The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Until now, my favorite Saramago has been his 1982 novel, Baltasar and Blimunda. But that's changed with The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991).

Saramago's insight into the human nature and psychology is as humane, his wit as biting yet at the same time as nuanced, and therefore his humor as cunning, delicious and hilarious as ever. His atheism lends a satirical perspective to the happenings, but here he's far subtler than he ever was in Cain (2009), whose primary objective was to be a full-on parody, a kind of Gospel on steroids.[1] It might be that people of a certain persuasion won't be able to see the forest for the trees, but I find Saramago's warmth and compassion for his characters the stuff of marvelous literary merit and entertainment.

Saramago's keen eye for irony and the absurd colors the proceedings, and with lucid determinacy he shifts from the farcical to elegiac, from earthly to poetic, never losing us into the mechanics of the story or the theoretical narrative framework behind it all. It's a beautifully told tale full of heartbreak, insecurity and not being able to know oneself, in other words, the hallmarks of what makes us human.

As for the character of Jesus, it's too easy to put him on a pedestal, quoting Scripture with a stern face and picturesque hand-waving, because he has to tick all the doctrinal boxes of any given denomination. Saramago, however, manages to create a true personality, and it is Jesus's torment that brings him alive. There's nothing believable in an automaton who approaches life as if reading from a script. Saramago's Jesus has a distinct voice, and it's easy to feel the rough fabric of his tunic and to smell the sweat and the desert in his hair. This is a gospel worth rereading.

Endnotes:

[1] He takes on God full on, though: ”It is true that God compensated Job by repaying him twice as much as He had taken, but what about all those other men in whose name no book has ever been written, men who have been deprived of everything and been given nothing in return, to whom everything was promised but never fulfilled”, ”When, oh Lord, will You come before mankind to acknowledge Your own mistakes”, ”blessed be Your holy name, since it is forbidden to curse You”.

27 November,
2017