Colm Toibin (81 pages)
Published by Scribner
Bookish rating: 4.5
This novella re-imagines Mary in what will certainly be deemed blasphemous by many. Rather than the image of Mary as statue or stained glass or ceramic nativity figure that we all know and recognize, Toibin writes her as a PERSON. This Mary as a person, someone whose self has been so erased as to literally deify her (in truth, I've always sort of admired the Catholics having such respect for a WOMAN--I'm always struck by it during masses which are of course at weddings and that of course have an open bar afterward. I looooooooove Catholics.) But here, Toibin goes into the head of Mary as a mom (less "holy mother," more MOM) who doesn't believe her son is any more special than any other Jewish boy and deems his crucifixion "not worth it."
I loved Mary's narration. Proper Protestant that I am, Mary is one of those more unknown and mysterious Biblical figures to me. A womb and a birth canal--that's what we tend to reduce her to, no? That and her role as official weeper. But really . . . I've always been dying to know . . . what was she really thinking?
And so Toibin gives his imagining of it, and it's very poignant, beautifully written, and in some ways, daring.
Recommended.
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