Thought provoking and memorable ( )

Thought-provoking alternative perspective on the death of Jesus. ( )

The Testament of Mary is an account of the death of Jesus from the point of view of the one who knew him best, his mother Mary.

Toibin's Mary is an aged woman preparing herself for the end of her life and seeking to clarify in her own mind the events surrounding her son's death. She recounts her son's inexorable slide into the clutches of his political enemies and gives us a grim eyewitness account of the crucifixion. Mary's account of the aftermath varies dramatically from the traditional account.

Toibin's novella is ridden with heresies that are subtly and gently delivered in a way that is absolutely believable, although the book will no doubt ruffle many feathers. It is however a succinct and beautiful account of a mother's special bonds to her child, and a very human portrayal of a person who tradition has presented as more of a semi-divine figure. ( )

Mary, mother of Jesus, as a human being, who tells in first person her version of the story of how her son grew away from her and ended up being crucified. The idea is simple and ingenious and I still don't know how he managed to write about the wonders Jesus worked in a seriously realistic manner. Marys testament as a broken-hearted mother, who can hardly overcome the fact, that she is estranged from her son and that she needed to flee to save herself, is beautifully insane - although it's language is calm and restricted- and imaginative. Breaks my little thoroughly non-christian heart. ( )

Gobbled this intriguing little novella in an hour. Tóibín imagines Mary as a worried, frightened mother who has seen her son choose foolish and insecure men for friends. Hearing Jesus speak differently, using an altered tone to his adoring crowd of hangers-on than to her, Mary realizes that her son truly believes what the others say about him -- that he is the Messiah.
Fearing for his life and for her own, she (quite sensibly) begs him to desist this activity, these "miracles" -- but he does not, and he is arrested and crucified. And Mary, who has stood at the foot of the cross for as long as she feels she can without being arrested herself, decides to flee. She may have never seen her son die, and she certainly never held his broken body afterwards -- contrary to what her son's friends now encourage her to "remember." In these final years of her life, Mary wishes to tell only the truth, despite what her son's friends want her to say.
Her truth? She fled, and her son died on the cross. And despite a brief, lovely dream she had while on the run in those first, terrible days following the crucifixion; despite the revisionist history put forth by these foolish and idealistic men, she knows -- believes -- that her son is still dead. ( )