Review: Mary of Nazareth

Is there anything worse than the heart-wrenching sense of betrayal?

You think you know someone. You read three of there books and enjoy them thoroughly, and then WHAM! The fourth one comes way out of left field, slaps you silly, then laughs as you whimper and curl into a ball. And then it starts kicking you.

Ok, ok, I exaggerate, but only a little. It's true I am (was?) a fan of Marek Halter, a French novelist whose prior three entries, the highly-lauded Canaan Triology, focused on some of the well-known women of the Old Testament. Sarah. Zipporah. Lilah (well ok, she was fictional, but she still was very well imagined). So I guess after tackling the Old Testament, Halter decided to take on Mary of Nazareth. Too bad his ego got in the way of his research, because this novel was offensive not just as a Christian, but as a student of history.

Genre: novel, historical fiction

Plot: The world knows Mary of Nazareth as the Virgin who gave birth to Jesus. But you can forget all the stereotypes you normally think of when you imagine her, because Halter sets out to make her into a post-modern feminist, complete with radical ideas formed with shallow words and empty cliches. This Mary is a philosophy-touting, ghost-talking, down-with-the-man shouting rebel who ASKS God to give her the Messiah to birth. At first I was surprised at Halter's portrayal, but it began to make much more sense when in the last few pages he reveals that he (supposedly - I don't really buy it) discovered the Gospel of Mary, which is what he based his work on.

What really bothers me though, is not just that this is not the Mary of the Bible, but that this Mary is not at all authentic. And if you're going to write a historical novel, you had better be authentic. There are so many instances where ideas flow out of the character's mouths that would have been unthinkable to the Jews of the day, even the radical ones. It's clear that Halter based his work entirely on this gnostic gospel, which scholars know is a very late source, and ignored a lot of other historical (and may I add, secular) works that would have given him a more solid historical base.

In more objective terms, I found the plot extremely predictable and the dialogue wooden and contrived.

Structure: A short prologue, the rest of the novel in two bulk chunks, and an epilogue where Halter confesses (contrives?) how he discovered the Gospel of Mary in Poland.

Execution: Halter's prose is bulky and unrefined. There's just no polish to anything. As I said earlier, I really found the dialogue lacking, too. Overall it came off as a slipshod work without any real forethought.

Theme: first century Israel, Essenes, Barabbas, Mary

Read this if you're a fan of the Jesus Seminar

1 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Lilah
Zipporah
Sarah
The Book of Abraham
Stories of Deliverance

If you liked this, you might also like:
Donna Jo Napoli (one of my favorite childhood authors)'s Song of the Magdalene is a much more compelling version of Mary of Magdalene's story