I keep picking up books about religious characters. Not sure why, they just keep falling under my hand. Anyway, this one is a fictionalised version of what might have happened to a very ancient, frail and blind John the Apostle in the last few weeks of his life, and what lead him to dictate his Gospel.
John and a small group of his disciples have been exiled, by the Romans, to the Greek island of Patmos. It is winter and the group is sure that they are waiting only for the second coming of Christ. The word comes that their sentence of exile has been lifted and they set sail for Ephesus intending to begin again to preach and teach the words of Jesus of Nazareth. They find chaos, rival preachers with loud and persuasive messages and little stomach for their Christian message of poverty, love and gentleness.
Gradually, however, things begin to change and more disciples come to them. As John approaches death, his spirit remembers again the roads he travelled with Jesus and he is touched with the Spirit and filled with the love that has sustained him for a whole lifetime.
I read this story through to the end because I am a Bible student and a practising Christian, otherwise I might have given up. Most of it is thoroughly dark and depressing. Only at the end does the joy, the love, the hope shine through and illuminate what is, after all, the very heart of the Christian message.
However, in spite of the depressing nature of much of the story, Niall Williams language is beautiful. His prose flows like liquid rainbows and soars like swallows in a summer sky. Beautiful.
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