The Testament of Mary [Kindle Edition] Author: Colm Toibin | Language: English | ISBN:
B007EDOTPS | Format: PDF, EPUB
The Testament of Mary Epub Free
Free download The Testament of Mary Epub Free for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link 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.
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 Gospel. They are her keepers, providing her with food and shelter and visiting her regularly. 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.
Mary judges herself ruthlessly (she did not stay at the foot of the Cross until her son died—she fled, to save herself), and her judgment of others is equally harsh. This woman whom we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone. Tóibín’s tour de force of imagination and language is a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of Mary will be forever transformed. Books with free ebook downloads available The Testament of Mary Epub Free
- File Size: 2299 KB
- Print Length: 97 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1451692382
- Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (November 13, 2012)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B007EDOTPS
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,554 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #13
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > British & Irish - #97
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Religious
- #13
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > British & Irish - #97
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Religious
The subject matter for Colm Tóibín's "The Testament of Mary" is exactly what the title suggests in that it relates Mary's feelings about the death of her son, Jesus, whose name it hurts her too much to even mention. It's a curiously slight offering though. Its 100 odd pages lands it somewhere between short story and novella territory. Even so, with Tóibín's excellence as a writer and the emotive subject matter, I expected to be more engaged with the story than I was.
It's not often that I feel completely ambivalent about a book, but this is one of those times. It's well written certainly but fails to really engage the reader - or at least this reader. It's as if Tóibín is writing on auto-pilot (or given the subject matter perhaps that should be auto-Pilate?) - although that is still a very high standard of writing. It started life as a monologue play and I'm not quite so convinced of the merits of its expansion here.
At the start, it's unclear if Mary is under arrest or just being guarded for her own safety after the death of her son. Told in her voice throughout, there is the expected rage and sadness and most of all a sense of guilt about not failing to intervene in her son's final hours for her own safety. She recalls the story of Lazarus who, once her son had raised him from the dead, seems to be living life as not much more than a zombie with people afraid to even look at him, before describing the last time she saw her son at a wedding, to recalling the events of the crucifiction.
And that's sort of it really.
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