Customer Reviews

The Secret Magdalene: A Novel

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
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If you think this just another "religious" book, or something merely for questioning Christians, think again. If you think it is just another "Grail" attempt, wrong again. There is no Grail here. no bloodline, no claiming to be descended from anyone. This is a beautifully written work of spiritual depth and a search for real understanding. It uses the truth/myth of Mary Magdalene to explore questions we've been asking ourselves as humans for as long we could phrase a question at all. No creed is pushed here, nothing is required of us in this book but an open heart and an open mind. It's also a great read, a gripping adventure of mind, body, and spirit. I recommend it most highly.

As many who know me well are aware, I rarely have a good word for organized religion, and yet will often curl up with a book which concerns man's search for meaning.

Recently read `The Secret Magdalene', and now weeks later I can still feel the vibrancy of that ancient time and her incredible life. Not perhaps the Magdalene most are familiar with, but one whose life, words, ideas and world will transform all who encounter her in this phenomenal adventure.

Have been partial to historical novels since first encountering Mika Waltari's `The Egyptian' as an adolescent. "I, Sinhue, the son of Senmut and his wife Kipa, write this..." and I had entered another time and a fascinating world. Now more than half a century later I have discovered the exciting and very real world of Yeshu and Magdalene, and all those whose lives they encountered along the way and how each in turn was changed. I felt that I was present as the ideas and concepts of Gnosticism were born and developed. Indeed, I was changing as the protagonists changed.

A thought provoking work of infinite beauty. Not just the exquisite telling of a incredible story, but an experience. And one which I will return to again and again.

I read all the books about Mary I can find. Some are good. Some aren't...although it seems to me that all are sincerely trying to bring Mary Magdalene back from the tomb she's been sealed up in for so long. A few really impress me with how much the writer has read themselves, and how much thought they've given to Mary and to her true place in history, as well as her rightful place in spiritual thought. But none of them are quite like this one. The book took my breath away. It's a novel, which means the author took liberties with the story. But since every New Testament Gospel is also different, I'd say there was a precedent for taking liberties with the life of Jesus. There's so much here. Bible stories, history, adventures, philosophy, interesting connections between historical figures I've heard of, and some I have never heard of. It's so rich and so exciting and so profound, I'm almost at a loss for words. One of the ideas that jumped out at me while I read along, gripped by the story, was this: you cannot "learn" what Jesus meant just by listening. You don "get it" by being taught. It's not an intellectual process. No one can "teach" another person to know God. It has to be deeply felt. So deeply, it can change you on a cellular level. This was what the ancients did with their mystery religions and their Passions. The Egyptians with Osiris, the Greeks with Dionysus. And the earliest Christians with Jesus Christ. The story of Jesus is meant to shake you to the core of your being. It's meant to rack you with feeling: joy, awe, reverence, then pity, then horror, then sorrow. That's what this book does. You follow Magdalene from her childhood to the Cross. And beyond. And on the way, you don't just learn something, you experience the Passion. This is a great book.

