The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (Panther) (Paperback)

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• This item: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (Panther) by Jose Saramago

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Blindness by Jose Saramago 4.4 out of 5 stars (36)  £5.59

Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago 3.8 out of 5 stars (6)  £5.59

Seeing by Jose Saramago 3.6 out of 5 stars (9)  £5.99

The Double by Jose Saramago 4.2 out of 5 stars (8)  £5.99

Baltasar and Blimunda (Panther) by Jose Saramago 4.8 out of 5 stars (5)  £6.99

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Review
While the events of Saramago's life of Christ will be known to readers of the conventional Gospels, his approach brings an astonishing freshness to the familiar stories. The human aspect of Jesus is stressed above all else, and Saramago's Gospel ends at Golgotha with the death of Jesus. Mary and Joseph are typical of their place and time, simple people living ordinary lives, in accordance with the ways of their religion, until interrupted by the arrival of angels. Beautifully translated by Pontiero, the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature tells his story with an easy wit, and embellishes it with inspired poetic touches. The result is a profound and moving work which leads the reader to reassess the original, and come to a new appreciation of its events and their significance. (Kirkus UK)

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 he 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 it seeks to understand, in eloquently supple prose, that most profound mystery of all - faith. (Kirkus Reviews)

Product Description
This book is a retelling of the Gospel following the life of Christ from his conception to his crucifixion. A naive Jesus is the son not of God, but of Joseph. In the desert it is not Satan, but God that Christ tussles with, an autocrat with whom he has an unbalanced and unsettled relationship.

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8 Reviews 5 star:  (6) 4 star:  (2) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.8 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   24 of 27 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece, 14 Sep 2001 By  "apollovilaji" - See all my reviews This is a magnificent novel, worthy of comparison with that other great Jesus novel, Kazantzakis' "The Last Temptation". Saramago's theme is fairly common, one that has worried theologians for centuries: how can a loving god permit so much evil and suffering to exist in the world? The real villain of the book is not the devil, who seems almost sympathetic, a reluctant accomplice in the divine scheme, but the old testament Jehovah, a tyrant willing to sacrifice no end of martyrs, beginning with his own son, to achieve his ends. Saramago has faith in the goodness of people, perhaps indicative of his communist sympathies; there are several instances in the narrative where strangers come to the aid of the young Jesus as he goes in search of his ancestry and his destiny; he is sympathetic too with Joseph, whose guilt about not warning the parents of the murdered innocents results in an untimely death. All but the most liberal Christians will be offended by this book, and many will dismiss it as a communist indictment of religion. If, however, you can accept the book's didactic purpose, its passionate disavowal of the idea that there is any kind of divine grace or love, you will be enchanted by Saramago's wordy, often unpunctuated style, his wry, ironical tone, and his brilliant weaving of realist and mythical elements, complete with lengthy "evangelical" glosses. The best novel I have read since "One Hundred Years Of Solitude". Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars An imaginative masterpiece, 1 Aug 2000 By A Customer This book draws your attention the minute you start reading the first few pages, a description of a medieval painting of a crucifixion scene. From thereon, you are embroiled in a clever mixture of fiction and biblical myth, masterfully conjoining a beautiful story with shards proferred by the gospels. Saramago has developed a velvet like way of writing which is often difficult to read over prolonged periods. The absence of standard punctuation and paragraphs make it reminiscent of Beckett, and his use of language is comparable to that other winner of the Nobel prize. Read this book just for its beautiful descriptive passages, the delicate love story, the distrust of power and its groundedness in humanity. It will linger with you for months after. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   9 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful read!, 15 Oct 2003 By A Customer Despite being slightly put off by the title, I was pleasantly surprised with Saramago's fascinating twist on the life of Jesus Christ. Not only is the book written in a poetic and graceful style which makes the reader glued to each page, but his interpretation of Jesus' life forces one to think and rethink their own values. Whether or not you are religious is irrelevant when reading this book as it is a wonderful read - due to Saramago's excellence in story telling and painting a picture through words. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to readers looking for a wonderfully written book about a subject that may not have previously interested readers. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 8 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Jesus of ... Magdala? Rather like Kazantzakis' "Last Temptation of Christ", Saramago's humanist reinterpretation of the Gospels arguably has a problem of audience: it's likely to offend orthodox... Read more Published on 28 Dec 2006 by Dr. Kenneth W. Douglas 4.0 out of 5 stars A gospel for human beings `TGATJC' is Saramago's retelling of the story of Jesus. It is broadly based on the gospels of the New Testament of the Christian bible, but Saramago invents new scenes and... Read more Published on 25 Jul 2006 by Depressaholic 5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful I started to read "baltasar and blimunda" when I was at school (here in portugal is a book we learn about at school) and I found it to be totally boring. Read more Published on 30 Nov 2002 by ana_valentina 5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Impressing. Saramago particular style together with a well calculated plot that leads to a someway unexpected end, in line with the political positions of the author. Read more Published on 28 Jul 2001 5.0 out of 5 stars god's handling a most unordinary perspective.... This is the gospel book we've all been looking for.Jose Saramago makes God face "real life", fluent, colorful,intriguing and equipped with cynicism to make you doubt... Read more Published on 30 Dec 1998 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 8 customer reviews...

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