In 1996 Paul Park published The Gospel of Corax, a highly
acclaimed rendering of a theosophist legend, describing
Jesus of Nazareth's journey to the Indian subcontinent and
Tibet. In Three Marys, his new novel, Park returns to
first-century Palestine to recreate with penetrating insight
the historical community of Jesus, and to follow the first
tangled strands of Christianity after his death. Here is
Jesus's world as it very likely was, confused, conflicted,
rife with messianic rumor and factional ambition; here is
the brazen cruelty of Roman occupation and the domestic
oppression that mirrored it, seen through the eyes of the
women who knew Jesus best. This is the story not only of
Christ but of the three Marys who survived him and were true
to him, each in their own way. Their inner and outer
narratives, sometimes tortured, sometimes rhapsodic, make up
the spare but radiant tapestry of this novel. There is Mary
of Magdala, visionary and wandering, perhaps Jeshua's wife;
there is his mother Mary, tough, charismatic, earthy,
ultimately desolated by his loss; and there is Mary of
Bethany, the girl who followed Jeshua in his last days and
has to bear the burden of her undying brother Lazarus for
decades afterwards. Outcasts because of their sex, yet
possessors between them of some fragmented sense of the true
ineffable nature of Christ the man and Christ the messiah,
they are presented with luminous tragic humanity and given
proper voice at last. Paul Park is one of contemporary
American literature's most subtle and original explorers of
religious experience. As exotic in coloring and as rich in
understanding as his superb science fantasy novels, Three
Marys is a masterpiece of historical and spiritual
reconstruction. Paul Park lives in Berkshire County,
Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy