THE BOOK OF MARY
By Gail Sidonie Sobat
Sumach Press, 251 pp.
What if the biblical account of the incarnation of Christ was an elaborate tale concocted by a girl seeking to elude death-by-stoning, a method reserved exclusively for "bad girls and women"? What if Jesus Christ wasn’t miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, but out of the "miracle of lovemaking" between an unmarried and rebellious Mary of Nazareth and her drug-dealing boyfriend Jeremiah?
Gail Sidonie Sobat’s first novel for adults, The Book of Mary, answers these questions via a feminist retelling of the life story of Mary. Journal entries give readers insight into Mary’s struggles and triumphs by chronicling her life experiences from the point of view of Mary herself.
From the first pages of the novel, the reader is introduced to a Mary who defies the traditional Christian portrayal of the Virgin Mary as a symbol of piety. Mary is 14 when she pens her first journal entry onto scrolls received as a birthday gift. She reveals typical modern-day concerns of young women her age – despondency, sexuality and body image – in a blunt, modern-day vernacular coupled with historical references.
In the first chapter, entitled "Magnificat" (the title commonly given to the Latin text and vernacular translation of the Canticle, or song, of Mary), Mary writes in detail about her repressed sexual desires for Jeremiah and describes her first sexual encounter with him in an intensely erotic scene. As a means of survival for herself and her illegitimate baby, Mary composes the miraculous incarnation story, using her "best grammar and most artistic calligraphy." Joseph, the carpenter to whom Mary is betrothed, is portrayed as a simple man who willingly accepts Mary’s story and his role in raising Jesus, the so-called Son of God.
The remaining eight chapters of The Book of Mary detail Mary’s transition from a defiant and naive 14-year old into an emancipated woman who devotes her life to her children and women in need of support. Mary becomes a member of the Sisters of the Eastern Star, a sisterhood devoted to helping women in trouble. As one of the sisters explains, "Always we seek to help women and their children. We are, after all, a Sisterhood. Women alone are powerless." Members learn to care for lepers, perform abortions, act as midwives and reach out to prostitutes and other abused and battered women. Mary even convinces Joseph to build Wellhouse, a sanctuary for "women who have no other choice, no story to save their lives. Women great with children, women who seek to empty their wombs, women shunned or raped or left for dead."
It is obvious that Sobat chooses her characters’ names with care, naming strong female characters after biblical figures embraced by the feminist movement – Eve, who bit into the forbidden apple out of a desire for knowledge; Lilith, who refused to subjugate herself to Adam; and Mary Magdala, prostitute-turned-repentant follower of Jesus and the first to bear witness to his resurrection. Recent pop culture phenomenon The Da Vinci Code has generated discussion around the theory that Mary Magdala was Jesus’ wife and mother of his child. The Book of Mary empowers Mary Magdala (Jesus marries ex-prostitue Mary el Mejdel) further, by giving her a voice and an identity beyond the traditional role of woman as wife and mother.
With age, Mary comes to recognize the power of her self-described "blasphemous words." Not only do her words serve as a kind of therapy, they are also instrumental in disseminating her story and ensuring that she will not be forgotten. Indeed, Mary reveals a desire to share her life experiences with others in the hope that her words will continue helping and empowering women for generations to come.
Sobat’s The Book of Mary is a subversive and irreverent feminist rendition of the life of Mary of Nazareth. While the premise is outrageous and certain to offend some, the book should not be read as a religious attack – Sobat is not suggesting that her version of the story be taken as fact. The book offers a purely fictionalized version of the life of Mary not as an attack on Christianity, but rather as an attack on traditional patriarchal values and gender inequities. Sobat offers us her version as an alternative to the status quo.
Gail Sidonie Sobat is reading at Pages on Kensington on Friday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m. |
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