The Testament of Mary
8 Mar 2013 06:12 amInterrupting this month's foray into my mental archives is a book I read very recently: The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin. I read it earlier this week and found it extremely thought-provoking. It is a very short novella, and while reading I thought it felt like listening to a soliloquy; looking it up yesterday I discovered that it did in fact originate as a stage piece! As might be surmised from the title, it is narrated by Jesus's mother Mary, relating her memory of the events surrounding his crucifixion. Nearing the end of her life, she is cared for and questioned by her son's followers, who are writing the accounts of his life that will become the Gospels.
Toibin has an unconventional story-telling style; the plots of his novels are typically minimal, but the events are distinctly secondary to his exploration of the characters' psychological landscape. This is particularly apparent here in the voice of Mary, a woman who describes herself as being filled as much with memory as with blood and bone. He addresses the question of what Mary's thoughts and feelings might be -- she whose life is portrayed as one giant act of submission, all acquiescence to (another/greater/male) power. It doesn't often occur to people who tell or listen to this story that Mary might possibly be angry. She might have doubts. She might be resentful of the constraints placed upon her as a woman and as the mother of a man who claims to be the messiah. Toibin suggests all of these unsettling possibilities and more.
This version of Mary's story differs from the familiar gloss, but the explanation for this is embedded in the hints that her questioners are modifying what she tells them to suit their own purposes. The intricate irony of a male writer attempting to give voice to a woman who has historically been silenced and spoken for by men, in a story that depicts that very process, is headache-inducing to think about. Although I don't mean to downplay that essential issue, I think the most significant thing here is that a writer has imagined a different perspective on a person about whom much has been said but from whom very little has been heard.
Toibin has an unconventional story-telling style; the plots of his novels are typically minimal, but the events are distinctly secondary to his exploration of the characters' psychological landscape. This is particularly apparent here in the voice of Mary, a woman who describes herself as being filled as much with memory as with blood and bone. He addresses the question of what Mary's thoughts and feelings might be -- she whose life is portrayed as one giant act of submission, all acquiescence to (another/greater/male) power. It doesn't often occur to people who tell or listen to this story that Mary might possibly be angry. She might have doubts. She might be resentful of the constraints placed upon her as a woman and as the mother of a man who claims to be the messiah. Toibin suggests all of these unsettling possibilities and more.
This version of Mary's story differs from the familiar gloss, but the explanation for this is embedded in the hints that her questioners are modifying what she tells them to suit their own purposes. The intricate irony of a male writer attempting to give voice to a woman who has historically been silenced and spoken for by men, in a story that depicts that very process, is headache-inducing to think about. Although I don't mean to downplay that essential issue, I think the most significant thing here is that a writer has imagined a different perspective on a person about whom much has been said but from whom very little has been heard.
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