Mary, Called Magdalene (Paperback)

~ (Author) "She was carried to a place she had never been..." (more)
Key Phrases: Herod Antipas, Big James, Rabbi Hanina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Of all the women in the Bible, perhaps no one's presence has been as constantly reinterpreted as that of Mary Magdalene. Was she a prostitute? A prophet? In Margaret George's epic historical novel, Mary, Called Magdalene (Geroge's previous subjects include Henry VIII, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Cleopatra), Mary comes alive as one of Jesus' first believers, a woman of infallible visions and a faith that earns her the title "Apostle to the Apostles." With numerous biblical and scholarly texts serving as the core of this intriguing woman's story, George recreates the world of Galilean fishermen and the oppressions of the Jewish people under Roman rule. Cast out from her family after Jesus expels the demons that have ravaged her mind, Mary follows the man from Nazareth until they receive attention from the skeptical hordes and the Roman magistrates controlling Jerusalem.

Mary, from beginning to end of this giant undertaking, is a woman who struggles to reconcile her absence from her young daughter's life with the chance to be part of something important. Through the lens of her ever-inquisitive mind, the story covers the formation of Jesus' ragtag band of disciples and the crucifixion, and ends with Mary's mission as the head of the Christian church in Ephesus, where she died at the age of 90. What makes this a compelling read is that Mary's story connects humanity with faith in a way that's possible to understand, whatever our contemporary beliefs. --Emily Russin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

George, whose niche is historical and biographical novels, begins this one ploddingly with suspenseless reportage on Mary Magdalene's pleasant, middle-class childhood in a prosperous fishing village. Scattered references to the idol/demon that will eventually possess Mary are intended as fateful omens, but her slow road to madness gets much less play than her conventional and uninteresting life. The novel improves considerably when Mary finds herself possessed by one demon, and then, helplessly, by six more. Her valiant efforts to first hide her possession and then find a cure are masterfully described. When a prophet named Jesus finally casts out her demons, she celebrates, only to realize that she must make a heartrending choice between following the prophet or going back to her husband, baby and extended family. At this point, George's novel becomes a safe, though readable, retelling of the gospels. Her main deviation from orthodoxy is her insistence that there were 16 disciples 12 men and four women who were equal in Jesus' eyes. Additionally, George emphasizes Mary's prophetic visions and Jesus' celebration of them, and in doing so gives credence to gnostic accounts of mysticism among the disciples. While some may compare this novel with Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, it bears a much stronger resemblance to Walter Wangerin's biographical novel about the apostle Paul. Like Wangerin's work, this imagines nothing seriously objectionable to even the most devout Christians. As such, it lacks the transgressive power of The Red Tent, but is still a well-researched and thought-provoking book.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (May 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142002798
• ISBN-13: 978-0142002797
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,053 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An imaginative telling of Mary Magdalene's life, October 29, 2003

By	Julie Lovisa (Indiana USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After reading The DaVinci Code, I became very interested in Mary Magdalene and her place in history. While she is not cast in the same role as in TDC (which I won't divulge here for those who haven't read the book), I almost like her place in this telling better. She is written as a strong woman who after many years of struggling between possession by pagan gods and her faith in God, is healed by Jesus and becomes one of his disciples.

Since no one knows the true story of MM, Margaret George had to create an entire life for her, giving her the roles of daughter in a pious Jewish family, wife of a man she questions her love for, mother to a daughter whom she conceived after making a deal with one of her pagan possessors, and loyal friend to a girl who follows a different branch of Judaism of which her family doesn't approve.

The book starts out slowly laying a foundation for Mary's life, but read on. After she initially meets Jesus when she is a young girl and finds the idol that becomes the source of her possession problems, things begin to pick up speed. The second half of the book is about her life as a disciple of Jesus and the Passion from her viewpoint. It's also about her undying love for her daughter who was taken from her at the age of two after she began following Jesus and her family disowned her.

