Book review "The Testament of Gideon Mack"

"The Testament of Gideon Mack", James Robertson, Penguin 2006. (Long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.)

This Scottish novel tells the life story of Gideon Mack, as recalled by himself, as he seeks to explain his life before he arranges his disappearance from the world. It describes the stifling atmosphere of being brought up in a manse in Scotland in the 1960s. He analyses the conflict he sees between his father, the minister, and the rest of the world as "the 1960s coming into contact with the 1930s" and concludes that the sixties won. 

He then describes his journey as he tries to escape the influence of this father. Despite not believing in God from the age of 12, he becomes a Church of Scotland minister himself. As a result of this deception he spends a good part of his life wondering if he will be rumbled!

As I read the book I remembered the somewhat naive argument of an atheist that went like this. All intelligent Christians must be hypocrites. If they are intelligent then they must know that God doesn't exist yet they continue to promulgate the myths. This is an act of immense hypocrisy.

Robertson was brought up in Bridge of Allan near Stirling but I don't know if he himself was a child of the manse. If not, he has done his research well as the descriptions ring true. Though probably, even in the Church of Scotland, atheism is rare in the clergy. The novel explores the themes of families, father son relationships, philosophy, tragedy, faith and culture. Gideon clearly believes that God is not present in the contemporary world and even if he were then people are completely alienated from him. He is a lifelong emotional eunuch who never really loved his wife, spends much of his life infatuated with another woman and had difficult relationships with both his parents. He never understands them as people until after his "supernatural encounter" when he can admit with distaste and regret what he has not been able to articulate before about them.

Gideon carries on this pretence of life as a minister through his wife's death and then, few years later,  he falls into a gorge and disappears for several days. Believed dead, he reappears with a fantastic story of having met with the devil. As the story is narrated entirely in the voice of Gideon Mack we have no way of knowing if there are other ways of interpreting this fantastic experience. Is it an imaginative way of describing a breakdown when the tension of keeping his unbelief secret for so long erupts in his life? He continually asserts in the text that he is completely sane.

The last chapter of the book is an epilogue written after Gideon has disappeared and a body been found in the wilds. The narrator is a journalist who is investigating Gideon's manuscript which has come into the hands of a publisher. The journalist travels to talk to the protagonists that Gideon named in the narrative and as a result doubts are cast on the accuracy of Gideon's account. Some key individuals not only see things differently but also recall an alternative narrative of what happened.

The characters, subject matter and distortions of religion in this novel are reminiscent of  "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" (1824) by the Scottish novelist James Hogg.

It is a well written book that I enjoyed reading. Many details of the practicalities of the workings of the Church of Scotland are uncannily accurate but the book misses the humour and camaraderie that I have consistently found in the ministers and church families. The use of psychologists and other perceptive specialists in the assessment of potential ministers would probably have ruled out Gideon Mack being accepted as a minister today.