The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene

I have finally finished reading, not only one book but two, in a relatively short period of time. I selected these books while browsing through my local public library.


THE SECRET GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE - Michele Roberts

I chose this book for several reasons: the first is the obvious religious and historical relationship. I really enjoyed The Red Tent with Diamant’s ficticious, yet plausible account of the female perspective in the old testament. The book flap suggested that this novel would provide a similar account.

In, The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Roberts creates a beautiful prose that gives way to a totally unexpected history of Mary Magdalene and her time with Christ. The beginning of the text draws the reader in with compassion for Mary and with interest to see how she explains her personal relationship with the King of the Jews.

As the novel progresses Mary experiences an awakening due to the acceptance of Christ in her heart and Jesus as her savior. After that the lines between Jesus as lover and Christ are strangely twisted and disfigured to the point where I was sure what Roberts through Mary was trying to say.

Mary came to express herself through these visions or dreams that she had. The controversy arose inevitably because she was a female and a self-proclaimed disciple. While I enjoyed the prose aspect of these visions, I feel Roberts did not place enough thought into what they meant.

Also, as a Christian, I have a hard time accepting the fact that Mary and Jesus were never really married, but lovers. The beginning of the text opens the reader’s eyes to the life of a woman in such times. Compassion is immediately given to Mary for the life that befell her and ultimately, how she came to be the sole breadwinner for her immediate family.

While, I really wanted to like this book, since it contains several of the qualities that I generally like in novels, the wishy washy-ness was too much to continue my desire to read. Even though I did finish the text, it just was not a book that I couldn’t put down. Again, I complement Roberts on his fantastic writing style, but critique the direction the novel end up taking.

Divisadero and the Curse of Writing a Masterpiece

DIVISADERO

- Michael Ondaatje

“He pushed the glass doors open and walked into the night so the coldness filled his shirt. He noticed the square of a window on the slope of the hill. There was a tightrope between the two farms, and below it an abyss.”
p. 221. DIVISADERO

Anyone who knows me knows that The English Patient is not only my favorite movie, but also my favorite book. Ondaatje uses his skill as a poet to write beautiful lyrical prose that simply carries the reader away to the mysterious worlds of Herodotus, Caravaggio and turn of the century France.

Yet, Divisadero is not without its problems. The beginning of the text, which is unusually set in the 1970’s is clunky and without much direction. The plot is slow if not non-existent. Ondaatje focuses on Claire, Coop and Anna who are raised like family since childhood. Anna and Coop have an innocent liaison and then a tragic separation takes place thanks to her father. Then, the story jumps several years down the road to Coop’s self-destructive behavior. The problem is, it isn’t until this section of the novel that the reader really gets hooked onto the characters. Up until then, the reader feels passive, like they are on the outside, looking in. A reader doesn’t want to be on the outside, they want to be there, transformed to where the action is happening.

The final part of the novel transports the reader to turn of the century France, following the life of a recluse writer whose life subtly parallels that of Anna. This was the best and most interesting part of the whole story. Ondaatje’s writing remains beautiful and excels in this section. It is his fluid verse that gives life to the story. Ondaatje also has that gift for weaving history into the mundane and making the whole world seem like one big canvas. Unfortunately, when the writer’s section ends, so does the novel. Anna says a few last words as she reflects on her time spent researching in France, but aside from that there is no conclusion. Part of Ondaatje’s style is that he doesn’t visualize things linearly. The plot starts in the middle, moves backwards and then ends in the present. He also does not feel the need to wrap things up. This vague conclusion leaves the reader hanging in a most disturbing way. Sometimes the unknown is good, but this is too much.

Overall, the characters all have the beginning of what makes well-developed characters. Unfortunately, the segmented style that guides the text keeps the reader from gaining an attachment to the text. While this method works in The English Patient because the characters come full-circle, it doesn’t work for this novel. In fact, so