The Testament of Mary: A Novel

Although very well written with good flow once you got to page 11 and figured out what was going on, it really didn't provide me with enlightened info re her life as the mother of Jesus. It sort of painted a picture of Jesus as arrogant and not interested in family which is not the way I have come to know Him through various Bible studies over the years. This was a book club reading suggestion so I will be very interested in how the discussion goes when we meet later this month.

The book challenged my thinking on conventional teachings about Jesus and his relationship with his mother, maybe because I never considered it from a mothers perspective. It is one view, I may have acted differently in the same position, but then who knows?

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for stories that try to delve into the mental lives of Biblical figures. Also, I am comfortable enough with my faith not to feel threatened by unorthodox views of these figures. Add to that a writer of Toibin's imagination and skill, and you have the formula for a brilliant piece of fiction.

The Mary that Toibin presents to us is totally human and completely unexpected, particularly for those imbued with the dogma that she is Queen of Heaven. This is not a woman who will be assumed bodily into Paradise. She is lonely, angry and depressed over her son's death. She questions the claims of his followers that he is the Son of God. She wants nothing to do with the growing worship surrounding him.

In some ways, religious icon or no, her bitterness can be hard to take at times; however, there are moments of transcendence in this story. My favorite is when she threatens her keepers over the "one chair in this room in which no one has ever sat" when he tries to use it. There is the thought that this might be Jesus' chair but, in fact, it is Joseph's. Joseph is the sadly too often forgotten part of the Holy Family. Giving Mary a real sense of mourning over her husband (which seems to trump even that over her son) is unusual and perfect. The entire retelling of the wedding at Cana is also wonderful; particularly in the way she tries to protect her son while becoming trapped in a moment where a miracle may or may not have happened.

This may be a fairly brief novella but it plumbs emotional depths that other authors miss in much longer works. Toibin's revision of religious views of Mary is unsettling but it cannot be denied that he has created a realistic portrait. This is a work that should be read and chewed over.

Some may see this book as theologically controversial, but this highly original point of view serves to underscore the enduring narrative power of the crucifixion story. The story is framed by Mary, the mother of Jesus, under careful observation by the politically astute early Christians, who see her as a liability, willing to jettison the legacy that they are carefully developing. As she deals with a revolving cast of attendants, Mary recounts the struggle between the son she loves and the seemingly fanatical cult leader she feels he has become. His followers are social misfits and random failures in her judgment, and she frets about the course Jesus has chosen. The true power in the story comes in Tóibín's rendering of the trial and execution. Seen through the eyes of a desperate, heart-broken mother who is horrified by both the casual brutality of the Roman crucifixion and her vexing impotence to lessen her child's pain or rescue him from agonizing death.

There may be those who view this narrative as sacrilegious or irreverent, but it is a diamond-sharp novel by an author of great talent. I heard an interview with Colm Toibin when the book came out and he was asked if he feared any sort of repercussions from those who may be offended. He replies something to the effect that of course not because he lived in Western Europe where there is freedom from that sort of thing.

The writing was at times excellent .. Like it when I want to reread a sentence. However as with many novels lately, the ending was a struggle for the writer. I can see why it is hard to reconstruct an old story.

Colm Toibin, one of my favorite writers, has proven once again that he can write a thoughtful, insightful story on any subject. (Apparently those who select nominees for the Man Booker Prize agree as his novella THE TESTAMENT OF MARY has just made the long list for this year's prize.) In roughly 80 pages, Mary, the mother of Jesus-- although she never mentions his name ("I cannot say my son's name")-- gives a sustained dramatic monologue of their time together when her son was a child, the danger she herself felt for her own life when she knew her son would probably be killed, and her lonely years alone after his death.

What Mr. Toibin does so brilliantly is present Mary as a mother who, like any mother, had her life turned upside down by the death of a child. She had hoped that she would have someone to watch over her when she was dying, but that will not happen. After all, it goes against nature for a mother to bury a child. It should be the other way around. She remembers everything that happened on that awful day: "I have been unhinged by what I saw in daylight and no darkness will assuage that, or lessen what it did to me." Mary is old now and seldom leaves her house, although she is watched over by two men who are not named who are intent on preserving the legacy of Jesus. "They want to make what happened live forever." She believes ultimately that "it was not worth it."

Mr. Toibin removes the Crucifixion from the stained glass windows of churches and makes it painfully real as seen through the eyes of a mother. I was reminded of the accounts of the lynchings of black men in the southern United States years ago when the bystanders treated the horrific events as family outings. You get the same feeling from Mr. Toibin`s narrative. It is altogether too human. Mary even recalls that her feet hurt. The writer says that he was inspired to write this novella from seeing Tintoretto's painting of the Crucifixion that he found "untidy and chaotic." It seems to me that he has achieved the same in this richly shaded narrative.

