The Gospel of Judas – Simon Mawer

The Gospel of Judas – Simon Mawer

The Gospel of Judas is about the social and emotional ramifications of Choice. Thus, religious belief/faith is used as a vehicle, a dramatic tool, to propel the main character into a precarious path that is supposed to be both moving, touching, and enlightening.

Mawer skillfully interleaves three narratives: the story of Leo’s German mother’s life in Rome during World War II, a woman who was herself forced to choose between principle and passion; the unsettling story of Leo’s relationship with Madeleine and the scroll; and a circumspect “present,” in which Leo is still “a hermit in a cave, a hermit who was hoarding the few fragments of his faith lest they too be swept away by circumstance.”

The novel represents a solemn quest, striving back toward half-forgotten origins in an attempt to bring order to a present and future spinning out of control. Its most poignant irony is that Leo is at once creator and destroyer–as he pieces together the story of the scroll, he is simultaneously unraveling his own faith, his own raison d’être

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