, till my very blood is charged with it. This tour de force of imagination and language is a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of Mary will be forever transformed.more This woman who we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes, in Toibin’s searing evocation, a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone. Mary judges herself ruthlessly (she did not stay at the foot of the Cross until her son died-she fled, to save herself), and is equally harsh on her judgment of others. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God nor that his death was “worth it ” nor that the “group of misfits he gathered around him, men who could not look a woman in the eye,” were holy disciples.
She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel-her keepers, who provide her with food and shelter and visit her regularly. In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son's crucifixion. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Provocative, haunting, and indelible, Colm Tóibín’s portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity. Provocative, haunting, and indelible, Colm Tóibín’s portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity.
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