To have written such an account of both Jesus and Mary-- she describes the men her son gathered around him as "misfits"-- certainly was an act of bravery on the part of Mr. Toibin. He was rewarded by having the play based on this novella the object of protests on its opening in New York by a Catholic nonprofit group who found the play "blasphemous, " written by an "avowed homosexual" and performed and directed by "open Lesbians." Enough said.

Compelling narrative in the stlye of Archibald McLeish' "JB". Similarly to "JB", this text may provide moments of introspection that may be uncomfortable and even challenge some of one's presumptions. The story-line has the ability to upend some childish faith-principles, so beware, if this is not the sort of thing that your psyche can tolerate.

Colm Toibin's novel, "The Testament of Mary," intersperses passages of a petulant Mary in the days the apostles were visitng her and asking her questions about her beloved son, Jesus, with her own vivid memories of life with her son growing up as a child and then going out in to the world as an adult. With a fascinatingly introspective tone worthy of a still-suffering Mary years after her son's death, Toibin's attempt at forensic fiction is breathtaking in its limited scope and sometimes terse,and sometimes flowing, but always poetic, prose. He presents Mary as both a real human being and a World Spirit person with her warts and all, and gives us a profoundly plausible glimpse into what her state of mind was like at the end of her exalted and pained life. The voice of Jesus is not heard nor is He referred to by name with Mary testifying in her testament that to utter his name was just too painful, instead preferring to call him "my son," "our son," or "the one you are interested in."

Growing up a Protestant in a mainly Irish Catholic town, I knew of the worship and adoration of Mary as the Mother of God. And when I traveled in Europe, friends showed me the famous paintings in Florence and the Black Madonna at Einseidel Monastery in Switzerland. And when a Polish friend visited me, he purchased a statue of the Virgin Mary made of coal for his devoutly Catholic mother. Although Protestants are taught to focus on Jesus and not pay so much attention to Mary, I somehow feel drawn to the subject matter. It is perhaps my Catholic proclivities that make me feel Toibin, far from damaging Catholicism with his religiously controversial book, has instead greatly furthered the interest into Mary as a person and a Holy Grail of beloved worship with a pious zeal all his own in this all too human account.

I read The Testament of Mary when it first appeared in this country. Beautifully written; a long short story rather than a novella. Enjoyed every word. Toibin's imagination does justice to his writing ability (not vice versa), and I see no reason to read beyond his story: The Testament of Mary is not history and certainly not theology. Gonzalo T. Palacios.

It is beautifully written (of course), is lucid about the confusion of personal grief, captures a historical period evocatively, and is very insightful about the way oral history is formed and turned into what people need it to be. But also from an historian's perspective I found it improbable that Mary the mother of Jesus of Nazareth would have been so dissociated from her son's ministry, or that she could have been pasted in as a believer after the events in the way this suggests, or that she would have decided as a good Jewish woman to start worshipping at the temple of a pagan goddess after his death.... These improbabilities spoiled it for me.

The author let his imagination run wild without biblical support of the life of Mary the Virgin. Some of the description is factual; she was in a house in Ephesus which stands today. We all have a right to choose our beliefs and our histories. As for me, Colm Toibin has gone a bit too far.

The story is about feelings experienced by Mary as Christ goes into his ministry and leading to his death. It is a story of sadness for the most part and one that we already know the outcome to. I had to keep stopping and then restarting my reading, as it tended to bring me down.

This novella is powerfully written in Mary's voice - one we have never heard before. She is angry and defiantly ignoring the disciples' questions because she does not want to be complicit in creating a cult around her son and his horrific death. This is not a book for those whose devotion is to the traditional Mary. Personally I was grateful for the strength of this unsettling portrayal to break through the stereotypes of Mary that have been largely created by powerful men who want her to be a docile, unquestioning handmaid.

Some aspects of this book were interesting, but historical inaccuracies (like Lazarus buried in the ground rather than a tomb, or Mary - who was a devout Jew - having an idol of Artemis, etc.) were really distracting.

The idea is an interesting exercise is speculative history. It could be subtitled "Mary blows the whistle on the Christian Church". The fact that Mary's response to her son's message and passion is to worship the greek goddess, and make a shrine of her dead husband's chair, pretty much expresses the author's perspective. If this supports your own view you may find it well written and evocative. It is particularly iconoclastic of the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church.

One of the most powerful moving novels I have read in years, reverent without being religious, the sort of book that compels you to get up and walk around the room from time to time just to get your breath back.

