Quarantine by Jim Crace

Miraculous acts are not always followed by miraculous results. This seems to be the message in Jim Crace's novel, Quarantine.

Matthew 4: 1-11 - "Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward was hungry."

Jim Crace builds a compelling novel around that biblical passage. The young Gallilean Jesus follows four other people in to the desert. It is an act of quarantine to cleanse the body and mind of sin or sinful thought and bring the sufferer closer to their god.

In Judea, thousand of years ago five people walk along a road through the desert. None travel with the other but they depend on the illusion of travelling together to deter bandits and dangerous animals. There is Aphas, an elderly Jew looking for relief from physical illness. The blonde headed Shim, who carries a staff of precious wood that curls like a ram's horn and who desires closeness to the god of his grandparents. An unnamed badu villager, with tightly twisted hair, that could not, or chose not to voice his reasons for quarantine. Marta, a sturdy Jewish woman who was praying that God would reverse her infertility. Lagging behind, a thin bearded man, a Gallilean carrying nothing and wearing little.

The young and naive Jesus sees a tent where he hopes to beg a final sip of water and morsel of food before starting his quarantine of 40 days and nights. Inside he discovers a corpulent man in the throes of a sickness sure to end his life. Unknowing Jesus touches the man and parting he speaks a common farewell, "May you be well." Jesus leaves the tent after partaking of sips of water and chewing a small date.

Miraculously healed of his terminal condition, Musa rises. He is a trader with no scruples. Musa is a violent and demanding man. Mira, his wife, grateful that her abusive husband was near death is shocked to find him whole and well. Musa immediately begins preying on the four travelers and trying to tempt the one they call Gally. Musa becomes the face of the devil written about in scripture.

Jim Crace's prose brings beauty to the harsh environment while presenting a compassionate look at the evil that some men do and others endure. It is a compelling re-imagining of the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent.

The novel won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and was a Booker Prize finalist.

Quarantine by Jim Crace, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997, 243 pages.