TITLE: Mary, Called Magdalene
AUTHOR: Margaret George
STARTED:September 1, 2010
FINISHED: September 30, 2010
PAGES: 656
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: She was carried to a place she had never been.
SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com
] Of all the women in the Bible, perhaps no one's presence has been as constantly reinterpreted as that of Mary Magdalene. Was she a prostitute? A prophet? In Margaret George's epic historical novel, Mary, Called Magdalene, Mary comes alive as one of Jesus' first believers, a woman of infallible visions and a faith that earns her the title "Apostle to the Apostles." With numerous biblical and scholarly texts serving as the core of this intriguing woman's story, George recreates the world of Galilean fishermen and the oppressions of the Jewish people under Roman rule. Cast out from her family after Jesus expels the demons that have ravaged her mind, Mary follows the man from Nazareth until they receive attention from the skeptical hordes and the Roman magistrates controlling Jerusalem.Mary, from beginning to end of this giant undertaking, is a woman who struggles to reconcile her absence from her young daughter's life with the chance to be part of something important. Through the lens of her ever-inquisitive mind, the story covers the formation of Jesus' ragtag band of disciples and the crucifixion, and ends with Mary's mission as the head of the Christian church in Ephesus, where she died at the age of 90. What makes this a compelling read is that Mary's story connects humanity with faith in a way that's possible to understand, whatever our contemporary beliefs.
THOUGHTS: The last time I read Margaret George (The Memoirs of Cleopatra), I ended up weeping through the last hundred or so pages. Sadly, Mary, Called Magdalene did not pack the same emotional punch. George spends far to much time showing Mary proselytizing and thinking about Jesus. I know both those aspects should appear in the book, but they are such a large part of the book that Mary, the person, is almost entirely obscured. The only times I found myself truly enjoying this novel is when Mary was on her own, or thinking of her daughter.
George seems to walk a narrow strip between historical Mary and biblical Mary. In this work, Mary is portrayed as a flawed human being who becomes entranced by Jesus and what he means. Kudos to George, she actual pulled off the tricky act of making Mary walk the road between both representations. Unfortunately, pulling that off seems to have removed all of the oomph from this book. There's no shock, no real tension, the book is just a "hey, let's follow chick around for awhile." Not exactly the most entrancing of stories.
What I really grew to loath was how much Mary thinks about Jesus, talks about Jesus, explains what Jesus does. I get it - Jesus is an extremely important part of Mary's life. The amount of text devoted to Jesus makes me think the novel should have been titled Jesus, Called Christ. George could have cut the amount of Jesus text in half, still have gotten the important points across, and made Mary seem a more complex character in the process. In this book, Mary acts the mouthpiece and prop of Jesus - the only time she is her own woman is during the first section of the novel. After that it's all Jesus, all the time turning Mary into a cardboard cutout apostle.
George's writing style is kind of heavy on the explanatory dialog and thought. The story moves along nicely but there is a whole lot of "we did this, and then I thought this, and then we did this." The novel lacks narrative tension. Everyone knows Jesus is going to be crucified. It's hard to be emotionally invested in a story when you know the outcome. George was able to create tension and emotion in Cleopatra, but that was completely missing in this story.
You would that that after 600+ pages I could find something extraordinary good with this book.... Yeah, didn't happen. It's not bad, there's just no power behind the story. I guess I could say that I like all the post text about historical context and all that, but if I wanted a historical biography, I would have browsed the non-fiction section.
RATING:6/10 [Good]
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