I've been reading...

Seldom does it happen that I fall in a love in protagonists from the novels I read. Yes, I might like them, love them, empathise with them but falling in love as such has only happened once so far and it was Koroviev from “Master and Margarita”. Well, I guess I can see the pattern emerging here as my second “victim” has also something to do with the Devil himself. However, Gideon Mack (the man who broke my heart ) meets the Devil in quite different circumstances. While being a priest for a fun of it, going through life’s ups and downs completely on his own and trying to stay sane in an insane world, Gideon does not really believe in Satan (or God for that matter). He doesn’t have time or energy for it. And then he ends up his existence on the material world trying to convince people that there is something else out there.
“The testament of Gideon Mack” is definitely one of the best written novels I have recently had a chance to read. It flows. You want more and more and you know that something unexpected is waiting for you round the corner. Using different techniques helped to introduce the atmosphere of a real story. And well done, I actually googled Catherine Craigie and I so hoped she was going to come up as a famous Scottish folklorist. Because every single character from this story is so realistic that you keep thinking of actually going to Monimaskit and saying ‘hallo’.
From Gideon to Harry to Jenny to Gideon’s parents, everybody is human. Human beings make mistakes. Human beings have doubts. Human beings do things that hurt others for a number of reasons. Human beings are not perfect. I don’t think it is a book about religion. I reckon it’s about people who are searching, for people who haven’t found.
I will recommend it to anybody who can read and will be eager to wait till they finish so it can be discussed. I wonder how many different opinions as to Mack’s life, death and in-between there are. I won’t write my guesses here because I would not like to spoil it for anybody. And also, because probably my opinion on the subject will change as many times as I think about it.