Sunday book pick: In ‘Thirst’, Jesus is god’s son, a miracle worker, and a man who was killed

“It is I who am able to feel love for everything that exists. That is what it means to be Christ.”

Jesus’s story is one for the ages. It inspires horror, pity, and, as Amélie Nothomb shows in her novel Thirst, also mirth. The fact that Jesus was subjected to such extreme cruelty at the hands of lesser beings also brings comfort – if god’s own son could be destined to such a fate, then why should you and I be spared life’s lesser humiliations? Perhaps that is why Jesus is the eternal muse – of painters, sculptors, writers, and sufferers.

Translated from the French by Alison Anderson, the novella opens with Jesus's simple acceptance: “I always knew I would be sentenced to death.” He has selflessly performed his miracles in service of the grieving mother, the blind man, the leper who begged for alms, the couple who ran out of wine at their wedding. Unfortunately for him, his help, once generously received, has literally become the cross on his back he has been sentenced to carry.

Plainly put, Jesus has not been omniscient enough, and now the benefactors of his miracles have to deal with the various disadvantages of a normal life. Jesus thinks of himself as...

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