The Testament of Gideon Mack

Description

A critical success on both sides of the Atlantic, this darkly imaginative novel from Scottish author James Robertson takes a tantalizing trip into the spiritual by way of a haunting paranormal mystery. When Reverend Gideon Mack, a good minister despite his atheism, tumbles into a deep ravine called the Black Jaws, he is presumed dead. Three days later, however, he emerges bruised but alive-and insistent that his rescuer was Satan himself. Against the background of an incredulous world, Mack’s disturbing odyssey and the tortuous life that led to it create a mesmerizing meditation on faith, mortality, and the power of the unknown.”Provocative . . . [Gideon’s] testament will affirm your faith in the power of fiction.”
–The Washington Post

“Haunting, memorable, and completely compelling.”
–Los Angeles Times

“Uncommonly thought-provoking and serious-minded . . . Gideon Mack’s story raises disquieting questions most modern fiction prefers to ignore.”
–San Francisco ChronicleJames Robertson was born in Scotland in 1958. He is the author of several short story and poetry collections and has published the novels The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, and The Testament of Gideon Mack, among others. Joseph Knight won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year, and The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Robertson runs the independent publishing house Kettillonia, and he is co-founder and general editor of the Scots language imprint Itchy Coo, which produces books in Scots for children and young adults.

1. Nancy Croy says, “When I think of all the novels I’ve read, I do wonder if it’s been a sensible use of my time. Why would I fill my head with all those made-up stories if it wasn’t to try and understand my own story? Every month my book group discusses a novel and its characters as if they were real people making real choices. Life is a story” (page 220). Is Nancy right in thinking we read novels chiefly to understand our own stories? Why do we tend to talk about fictional characters as if they were real people? In what ways is life itself a story?

 

2. In his introduction, the publisher Patrick Walker writes that Gideon Mack’s story, “though some may dismiss it as a tissue of lies or the fantasy of a damaged mind, is a genuine document with its own relevance for our times” (pages 3–4). What is its relevance for our times?

3. How does the narrative frame of the novel affect the way we read it?

4. Most of the people in the town believe that Gideon went mad during the three days he was lost in the Black Jaws and that his story about meeting the Devil is either a delusion or a lie. Why do they feel this way? Why is it impossible for anyone other than Gideon to believe that he actually met the Devil? What concrete evidence seems to support his story? Why do those who assert that God exists and the Devil is real consider anyone who claims to have seen either one to be insane?

5.  After many years of dishonesty in his religious life—playing the role of a minister while disbelieving in God—why does Gideon feel so compelled to tell the truth about his meeting with the Devil? How does the Devil affect Gideon’s ideas about salvation, redemption, and the afterlife?

6. The Devil tells Gideon that he feels sorry for God, that when things are going well people forget about him. “They unchain the swings, turn the churches into casinos and mock anybody who still believes in him. He’s a very easy target. And who does he get left with? Fanatics and maniacs of every faith and every persuasion, who want to kill the heretics and blow themselves to pieces in his name” (page 295). Discuss this argument about how religious belief manifests in our time. Do you find it convincing?

7. In what senses is Gideon Mack’s story a “testament”?

8. Gideon’s father, James Mack, asserts that “stupidity is rife in this world, and its wellspring is the United States of America” (page 117). Why does he despise the United States so intensely? Is he right in suggesting that the pursuit of happiness leads to misery? Does it do so for characters in the novel?

9. What is the symbolic or mythic significance of Gideon’s “subterranean journey” through the Black Jaws? In what ways does it change Gideon? Are these changes positive or negative?

10. Gideon’s wife asks him, “Can you be dishonest in one part of your life but not in another?” (page 155). In what ways does Gideon’s dishonesty about his faith affect the rest of his life? What ironies are involved in the fact that it is Gideon’s honesty about his meeting with the Devil that makes everyone think he’s gone insane?

11. Gideon learns early on, from his strict religious upbringing and his parents’ example, that passions should be muzzled. How does this emotional repression affect the rest of his life?

12. Gideon says he knew that the stone “was a sign but [he] had had no idea what it meant” (page 341). What does the stone signify? How does it change Gideon’s life?

13. What makes Catherine Craigie such an admirably eccentric character? Why is she so likable in spite of her abrasive manner?