This book is an excellent piece of fiction. Some of it is based on actual fact; most of it is fictional imagination. The book, however, classified is probably a better portrayal of Mary, Mother of Jesus, than most of us have encountered. Colum Toibin has made Mary a person and one who, with the rest of us, suffers loneliness, age and isolation. It is a portrayal of a Mary quite different from other attempted biographies.

This book can be disturbing to Christians like my wife and I but being strong in our faith we take the book to just another side to the great story of Jesus Christ. The book does nothing to attack the beliefs of Christians.

Put aside the questions over whether or not Toibin's version of Mary matches the historical version - What made this book ultimately unsatisfying for me was that it didn't have much appeal as a human story. Basically, this is cranky Mary. At first, I was ok with that because it seemed like the point of the book was going to be the extent of her grief. However, the farther I went on, the more I felt that she didn't really like her son that much. She has hardly anything good to say about him from beginning to end. If she loves anything, it is the idea of what he could have become if he had done what she wanted him to do with his life. It's a bit unclear what she really cares about other than getting some peace and quiet. Thus, I found myself unable to sympathize with her. More to the point, I don't know that there is anything particularly groundbreaking about how this book is written. The chief draw seems to be that it presents a different version of Mary than the one in the Bible. Let me put it this way: if this was a book about a mother other than Mary, just some random woman who happened to have lost her son, it would not have received the kind of accolades it now enjoys. As usual, it is the controversy that has created the impression of greatness. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Toibin as an author, and I'm not sorry that I read the book, but I guess I don't see what is so special about it.

I loved the way Mary is portrayed as an experienced, mature mother who, behind her modest and silent mask, is no fool to be trifled with. Very believable, I thought.

(I was surprised, however, that the book is really only novella-length ... Could have warned me about that before I plunked down my money.)

As this story offers its as analysis of the Passion of Christ it illuminates parts of if, confounds others, and merely relays others. Toibin holds up as mirror for us to see ourselves as we recall those events and challenges our comfort in the story. A wonderful reflection and should be required reading for all to know Mary's humanity.

Excelent! It is very well written, very poeticly also! It pictures well the time it is describing, and a very probable state of mind of the characters and their behaviour. It gives a diferente and intriguing view of the story, even if one doesn't share the carácter of the virgin it describes, Again, excelent.

One reviewer has labeled this book "blasphemous", another "dumb"; like beauty, these qualities lie in more-than-perhaps prejudiced "eye of the beholder". What puzzled me, and continues to do so, is that Tobin's Mary seems to have completely forgotten that her son is also the son of God, as she was told before his birth. She then considers her son and his followers as young delinquents, a very peculiar version of the information contained in the New Testament, where Mary "ponders these things in her heart" without ever pronouncing judgement on them.
Once I decide to read a book based on another text, I do my best to avoid judgement until and even after reaching the last page. More than a month has passed since I reached the last page of this one and my feeling now is that Tobin let his own story-teller's ego get the better of him. I'd like to see what would happen if he started from scratch and wrote a world of his own instead of clumsily altering an extant one.

This was a really interesting and unusual interpretation of Mary than what has been handed down to us by different religious takes on her life. Because every writer depicts her as a saintly one dimensional figure, it was really interesting to have her examined as a real woman, who had doubts, resentments and simmering anger. And while the story was an interesting slice of Mary's life (whether she existed or not is immaterial, as this is a work of fiction) what brought it alive for me was Meryl Streep. From the very first, as the words came out of her mouth, they were so filled with emotion, it was like listening to a one-woman play on Broadway. Bravo to the author and the reader.

As a Roman Catholic by upbringing I found this book fascinating. It is the first time I have seen anyone propose that Mary may have been a " normal" loving mother. A mother with all the fears, hopes and aspirations of every mother. It is a wonderful read. A clever believable story line. A must for those with a solid, yet open set of beliefs!

The Testament of Mary offers a fictional "backstage" view of Jesus's last days from the perspective of a mother alternately wondering if her son has gone off his rocker and wondering at his evolving nature as a spiritual man apart. I recommend listening to Meryl Streep's compelling, angst-ridden narration. She is magnificent.

This is a wonderful perspective on the passion of Christ through the eyes and heart of his mother. It's a perspective that I've never experienced before but now that I have it makes the story all the more real and human. Delightful!

I had heard that the book provided a different perspective on the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. That is false. It does not give a different perspective, it tells a quite different story. The person of Jesus and his message are irrelevant in this story. What matters is only that he dies and that his mother thinks more of her own safety while he dies than of her son's pain and cannot live with that guilt. This story has as good as nothing to do with the story of Jesus of Nazareth. It can only be understood as a back-projection from and criticism of a weak and perverted Christianity that has no room for Jesus’ message, only for his death, and is experienced as misogynic. This type of Christianity has existed every now and then someplace but it has nothing to do with Jesus or his mother. What’s the use of the back-projection?