An Alternate History

Jose Saramago
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ


I've finished this book some weeks before, but I don't know what to write about it. My chief problem was, I didn't realize during reading this book this is "an alternate history of Jesus Christ", as I've read at many places later. Or better to say, I don't know what exactly is different to the Bible. And is it really so important to know?

On the other hand, of course it's an alternate history. Every novel, every movie, every tv-miniseries are somehow different to the Bible (every adaptation is different to the work on which it's based), so it wasn't such incredible surprising to me some motives in this book.

I can read on some website, this is a story how Jose Saramago imagines the life of Jesus Christ. Well, that's right. And because, we are not the same, I think, everyone has a different picture about Jesus Christ. Everyone interprets a bit different the main motives of this story.

I think, those people, like me, who think, the story of Jesus Christ is one of the most important story of our culture, but therefore, like every story, it can be interpreted, adopted re- or overwritten, is Saramago's novel is an interesting book.

But on the other hand I really, really don't know what to write about this book, even don't konwo how to write about the evidently different things like the quite modern romantic relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.

This is a complete story of one of the most famous person of the history, and I don't really know, does it really makes sense to analyze the difference between the Bible and this book?

This was not the first Saramago-book, I've read, one on my favorite story The History of the Siege of Lisbon is also written by him, hich is a funny game with the unreliability of the historical sources. Baltasar and Blimunda is a bit different kind of story, it a good example how the postmodern literature can mixes the historical novel and the magical realism. (Or even it shows, how both are very similar to each other.)

This review was written for The books to read before I die 2010 challenge)