Williams Niall - John

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John: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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In the tradition of Jim Crace’s
and Anita Diamant’s
is a stunning, lyrical reimagining of John the Apostle in the final years of his life, by the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of
. At a time when Americans remain skeptical about religion but still thirst for spiritual fulfillment, Niall Williams’s extraordinary and masterful new novel reveals a universally appealing message of hope and love.
In the years following the death of Jesus Christ, John the Apostle, now a frail, blind old man, lives in forced exile on the desolate island of Patmos with a small group of his disciples. Together, the group has endured their banishment, but after years awaiting Christ’s return, fissures form within their faith, and, inevitably, one of John’s followers disavows Christ’s divinity and breaks away from the community, threatening to change the course of Christianity. When the Roman emperor lifts the banishment of Christians, John and his followers are permitted to return to Ephesus, a chaotic world of competing religious sects where Christianity is in danger of vanishing. It is against this turbulent background — and inspired by Jesus’s radical message of love and forgiveness — that John comes to dictate his Gospel.
Immensely impressive — and based on actual historical events—
is at once an ambitious and provocative reimagining of the last surviving apostle and a powerful look at faith and how it lives and dies in the hearts of men.

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In John light breaks. When he speaks his aches are forgone. His voice is raised. He lifts his arms wide, and is then like a figure of olden time whose soul sings, whose testament is burnished with fire.

'These are the last of days,' he tells. 'Behold, we prepare the way.'

But in the aftertime, when the numbers are dispersed again and the night fallen, he is revisited by infirmity. His humanness declares itself in pain. Though he does not tell the others, such aches, such effort to find breath in his chest, are new to him. He lies in his own dark, aware of the air that seems harder to draw now. His thin lips are dry. He would ask for water, but it is night and the others sleep. Instead he suffers a thirst that tightens his throat. The effort for breath exhausts him. Is it now? Is it here in the night alone that he will see love coming? Along the hallways to his heart a fierce pain hastens. In the absolute aloneness of suffering he tries to make his mind accept what his body feels. The hurt is immense, his face grimaces as it arrives with iron blade in the centre of his being. But he does not cry out. His mouth opens, an O of anguish, and his eyes weep. He is impaled and cannot breathe. His two hands he brings to his chest and holds tightly, as though in battle to keep life from being cut out.

Is it now? Is it here?

The disciples sleep. He has not strength to call out. His chin he presses to his chest, his legs he draws upwards. He is small as a child.

And in the wrack of the pain, in the throes of his agony when dark upon dark he suffers, when he is brought even to the furthermost edge of living, there must come yet the hurt of bewilderment. For in hurt speaks humanity and John is mere man. If the very many near encounters with death in all his ancient lifetime had taught him to believe a coat of care was about him, that countless times he was protected, spared, even to the earthquake, miraculously enduring, then here now it seems is an ending. Such pain he has never felt. The coat is drawn from him and he is naked. And what comes to his mind, not yet in words, is why.

Why here, now, alone, do I die?

There is no light. Of Jesus there is no herald. No fold in the dark opens, nor do angels descend.

36

Light. Light. Light.

Sunlight on the road shining. Heaven light making golden the sand. Light. In Andrew's fair hair. In the pale body of the Baptist in the river water. Light. In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Behold. Upon the crest of a sandhill. Behold the Lamb of God. I saw a spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. The beginning. What are you looking for? Light. Rabbi, where are you staying? Light. Come and see. We have found him, the Messiah! We have found him! O Lord Jesus. In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Light. And seven golden candlesticks. And his hairs were as white as snow and his eyes as a flame of fire. Light. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. On the road to Cana not a word spoken. We walked to revelation. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. The stone water jars. The bird trapped. Light. His praise shall ever be in my mouth. And his feet like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace. Wings beating, the bird trapped. The awning shade. Shall I not rise and free it? And his voice as the sound of many waters. Light. I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. See the bird above us. They have no wine. Light. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. I will praise thee with my whole heart. And in a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar. And the sheep market by the pool, which is called Bethesda. Light. And he had in his right hand seven stars. And the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Bread of heaven. I am the bread of life. Light. And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. And as Jesus passed by he saw a man who was blind from birth. As the deer longs after the water brooks, so longs my soul after thee. Light. And he spat unto the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the eyes. Go wash in the pool of Siloam. And his countenance was as the sun shineth. Light. And he laid his right hand upon me. How were thine eyes opened? There was a man called Jesus. Saying unto me, fear not. Light. Whosoever believeth in me shall not abide in darkness. O my Lord. Light. Bring light. I fall in darkness.

The sun rising, a bell is rung.

Meletios it is who goes to the Apostle. John reposes in such stillness he seems barely a man. His chest does not rise. The disciple is afraid to stir him. Surely he heard the bell, but perhaps prays so fiercely, is so portioned into the world of the spirit that his body is the lesser part and responds not. The disciple attends some moments, uncertainly. Then fears crawl free. Is he living? Meletios leans closer. From the Apostle there is not the slightest movement. It cannot be. It is unthinkable, and what cannot be thought cannot be believed. He reaches out his hand to touch John, but leaves it quivering in the air. Dread saddles coldly the back of his neck. The room is damp, heavy, the stones glisten.

'Master?' he says softly.

There is no response, no movement in the blind face of the Apostle.

'Master? It is Meletios.'

Again nothing.

He lays his hand upon the thin, thin frame of the old man, frall assemblage of bones in a white robe. His action is too slight to be called shaking; rather he touches tenderly the arm and presses there.

Into the room small light falls.

'Master?' His voice, though a whisper, betrays the first thick clots of loss. The lumps of grief rise in him. He moves his hand to the ancient face and feels it cold, and he cries out.

And from what furthermost edge, from what dark or light, by chance or design, John returns.

Very slight, he moves his head to one side, speaks softly the disciple's name.

Meletios drops to his knees, takes the Apostle's right hand in both of his and presses his head to it. 'Master, Master.' He can say nothing more at first. He hears John draw a slender breath.

'You are cold, Master. I will bring you more blankets.'

'Meletios?'

'Yes, Master?'

'I am here.'

It is not a question, or is it? Is he confused?

'You are here, Master. Yes, in the house of Levi in Ephesus.'

'Yes. But. .' The Apostle raises his right hand, it floats trembling in midair, pale uncertain bird, and then moves across to where it alights upon his left shoulder. John pats his own shoulder, then the upper arm, and forearm.

'I cannot feel this side,' he says. There is no fright in his voice; he tells it because it is. 'My arm, my leg.' Then, in mild interrogative, 'They are there?'

'Yes.'

John lies still. His breaths are long between.

'I cannot move them,' he tells.

'It is tiredness, Master,' Meletios offers, lineaments of love in his face 'You have not your strength. Rest, rest now. We will pray for your well-being.'

John does not reply. He lies in the heart of the mystery while Meletios goes to alert the others.

I am here, he thinks. But I cannot see and cannot feel that I am. How then do I know?

It is as though he has been partly taken.

In the day that follows, he turns the question over: why is it so? Does the Lord speak to him by this language of dying? Does he near take him each time, in the sea, in the quake, and by this, too? Does he tell something by sickness? What message is untranslated here? Why does the Apostle near death and not die? To now John has supposed the reason: that he prepares the way, that he remains spreading the Word until he comes again. It is the Lord's love for him, and his for the Lord.

But in the blind, dark stillness of the bed when one half of himself he cannot feel, he thinks there is something other.

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