10. Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary (2012) (5/1/26)
Several years ago, my sister-in-law Patty recommended this book to me as something not to read as a book but to listen to—in part for its narration by Meryl Streep. But I don't listen to books. So there the recommendation sat.
Then I happened to spend this last week with Patty and a good friend of hers, in Ashland, Oregon, and somewhere in there we all talked about audiobooks. And this one came up again.
So today, on my seven-hour drive from Ashland home to Monterey . . . what better form of diversion than The Testament of Mary? Which is just over three hours long—and I managed to finish it off just as I arrived at Williams, halfway and with gas stations galore. Perfection!
And yes, what a good book, as delivered by Meryl. It's Mary mother of Jesus's story late in life, about two of the disciples coming now and hounding her (she's plainly rather fed up with them) for her story, and then she just gets into storytelling mode even without her auditors—she simply wants to remember her son, how he took up with "a group of misfits," then left home and began to perform miracles, and the final days, with the Crucifixion. In all of these, she's hovering in the background, or witnessing, or hearing a story secondhand and relating her take on things, her connection to it all.
It's a literary Pietà, about memory and devotion, the worldly and the divine. And about a very real woman, who lost her only son.
I'd quote some of the writing, which is beautiful, but . . . I don't own the book. That's one of the things I dislike about listening: my mind is much better able to digest words on the page than words that float into my ears. It might be a book I'd read—again, so to speak—to be able to really slow down with the passionate language and imagery.
No comments:
Post a Comment