Arts
Bi Men:Coming Out Every Which Way
The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel
 |
The Passion
of Mary Magdalen: A Novel From the Maeve Chronicles |
by Cynthia Potts
| The
Passion of Mary Magdalen Elizabeth Cunningham 2006, Monkfish Book Publishing Co. |
I
don’t think I’ve ever used the word “blasphemy”
in its intended manner. Sure, it’s a word I’ve employed in
a frivolous sense, to decry questionable fashion choices or particularly
misguided use of ingredients in cutting edge bakeries, but in literature?
It hasn’t come up.
Yet “blasphemy” is the
concept I keep coming back to when considering Elizabeth Cunningham’s
The Passion of Mary Magdalen.
I’m not a particularly
religiouswoman. I’ve done the Sunday school bit, but chances are
I couldn’t name all twelve apostles if I was in a life or-death
game of Jeopardy.
Yet Cunningham’s book is challenging
enough, disturbing enough, that even my spiritual sensibilities, such
as they are, were upset.
This is obviously Cunningham’s
intention. In this, volume three of the five-part Maeve Chronicles, she
brings us into the first days of the church and turns everything we know
on its head.
The first half of the book is
amazing. Maeve - later Mary of Magdala through a twist of circumstances
half-inspired by prophecy, half-dictated by a mad woman - is a proud Celt
being sold at a Roman slave market. With vivid descriptions and great
use of language, Cunningham turns in a virtuouso performance, bringing
us into the moment. Maeve is sold into a brothel, all the while longing
for her lost love Yeshua - whom she’d apparently been separated
from, with mystical overtones and the loss of a child, in volume two.
Lots of adventure follows. For
the first half of this 600-page book, we’re with Maeve as she lives
life in the brothel, then escaping, only to be sold to a Roman matron
who keeps the fiery redheads as her own personal bed toy. It’s enticing,
erotic in parts, and troubling in others.
Maeve becomes a priestess of
Isis, tapping once more back into her own mystical heritage.
And then Maeve reconnects
with Yeshua, the early Jesus. This is where a good book goes, if not bad,
at least confusingly astray. Maeve loves Jesus with a passion that surpasses
all human understanding - yet it’s also a very real, very stormy
relationship. The couple unites, separates, fights, makes up, even marries.
All of which is good, all of which
is brilliant in parts. If Maeve would stop doing miracles, this could
have been an awesome book.
In an effort to humanize Christ, Cunningham
has deified Mary. Not just a little bit, either. Remember that whole walking
on the water bit? Not actually Christ. Just Mary, hundreds of miles distant,
utilizing her weather witch capabilities.
Blasted fig trees are restored to
life.
You don’t even want to know
what happens at the crucifixion.
If one is wholly separated from the
Christian mythos, this probably wouldn’t matter.
You could enjoy the text as a portrayal
of two Gods, one of whom did all the work, another of whom got all the
glory. It would stand well in that tradition.
However, if you’re attached
to the Jesus presented in the Bible, it’s a mind-bending, troubling
experience to have everything done by him or in his name really performed
by somebody else. It’s the Gospels hijacked by a largely uninvolved
party.
Wiser minds, probably more progressive
minds than mine, might find this an empowering book that gives women a
role in early Christianity denied them by history. We hear firsthand about
the cadres of women who supported Christ’s early ministry, and the
devastating effects divine visitation had upon Mary, mother of Christ.
It’s fascinating stuff, a compulsive read.
Cunningham does have a disconcerting
habit of having her narrator speak directly to the reader in modern parlance.
It’s well done - the anachronisms serve to reinforce Maeve’s
image as a wise cracking, tough whore/ smartass - but it does jar occasionally.
Those with a passion for historical
accuracy or traditionally presented scripture might do well to pass up
The Passion of Mary Magdalene. Everyone else is likely to find
it an engrossing, challenging read.
Cynthia Potts reads and writes in upstate New York.