An absolutely fascinating version of what might well have been. So many questions answered here that have never been even half answered to my knowledge by the usual theologian. Assuming Jesus actually lived and wasn't a new myth constructed from very old myth (and accepted slowly as "fact" by the literalists who flocked to the new and divisive Christianity, all guided with guile by those determined to have a male priesthood controlling the people), or assuming he wasn't a composite of many men...why did Jesus do what he did? What did he teach? Who did he think he was? What did he think he would be giving to his people by acting the scapegoat? More precisely, what was he saying by acting out the ancient role of godman for the Jews? Even if he were God on earth as so many claim (though not until three or so hundred years after his death, and then it was put to a vote and almost didn't make it; just think...today we could be shouting PRAAAAYS MITHRAS!), there must have been strong meaning behind his actions, and the symbols he chose to surround himself with must tell us something important--if only we understood them. Even if he were God on earth, those around him were men and woman. What did they think they were doing? Who did they think they were following? And what were the times really like? The Bible gives few clues, seems almost to obscure the feel of place and time as if Jesus existed in a peaceful world of skipping lambs and miracles only he could perform and a lot of mustard seeds. The truth is he lived in a world little different than the one that exists in the Middle East right now. It was full of miracle workers and healers and those who called themselves "messiah." It was overrun with fanatical zealots. If the zealots had had Chinese gunpowder back then, they would have been the kind of terrorists we see today: strapping bombs round their waists, blowing away "unbelievers." But since they only had knives, they hid these knives under their clothes...and were every bit as terrifying. Each carried a big Persian dagger called a sica. They were called the "Sicarii," or knifemen. Rushing into crowds, they would stab a chosen priest or politician or "Scorner of the Law" and slip quickly away. (Doesn't Sicarii sound very like Iscariot?...a word connected to the name of Judas which no one has ever really explained. Judas the Iscariot. Judas the Sicarii. Judas the Zealot. Judas was, if not the brother of Jesus, one of his closest companions. So who was Jesus?) "The Secret Magdalene's" answers to these questions made my heart race with the sheer pleasure of discovery. Longfellow's treatment of the two brothers, Yeshu and Jude (twins with red hair, very clever if you know the symbology: actors, tricksters), made them the most resolute of men, the most gallant of friends, the most self-sacrificing of heroes. I followed their lives as I would follow a Shakespearean drama. I came to love them as if they were my own two brothers. I got my heart broken by them. As for the ending, the ending of this book haunts me.

As for the Magdalene herself, here called Mariamne Magdel-eder (tower of the flock)...this Magdalene, who speaks so honestly and so beautifully, was heart and brain and soul and she left me in tears. I could listen to her voice forever.

Ki Longfellow has achieved, in my opinion, the best Mary Magdalene novel ever written. She has left no trace of the weepy penitent, the sultry courtesan, or the harlot with a heart of gold. Gone are the demons, the groveling, and the superficial saintliness. The Magdalene that has replaced these tired old caricatures is complicated, robust, strong, tender, pensive, awkward, imaginative, and loving. In a word, Mary Magdalene is finally human.

The Secret Magdalene brings the world of first century Palestine to life; a rich cultural milieu in which Greek philosophy mingles with Mosaic Law against a highly charged Hellenized backdrop. We follow the story of Mariamne (Mary Magdalene) from a pivotal event in her childhood through her education as a boy, eventually finding herself at a zealot outpost among those seeking a Messiah. While everyone points toward John the Baptist as the One, Mariamne finds herself drawn to his cousin, a red-haired Galilean named Yehoshua. In disguise as a young man named John the Less, Mariamne becomes Yehoshua's best friend and confidant. At about halfway through the book, this relationship is the beginning of a profound and insightful retelling of the Gospel story.

Perhaps the greatest joy I found in this book aside from the powerful depiction of a realistic Mary Magdalene was Longfellow's deft ability to convey so much information about the ideas that form the foundation of gnosis, the driving concept behind classical Gnosticism. But so talented is the author that her efforts to educate us are transparent; we learn along with the characters, and because the plot flows so smoothly, the pages seem to just turn themselves. Unlike other books about Mary Magdalene that attempt to convey some larger message, this does NOT read like a dry, preachy tome. It's a literary and philosophical treasure that will be savored by the spiritual seeker and casual reader alike.

I've only permitted myself to read 39 pages so far, since I fell in love with this book on page 9.

Like drinking an excellent Barolo, I am sipping, not quaffing.

Will check in later to give my final critique but so far it has such a pleasant taste and feel on the tongue that I am loath to swallow. Yet I cannot wait long for the spirit of this great book to flow into my blood and become a part of me while intoxicating me in the process.

BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!

As I finished the last page I must say that I wanted more. My hopes for the book in early chapters were not fully satisfied but that is just my prejudice of where this book could have taken us.

It held my attention throughout but I felt the final third of the book revealed either a fatigue of the author or such a strong desire to finish the manuscript that she lost some of the crispness of earlier chapters.

The ending (which I will not give away) certainly is plausible although, as I said earlier, probably did not satisfy me because of my own bias. Other readers may very well find the ending completely satisfying.

Again, Bravo, Ms. Longfellow.