14. What does The Testament of Gideon Mack as a whole suggest about the role of religion in our lives? What different views of religion do Gideon, Gideon’s father, Peter MacMurray, Lorna Sprott, John Moffat, Catherine Craigie, and the Devil express? Does the novel seem to endorse one of these views over the others?

When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: yet I wasalready, in so many ways, the man I would become. I think back on how cold Iwas, even then. It is hard to recall, now that I burn with this dry, feverishfire, but cold I certainly was. There was ice built around my heart, years ofit. How could it have been otherwise? The manse at Ochtermill saw to that.

I have walked and run through this world pretendingemotions rather than feeling them. Oh, I could feel pain, physical pain, but Ihad to imagine joy, sorrow, anger. As for love, I didn’t know what it meant.But I learned early to keep myself well disguised. To the world at large I wasjust Gideon Mack, a dutiful wee boy growing in the shadow of his father and ofthe Kirk.

As that wee boy I was taught that, solitarythough I might be, I was never alone. Always there was one who walked besideme. I could not see him, but he was there, constant at my side. I wanted toknow him, to love and be loved by him, but he did not reveal himself. Hefrightened me. I had neither the courage to reject him nor the capacity toembrace him.

This is the hard lesson of my life: love is notin us from the beginning, like an instinct; love is no more original to humanbeings than sin. Like sin, it has to be learned.

Then I put away childish things, and for years Ithought I saw with the clarity of reason. I did not believe in anything I couldnot see. I mocked at shadows and sprites. That constant companion was not thereat all: I did not believe in him, and he did not reveal himself to me. Yet,through circumstances and through choice, I was to become his servant, aminister of religion. How ironic this is, and yet how natural, as if the pathwere laid out for me from birth, and though I wandered a little from it,distracted or deluded here and there, yet I was always bound to return to itagain.

And all the while this fire was burning deepinside me. I kept it battened down, the door of the furnace tightly shut,because that seemed necessary in order to through life. I never savoured lifefor what it was: I only wanted to get to the next stage of it. I wish now I’dtaken a little more time, but it is too late for such regrets. I was like thechild in the cinema whose chief anticipation lies not in the film but inwondering what he will do after it is over; I was the reader who hurriesthrough a 500–page novel not to see what will happen but simply to get to theend. And now, despite everything, I am there, and for this I must thank thatother companion, in whom also I did not believe, but who has shown me a waythrough the shadows and beyond the shadows.

I have not preached for weeks, yet I am full oftexts. If I am a prophet then I have yet to be heard. If I am Jonah, then thefish has vomited me out but nobody believes where I have been: nobody exceptthe one who saved me from the belly of hell. Who am I? I am Gideon Mack,time–server, charlatan, hypocrite, God’s groveling, apologist; the man who sawthe Stone, the man that was drowned and that the waters gave back, the madminister who met with the Devil and lived to tell the tale. And hence my thirdnon–Scriptural text, for what is religion if not a kind of madness, and what ismadness without a touch of religion? And yet there is peace and sanctuary inreligion too—it is the asylum to which all poor crazed sinners may comeat last, the door which will always open to us if we can find the courage toknock.

Few suspected it, but all my life was a lie fromthe age of nine (when, through deceit, I almost succeeded in killing myfather); all my words were spoken with the tongue of a serpent, and what love Igave or felt came from a dissembling heart. Then I saw the Stone, and nothingwas the same again. This is my testimony. Read it and believe it, or believe itnot. You may judge me a liar, a cheat, a madman, I do not care. I am beyondquestions of probity or sanity now. I am at the gates of the realm ofknowledge, and one day soon I will pass through them.

US

Additional information

Dimensions	0.8800 × 5.1000 × 8.2000 in
Imprint	Penguin Books
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780143113195
ISBN-10	0143113194
Author	James Robertson
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC030000, FIC022000
Subjects	mystery thriller suspense, mystery and suspense, mystery books, suspense fiction, mystery novels, thriller books, suspense books, suspense thriller books, crime books, detective novels, betrayal, murder mystery books, fiction books, mysteries and thrillers, books fiction, books mystery, mystery and thrillers, mystery and thriller, realistic fiction books, FIC030000, philosophy, england, police, crime, spirituality, romance, thriller, drama, fiction, Literature, suspense, mystery, fantasy, novels, thrillers, mysteries, FIC022000, literary fiction