![]() ![]() Mary has no use for the collection of "misfits" who accompanied Jesus (who is never named in the Testament) everywhere with their "high-flown talk." Nor does she respond to the language of divine redemption that consoles his followers.Ī profoundly observant (though unlettered) woman, she longs not for the last days but for the times in years past when her son would return from temple with his father: "we could talk again and eat together and prepare with ease for the peaceful night after the day when we had renewed ourselves."Īs the son becomes a man, however, these periods of domestic pleasure that sustain Toibín's Mary are replaced by widowhood, disquieting rumors and a growing distance from her son. She is unwilling to tailor her reminiscences to the needs of the chroniclers who pester her for anecdotes. Mary's testimony, however, springs from the consciousness of a mother far removed from her son's prophetic mission. ![]() ![]() And what was it really like at Calvary? Irish novelist Colm Toibín offers us an account from the lips of Mary, now in old age, who seeks the "grim satisfaction which comes from the certainty that I will not say anything that is not true." The setting for this reflective and provocative narrative is Mary's exile, as she tries to assist the two men who have come to write down her memories so they might conform to the divine narrative they have in mind. ![]()
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