As a feminist and a scholar and a lapsed Catholic, this is the book I knew was out there, or it would be someday. And now, here it is. The Secret Magdalene goes far beyond the usual fare served up in the name of Mary Magdalene. There's no apology for her being a "sinner" since the only sin this Mary commits is the sin of wanting to be free of a man's world, or if that can't be, at least to be a player in it. Mariamne and her childhood friend Salome long to be magicians and philosophers. They want to read everything they can get their hands on. They want to travel, see the world, have adventures. But the only way they can do that is to become "men." In the parlance of the time, to call a woman "a man" was a great compliment. It meant she held few qualities deemed to be womanly and exhibited other qualities deemed to be manly. You can guess what the womanly qualities were: sly and devious, craven and lustful, foolish and weak. I could go on, but we've all heard the litany. There have been lots of women in the past who've lived as men in order to "be" something, or to be listened to. I grew up in the Catholic Church and I hated every minute of it beginning around the age of nine when I began to understand what those men standing up at their altar in their matching tablecloths and silly hats were telling me. They were telling me I could not speak out. They said if I as a woman held a mass I would pollute the very air of the Church with my blasphemy. They said God did not see me as he saw a male. After all, God himself was male. And I seethed inside. I hurt. It was hard not to believe these people (out back with their cigarettes before every mass, how well I remember that), since they'd been telling everyone who would listen this same thing for centuries. But if Mary Magdalene was as The Secret Magdalene (and I bet she was), then with her "second coming," how she would lament the church founded in her companion's name. Read this book. Treasure this book. Understand this book. There's TRUTH in it. Much more than I ever found in the church of my childhood.

While speaking of "The Gospel of John," Origen (who was a brilliant Egyptian philosopher and one of the greatest of the early Christian theologians) once wrote: "John does not always tell the truth literally. But John always tells the truth spiritually." Since Origen is long gone in body, I guess it's up to me to paraphrase him now, and say: "The Secret Magdalene does not always tell the truth literally. But The Secret Magdalene always tells the truth spiritually."

This is a book of profound understanding. Yes, there is the impressive scholarship. Yes, there is everything here...from the politics of the times (Romans, Greeks, Jews, Samaritans, Egyptians, Persians, Arab tribesmen--and just like now, they're all up to something, and very little of it any good), to the variations in dress (blond hair was in fashion, plucked from the heads of northern slaves), to the brisk trade in opium (rosh, opion: the best came through Crete and was used all over the Holy Land without a useless, not to say stupid, War On Drugs...which meant there were no Drug Lords and no drug runners and no vicious killings for the price of a fix...but I think I'm digressing here.) As I was saying, it's all here: myriad gods and goddesses which filled this long gone world with vivid color--as well as the usual all-too-human strife. (As in: My God can beat up your God.) And yes, the writing is wonderful for all the reasons writing can be wonderful. Like Nabokov, there is the delicacy of feeling. Like Austin, there is an acute eye for human character. Like Thomas Wolfe, there is lyricism. And like Dumas, there is just plain tearaway story telling. But Longfellow's understanding of her subject--which is "gnosis," beginning with a deep spiritual longing, an acute heart-filled desire to "know" God, and ending, if one so blesses oneself, with a direct face-off with God as Ultimate Consciousness--is unlike anything I've ever come across in my own search for truth, or meaning, or enlightenment, or just plain common sense. (I can't contain myself, must digress again. If I may, I'd like to bring us all the way back from Origen of one thousand eight hundred years ago to George Harrison and yesterday--"I really want to know you, I really want to go with you, and it takes so long I know, oh my Lord, my sweet Lord." Here's hoping George is playing a few licks with "ALL THERE IS" right this eternal minute. I'd give my left goolie to hear that concert.) In other words, The Secret Magdalene, through the totally absorbing story of the Magdalene herself (Mariamne Magdal-eder, a woman I would give my back teeth to know, then or now) is about the true nature of reality and our place in it. Now brothers and sisters, that's what lifts this book high above all others like it (are there any like it?) and makes it soar with MEANING.

