2013 Booker longlist: The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

This thread is for discussion of The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín.

I read The Testament of Mary this afternoon; at only 104 pages, it doesn't take long to finish, and I wondered, going in, how it could possibly be weighty enough to merit a Booker nomination.

Well, I'm happy to say that it is definitely worthy - Toibin's every word, every image, is purposeful and clear, and Mary's voice is complex. The Testament of Mary was first written as a one-woman stage show (for a theatre festival in Dublin in 2011), and the Broadway production (2013) was nominated for three Tony awards. The novel reads very much like a monologue, with no chapter breaks. It is one continuous speech; Mary recounts her son's last few months, his death, and her life after his crucifixion. Toibin turns a lot of Biblical conventions on their heads, and his Mary is very different from the usual depiction of devout motherhood. She prefers to remember her son as a small boy, rather than the man who gathered misfit followers and caused trouble.

I enjoy books that give voices to previously silenced characters, particularly women from stories of mythical proportions (i.e.: Atwood's The Penelopiad). Even more refreshing is that Toibin, a male author, decided to give a voice to a female character - and really, a character who embodies a female archetype. Like with his Brooklyn, Toibin realistically portrays the thoughts and feelings of a member of the opposite sex, something that I always find impressive.

This was my first foray into the Booker longlist, and I am pleased to say that it held up to my high Booker standards. If all the longlisted books are this good, I will be a happy reader indeed.

4 stars

This, I reckon, sounds like a fantastic book, and it may be the first one I try from the longlist. If I get in early at the library, I could just get in before the hoards!

eta: my library has it....of I go then :)

Ooh Darryl, you have been so productive setting up all these threads. Good on you! I think this book may be the only one I can get in the near future and it's nice to know that it is a slim volume. I love Tóibín so am looking forward to it. By the way you are going so well with your reading this year...I think at this rate you will certainly nail your goals :)

I just picked up this book from the library. It was just sitting on the "New Arrivals" shelf and I jumped on it. Probably won't get to it till August. Cait86's comments have me very intrigued.

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

It is very odd that I seek out alternative versions of bible stories seeing as I barely know the established ones. I have an interest in religion from my standpoint as an Agnostic, but have yet to read the Bible itself. I know my standpoint in itself is enough to offend some, but it ought not to as I respect the right of people to believe in whatever they like and hope the same would apply to me.

So, this little book was longlisted for the Booker Prize and I grabbed it from the library hoping it would kick-start my Booker Prize reading again. It is short. Accessible. Written in conversational story-telling style. And it is powerful. In it Mary tells her version of what happened in the days before her sons death, and in the days after. She does not believe her son to be anything like as special as his disciples do, in fact she thinks he is getting too big for his boots, and that the disciples are trouble makers and tyrants. I am sure this must be a controversy to devoted Christians. But I take this story to be just another version of the events the bible describe. To me they are all stories and this one has just as much chance of being the true one as any other. It was interesting, heartfelt yet written with an emotional restraint that felt true from a narrator who had seen her son die a horrible death. 4 stars.

I just finished reading this yesterday. I really enjoyed Brooklyn but couldn't quite get into this. There's a bit of me that's wondering what the point of it all is. I guess that yes, one could wonder "Why don't we have a Testament of Mary, when we have one from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...?" So yes, it's an interesting idea that maybe we don't have one because she wouldn't agree with them and say what they wanted her to say. If she had been allowed to speak, what would she have said? The writing on Page 74 was very moving. But...and yet I say but.

The best thing I think Toibin captured was that in the midst of something horrific, ordinary things are going on or, what you remember about a particularly horrific event is weird stuff - like the man with the bird in the cage and the bag of rabbits - because to focus on the horrific thing would send you over the edge, I suppose.

I've read two books about religion so far for the Booker - this and The Marrying of Chani Kaufman. Now I'm reading The Spinning Heart. I haven't found my shortlisted book yet.

I read this one on Saturday evening, and like alexdaw I didn't fully see the point of it. I must admit that I often have issues with historical fiction. There's a certain type of books that all sound similar for me, usually written in a woman's voice, someone looking back on her life (also Lavinia, The Dovekeepers, and others). The language is usually poetic, but I always miss some expression of true feeling. Usually it's women that have been through horrible things and the author wants to show that the narrator is bitter, broken, sad or simply very old and therefore distanced. For me it always feels like the easy way out - write about horrible things in a calm steady voice ("...and then my husband was killed and I mourned him and then all my children died and then everyone else died but I knew I had to survive to be able to tell our story..")..

I tried not to get influenced by my personal dislike for the style while reading this book and to concentrate on the story instead to do it justice . And well, there wasn't that much. The idea was interesting, and I guess it is a courageous step for an Irish author to write a book like this one. It must be perceived by many readers as completely blasphemic. I am convinced that the jury will put it on the SL just for the courage.

But I had hoped for a little more than what I found. In the end, Mary was simply never present when "the important things" happened. The book tries confrontation, but then finally avoids it.

Edit: Just read entry #2: I can imagine this well as a stage show or an audio book. Maybe I would have liked it better in that form.

I enjoyed The Testament of Mary on a first read and gave it 4 stars. I intend to give it a second go next week, and I'll post my thoughts about it then. At the moment I have it ranked second of the four longlisted books I've read so far, behind TransAtlantic but ahead of Five Star Billionaire and The Spinning Heart.

Ooh now see, I've just finished The Spinning Heart and liked it much better!

TToM was certainly a fresh look at the ministry of Jesus through the skeptical, confused, lonely and loving eyes of his mother. Original? Yes Booker short list? Mmmm, I'm not so sure but it does have people talking.
I'll be reading Trans Atlantic later this month.

The Testament of Mary
Finished reading: 3 October 2013



As earlier book titles show, e.g. Mothers and sons, or New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families, Colm Tóibín has an interest writing about mothers, and thus, The Testament of Mary is about a mother, the mother of Jesus.

The story of the life of Jesus is familiar, and the attentive reader may at first suspect that The Testament of Mary might be a fictional apocryphal bible book. In this respect, the title is cleverly chosen as it is not presented as a apocryphal gospel, but a testament, which should somehow be placed besides the Old, and the New Testament. While the canonized gospels are part of the New Testament, and the Old and New Testaments are religious works, The Testament of Mary appears to be a secular eye-witness report of the life and death of Jesus.

The Testament of Mary is a very humanistic, or human approach to the story of Christ. Firstly, Mary is not a Christian. She is described as going to the Temple of the goddess Artemis (p. 103). Her veneration of the pagan gods underscores that she is not a believer. In fact, she takes most 'miracles' performed by her son Jesus with a great deal of skepsis. She is his mother, and views Jesus from her perspective as a worried mother.

From Mary's reminiscences on various miracles, such as the wedding in Cana, and the resurrection of Lazarus, it becomes clear that the way these stories are canonized in the Bible, they must have been exaggerated, distorted or incomplete if not outright misleading. The miracles did not exactly happen the way they are described, or the way they are remembered is not the way it happened.

The novel is entirely narrated by Mary, and all events are seen through her eyes. As a result, Jesus life and death have nothing heroic. As his mother, Mary can only see the horror of the crucifixion. Mary also appears in the novel as a fairly innocent person, who fails to see what turn events take, and must be persuaded to seek shelter and worry about her own safety, as the people around Jesus, and people in the wider political context churn the life of Jesus and his death into a myth.

The Testament of Mary is a very short novel, but surely well worth reading.



Other books I have read by Colm Tóibín:
The south
The story of the night
The Heather Blazing