As provocative as The Last Temptation of Christ and already as controversial in its native Portugal, this fictional life of Jesus is as haunting as a dream and as real as a baby's cry. From the opening scene, in which an angel, dressed as a beggar, comes to announce the birth of Jesus, to the last moment of Jesus' life when the voice of the Lord seems to mock him as Jesus' blood drips into a bowl, Saramago mixes magic, myth, and reality into a potent brew. Among the most eyebrow-raising depictions in the book is that of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute to whom Jesus surrenders his virginity in a scene that is both erotic and tender. More than his mistress, Mary becomes the catalyst that allows Jesus to see the world in a new way. With little paragraphing and no quotation marks, the text is at times difficult to follow. But there is method to Saramago's formlessness. This is a book that can't be read quickly. The typographical density forces us to reread sentences and conversations, and in the course of rereading, we find multiple levels of meaning in the narrative, leading us in turn to ponder the larger questions Saramago's tale elicits. Ilene Cooper --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

A PROVOCATIVE AND CONTROVERSIAL TELLING OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST BY THE 1998 NOBEL LAUREATE IN LITERATURE

For Jose Saramago, the life of Jesus Christ and the story of His Passion are things of this earth: A child crying, a gust of wind, the caress of a woman half asleep, the bleat of a goat or the bark of a dog, a prayer uttered in the grayish morning light. The Holy Family reflects the real complexities of any family, but this is realism filled with vision, dream, and omen.

Saramago's deft psychological portrait of a savior who is at once the Son of God and a young man of this earth is an expert interweaving of poetry and irony, spirituality and irreverence. The result is nothing less than a brilliant skeptic's wry inquest into the meaning of God and of human existence. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

JOSE SARAMAGO (1922-2010) was the author of many novels, among them Blindness, All the Names, Baltasar and Blimunda, and The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Now making its US debut, a novel from noted Portuguese writer Saramago (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, 1990) that-- despite its provocative conclusions and sometimes irreverent tone- -is a profoundly different but no less significant life of Christ. Here, the Christian story is told from the point of view of Jesus, a young man very much of his time and place in spite of his great destiny. And it is this emphasis on Jesus's appreciation for the ordinary joys and virtues of human life--sexual love, family, nature, friendship, honor--that make the conflict between the desires of God, here indeed His father, and what He himself perceives to be earthly virtues, so tragic. All the familiar stories--the Annunciation, the Slaughter of the Innocents, the Miracles, and the Crucifixion--are related with a nod to postmodern sensibilities, but they're secondary to Saramago's main purpose--to suggest that Jesus had to live and die as much for the benefit of God as for the Devil, both of whom appear in person. Saramago's God, who resembles a successful CEO, wants to use Jesus and the church He will found to expand His dominions; and when Jesus wants to know, ``How much death and suffering Your victory over other gods will cause?'' God answers with a long list of martyrs, wars of faith, and institutions like the Inquisition. Even the Devil, an ambivalent figure who often intervenes positively in Jesus's life, is moved to repentance, but God rejects his offer: ``Because I cannot exist without the evil you represent. Unless the Devil is the Devil, God cannot be God.'' Jesus goes on to His destiny, but with a caveat: in the hope of averting the bloodshed implicit in the founding of Christianity, he asks to be crucified as King of the Jews, not as the Son of God. Fiction that engages the mind as much as the spirit as, in eloquently supple prose, it seeks to understand faith. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.