As usual, George has done an incredible amount of research into her subject and has written yet another fictional biography that will take you to another world.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Problems With This Disappointing Book, July 31, 2002

By	Angelaustin (Elkhart, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mary, Called Magdalene (Hardcover)

Problem No. 1: The characters,including Mary,are surprisingly flat. In spite of sharing Mary's inner thoughts and feelings,I never felt I really got to know her.
Problem No. 2: Too many important incidents are either downplayed or completely ignored. The raising of Lazarus from the dead is never mentioned,while other incidents,such as Jesus turning the water into wine and the feeding of the multitudes,are dismissed by Mary as having never happened. Worst of all,the miracle of Jesus's divine conception and birth are never mentioned. His mother admits to having had visions of his importance when he was a child, but never once says anything about the visitation from the angel telling her she has been chosen to give birth to the Messiah, the immaculate conception,or any of the miracles and signs at his birth. By it's very ommision,it leads the reader to conclude that Jesus was the biological child of Joseph,not divinely concieved by a virgin mother.
Problem No. 3: Mary seems to be instrumental in far too many places. After Mary and Joanna discover the Garden of Gethsemane,it is Mary who tells Jesus about it when He expresses a desire to find a quiet,peaceful place to meditate. Mary and Joanna also sneak into Herod's palace and disguise themselves as serving women in order to spy on Herod,and thus are there to witness Judas accepting the bribe from Caiphas and Annas to betray Jesus. Once again,it is Mary who tells Jesus of Judas's betrayal, even though in the bible it seems rather clear that Judas's betrayal was foretold to Jesus by God in a divine revelation instead. When Jesus sends the disciples out in pairs, Mary is paired with John.When John attempts to heal a woman and fails,once again it's Mary to the rescue,and not only does she heal the woman,she is also able to cast the demons out of Joanna,while poor, ineffective John stands by. And there are many other places where this type of scenario plays out. Rather than coming across as an every day woman, she seems to be some sort of latter day Wonder Woman, while the rest of the disciples are rather weak and ineffective. It is this biased slant in Mary's favor that makes this book hard to swallow. A more balanced view,letting the other disciples shine, would have been much more believable. While I am glad to see women of the bible and their contributions being made known and applauded, it should not be done by diminishing the men around them, and I felt that this is what this book does,with the exception of Jesus.
All in all this is a very disappointing book. I am quite surprised at this since I read George's Memoirs of Cleopatra,and found it to be rich and vibrant,giving me the feeling I was there and really knew Cleopatra. Sadly,this is not the case here. As long as this book is, I should feel I really know Mary, but instead I come away feeling cheated by a book that has one dimensional characters and a heroine who, far from being an average,everyday woman who finds herself living in an extraordinary time and place, seems instead to be a Super Woman who one ups almost everyone. It is neither realistic or believeable.

43 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dull, Plodding and Disappointing, August 9, 2004

By	wysewomon "wysewomon" (Paonia, CO United States) - See all my reviews

I love historical novels. I've read everything else Margaret George has written and loved every page, so when I saw _Mary, Called Magdalene_ on the shelf of the local bookstore I bought it without even opening the cover. Boy was that a mistake! This book is so awful, it's hard to believe it was written by the same author. The characters are flat and lifeless, the research is second-rate and the plot is un-moving--and as the book deals with one of the core stories of Western thought (the ministry and passion of Jesus), that's saying a lot. It's as if because the book deals with the topic of faith and religion, the writer's capacity for critical thought went on vacation. There is no real challenge to the story of the gospels as we know it, no new interpretation and no life. Almost every situation Mary meets from the time she becomes a disciple on comes directly--sometimes verbatim--from the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The ones that don't are so boring that it's hard to care about them.

Other things bothered me about this book: the lack of cultural or historical context for the story, the huge emphasis on literal demon possession, which required way more suspension of disbelief than I was able to sustain and the superficial and inaccurate depiction of ancient Judaic religious thought, to name a few. Knowing what I know about these things, George's Jesus affected me not as an enlightened Master, but as a man driven off the deep end by an internal revelation he is unable to communicate, and his followers seemed mindless subscribers to a cult that promises them release from personal pain, much as modern cults do. This is an interesting interpretation, but I don't think it's the one George intended; therefore, I have to say her book didn't work.

Growing up in the home of a minister and Bible scholar, I spent my entire youth surrounded by books, both fiction and non-fiction, that treated Early Christianity and other Biblical subjects with passion and intellect, setting them in an historical context and making them important and real in human terms. _Mary, Called Magdalene_ is not one of them. From the reviews here it seems that a lot of people liked it, but I can't imagine why.