58
I'AIl...TISAN REVIEW
Mailer's chief innovation ha, been to allow his jesus to tell his own
story. One possible precedent is
TIl(' LUI'
£?f
God (as
"[(lid
hy
Hill1Si'!f)
by
Franco Ferrucci, which appeared in Italian ten years ago but was published
in English translation last year. Taking the whole stretch of history fi'om
Genesis through the times of jesus and beyond to the brink of the second
l1lillennium, the autobiography of Ferrucci's God is a wi tty satire on the
life of Man. His bemused Creator and Ruler who absentmindedly starts
everything and witnesses history unroll with distracted interest and often
ineffectual efforts at control is more like one of the Greek or Roman
Olympians than the God of either the Old or the New Testaments.
Mailer, however, focuses withollt satiric intent on the elusive individuality
reverently portrayed by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john and attempts to
supplement the gospels by a "told by himself" apologia. Needless to say,
the materials for such an inside view of jesus have never been available.
Those fIrs t apos tolic biographers had not wi tnessed the events they
describe nor even known the chief actor directly. For them, even more than
for those who might have known him better, jesus's privatl' thought
remained hidden-and this unrcachabkness has probably been an assist to
religious response. The stark yet immcnsely pregnant charactn of jesus's
uttcranccs is very different from the Gospel authors's own prose, giving
some ground to the idea th ,ltjesus' words made so strong an impression on
hearers that legend presnved thcm accurately, but we are given no more
than those words. The selfhood of the Man-God is, after all , pretty
unimaginable. Mailer avoids the problem of portraying Divinity conscious
of itself in the child and young carpenter's apprentice by simply having
jesus forget-or suppress- the truth concerning his birth which he had
been told at twelve. At thirty, with the help ofjohn the l3aptist, the knowl–
edge arrives , and with it sOl1le wonderworking skills, but does not seem to
change hil1l l1luch or give him a special sense of connection with Cod's
purposes. The flat, patiently explan:1tory first-person voice of Mailer's
autobiographer irons out mystery.
Like many writers bd(xe him, Mailer really does better with fallen
than unfallen nature and the Devil briefly has a lively presence in the
scenes of jesus's temptation, in which Mailer allows himself a little inven–
tive fi·eedol11. judas is also interesting- and one wishes Mailer had done
more with hil1l; he is portrayed as a sort of sixties radical, a dropout rich
man's son who follows jesus not because he believes in his promise of
heavenly salvation but because his message makes the poor think they are
as good as others-and so forwards the earthly Revolution. l3ut holiness
becomes human in Mailer's account only by becoming too ordinary.jesus's
relations with Mary and with God the Father are explained by a somewhat
pat Maileresque psychologizing. The Virgin Mother is a stupid woman
