«Soif», Passion according to Amélie Nothomb

Tuesday's books - Amélie Wauthier

Have you ever wondered how a death row inmate feels? How does he feel when the verdict is announced? At what point is the wait most unbearable? Does he still manage to enjoy his daily life, to find meaning in it all? This is what Amélie Nothomb invites us to discover in her latest novel, Thirst, in which she dusted off the Passion of Christ.

Jesus was thirty-three years old when Pilate sentenced him to death by crucifixion. The sentence was rather harsh. Perhaps he would have preferred to be beheaded, so that his end might be less humiliating and painful. The witnesses did not hesitate to nail him to the cross.

«The mother of a child I had healed went so far as to accuse me of ruining his life.".
– When the little one was sick, he’d stay quiet. Now he’s wriggling, screaming, and crying—I don’t get a minute’s peace, and I can’t sleep at night.
“Weren’t you the one who asked my client to heal your son?” asked the court-appointed attorney.
»—To cure him, yes, but not to make him as unbearable as he was before his illness."

After the verdict comes the wait. Fortunately, it is short-lived: the guilty party will be crucified the very next day. Just one more night before the final punishment.

Through this first-person account—with no intermediary to distort the truth—we discover a Jesus who is astonished, at times indignant, and filled with doubts and questions. The Son of the Creator in an incarnate body. A being whose mother feels every bit of her child’s suffering, magnified tenfold. A man who loves and is loved. In short, a human being: authentic, aware of his actions, who experiences contempt, desire, and a wide range of emotions.

«I have the unshakable conviction that I am the most fully embodied of all humans. When I lie down to sleep, that simple act of letting go gives me such great pleasure that I have to stop myself from moaning. Eating the humblest of stews, drinking water that isn’t even cool, would elicit sighs of pleasure from me if I didn’t keep myself in check.»

Yes, Jesus experiences pleasure. Pleasure in many forms.

«No pleasure comes close to that provided by a cup of water when you're dying of thirst.»

This is a far cry from the Jesus of the Bible—the one who is nothing but love and forgiveness. Because he’s never had to wait in line at the train station ticket window during rush hour, because the ticket machines are (still) out of order, and the person in front of him has just decided to renew his pass at that very moment and pay the bill with twenty-five years’ worth of small change collected in a glass jar—all while the train to Lausanne is set to leave in fifty-three seconds.

This is the story of a man who, having always known that his life would be relatively short, makes a point of savoring every moment. He reminds us of the importance of living in the present with full self-awareness—a concept far removed from our “2.0” lifestyle, where stress and burnout are our daily bread.

Jesus, however, remains the Son of God, and his reflections are full of wisdom. His account of the end of his life is peppered with truths, both big and small, that make one cannot help but exclaim: «That's exactly it!», even though we would have been simply incapable of putting them into words ourselves. And we’d be wrong to even try, because the author takes care of that for us, with the humor and writing style we appreciate so much. Goodbye to old, traditional dogmas—here is a refreshing, profound, and offbeat Passion of Christ! A novel you’ll read in one sitting, and one I can’t recommend highly enough.

Write to the author: amelie.wauthier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Amélie Wauthier

Amélie Nothomb
Thirst
Editions Albin Michel
2019
151 pages