Read this one. If you're like me and like so many others, all searching for something our religions no longer give us (if they ever did) and you can't be bothered with New Age hokum, plus! you'd love to get your nose into a good book and a brilliant read, here it is...waiting for you.

Told solely in the voice of Mary Magdalene (throughout the book called

Mariamne, eventually to be called Magdal-eder, or She of the Temple

Tower), this book begins when Mariamne is still a child in the home of

her prosperous Jewish father, a glass merchant. Her mother dead, her

only friend a ward of her father's called Salome (an Egyptian raised in

Jerusalem), and her only confidante a fierce body slave named Tata,

Mariamne is highly intelligent, always curious, and desperate for

knowledge. Along with Salome, a child of wit, insight, and cruelty,

Mariamne finds herself banned from her privileged home and dependent on

the care and concern of a mysterious man called Seth. Eventually all

three find themselves living for seven years in the Great Library of

Alexandria.

This is an immensely inventive book, a book that turns the known and not

so known gospels on their heads, revealing meaning in them virtually

unique in my experience. To have a familiar story turned inside out is

to view it so differently that the meaning we think we know, becomes

instead revelatory.

Through Salome we meet a John the Baptist who is both sly and childlike,

wise and brash, a loveable frightening man, willing to lose his life to

save his chosen people. Through Mariamne we meet Jesus. This Jesus,

known to her as Yeshu, is deeply complex, driven, a man of his times,

and yet a man for all times. Raised as zealous for the Law, yet he is a

man tortured by "visions," called on by a god who speaks so completely

at odds from the jealous angry violent god he has been taught to follow,

that his torment almost breaks him. Only by meeting Mariamne through

their mutual friend Seth, does he slowly and painfully come to terms

with the harsh demands of a simple man called on to be more than any

man. He is the hero, reluctant, in constant hope of escaping his

destiny, yet ultimately bowing to the inevitable, at which point he

fulfills his "destiny" with a triumph of will almost unbearable in the

implications of its choice...for he has a choice and by choosing it,

rather than turning away, he uplifts our souls.

And all the while we follow Mariamne as witness, as student, as teacher,

as philosopher, as companion, as a woman perhaps unique in literature.

She is not merely a disciple or a witness. She too is gifted with vision

and she too struggles with "knowing" god. But in the mouth of Mariamne

Magdal-eder we learn it is not "a god," a being, something outside the

self, it is perfect love and inherent divinity that seeks us and whom we

seek.

As for Judas...this Judas is almost more a hero than any other in this

extraordinary tale of tales. A double of his brother Jesus, a boon

companion, Judas does what is needed when it is needed, sealing his fate

for all time as betrayer, yet without him Jesus could not become the

"Christ."

Mariamne's voice is a voice to be heard. It speaks to us with a clear

ring of human honesty and doubt but also with a voice beyond our normal

voice, that of a visionary making thrilling sense of reality in

unforgettable sentences replete with the meaning we all seek.

+++ A Twenty One Round Salute to The Secret Magdalene +++

Amazing Balanced Christian Dramatic Egyptian Faithful Gnostic Historic Inspired Jewish Knowing Loving Moving Natural Original Profound Questing Romantic Shocking Tragic Unique Visionary

+++ Quoted from the back cover +++

"A powerful evocation of a Mary Magdalene who was in her own right a philosopher, a traveler, a teacher, and a prophet. This Magdalene was more than a favored follower, more even than the Beloved Disciple. Mariamne Magdal-eder 'knew the All'. KNOWING THE ALL is the heart of the Christ's original Gnostic teaching. It was the Apostle Paul's 'revelation of the Lord' that blinded him on the way to 'Damascus'. It was the very heart of early Christianity. Still beating, Gnosis or 'knowing' was cut from the body of the Church more than sixteen hundred years ago. But with the discovery in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi codices, perhaps the last of their kind, both Gnosis and the Magdalene have returned to us...offering Wisdom and Hope in these confused and troubling times. The Secret Magdalene is not only a painstakingly researched portrait of a great woman who was wise beyond her time and place, it is a portrait of the search for GNOSIS...the individual's direct experience of God."