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 adolescent Jesus is very much an adolescent: questioning, uncompromising, troubled by the world and by his body. His mother, like any mother, is devoted, fearful, resentful. The Holy Family has the complex frictions of any family. Yet this is not simple, debunking realism, for Saramago also fills his pages with vision, dream, and omen. And the defiance of the authority of God the Father, the righteous indignation on behalf of man, the anger - is still not denial of Him.
- ISBN10 186046095X
- ISBN13 9781860460951
- Publish Date 21 December 1995 (first published 6 September 1993)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 16 August 2002
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint The Harvill Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 341
- Language English