Mary, Called Magdalene
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The new historical blockbuster from the author of "The Autobiography of Henry VIII", "Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles" and "Memoirs of Cleopatra". Hallmarked by bestselling author Margaret George's dazzling mix of history and creativity, "Mary, Called Magdalene" is George's most ambitious work yet. Brilliantly grounded in both biblical and secular historical research, it depicts Mary of Magdala in the first hundred years of the first millennium - even as it peels away layers of legend. Testaments, letters, and narrative convincingly capture Mary's immediate and moving voice as she becomes part of the circle of disciples and comes to grips with the divine. "Mary, Called Magdalene" transcends both history and fiction to become a "diary of a soul."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
George, whose niche is historical and biographical novels, begins this one ploddingly with suspenseless reportage on Mary Magdalene's pleasant, middle-class childhood in a prosperous fishing village. Scattered references to the idol/demon that will eventually possess Mary are intended as fateful omens, but her slow road to madness gets much less play than her conventional and uninteresting life. The novel improves considerably when Mary finds herself possessed by one demon, and then, helplessly, by six more. Her valiant efforts to first hide her possession and then find a cure are masterfully described. When a prophet named Jesus finally casts out her demons, she celebrates, only to realize that she must make a heartrending choice between following the prophet or going back to her husband, baby and extended family. At this point, George's novel becomes a safe, though readable, retelling of the gospels. Her main deviation from orthodoxy is her insistence that there were 16 disciples 12 men and four women who were equal in Jesus' eyes. Additionally, George emphasizes Mary's prophetic visions and Jesus' celebration of them, and in doing so gives credence to gnostic accounts of mysticism among the disciples. While some may compare this novel with Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, it bears a much stronger resemblance to Walter Wangerin's biographical novel about the apostle Paul. Like Wangerin's work, this imagines nothing seriously objectionable to even the most devout Christians. As such, it lacks the transgressive power of The Red Tent, but is still a well-researched and thought-provoking book.
