“God’s Madman at the End of the World”: When Javier Cercas Travels with Pope Francis
In bookstores this September 3, “God's Madman at the End of the World” retraces Pope Francis's trip to Mongolia. The atheist son of a devout Catholic, Spaniard Javier Cercas interweaves biographical elements, intimate reflections, and discussions on religion and geopolitics in a pleasant book that is quite flattering to the former pontiff, notes the Spanish press.
It is a tangle of diverse observations guided by an existential question: that of the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life. A question that the Spanish writer Javier Cercas, an atheist, wanted to ask Francis, the Pope , to pass on to his mother, a fervent Catholic convinced that she would find her husband after death. Translated by Actes Sud on September 3, The Madman of God at the End of the World is thus similar, in its subject, to “a redemption [of the writer], I would even say a resurrection, if that did not sound like a joke,” notes the journalist Juan Marqués in El Mundo.
This latest project by the famous author ( The Soldiers of Salamis, Anatomy of an Instant, The Impostor , etc. ) took on a particular resonance after the death of the sovereign pontiff last April, a few days after its publication in Spanish.
In this hybrid book, made up of biographical elements on the Pope, intimate, existential, and geopolitical reflections, the Spanish writer takes us on a journey with Pope Francis to Mongolia. The Argentine, the first pontiff born in Latin America, has always defined himself by the peripheries, emphasizes Cercas, who throughout the book reflects on the meaning and scope of this definition, in a unique form of investigation.
“Cercas is very gifted at stories that flirt with journalism, investigation or memory work, although his piercing gaze is clearly that of an excellent writer,” recalls El Mundo.
Throughout the 480 pages, the novelist keeps us in suspense with a promise: a one-on-one discussion with François during this trip in 2023. But while waiting for the journey, the reader can enjoy “the making of the book, the conversations beforehand,” relates Juan Marqués continues:
“This is what I almost appreciated the most: I am not a believer but I have always been attracted by these dialogues between intelligent and cultured people on great existential questions, and here they take place with excellent theological bearing (pedagogical but rigorous), a lot of cordiality and do not refrain from a few tasty gossips. In short, the ideal.”
Then comes the time for the journey, where the writer enjoys the broom of the Vaticanists, while observing the Pope in action, who has gone to bring the voice of the Church to this Central Asian country, “on the periphery” of the world, as he has always done. The writer also observes the missionaries, and “it is by listening to them in Mongolia that Javier Cercas then gives himself up completely,” says journalist José María Pozuelo Yvancos in ABC .
Without revealing the purpose of this investigation, the daily emphasizes that "like any good novel, this book meets characters who, although real, seem to come from another world. This is where its burning literary interest lies."
The result is a "very positive portrait of the late pope," who appears funny and modest, despite being Argentinian, Cercas says. And while he does touch on some of the less polished, even darker, aspects of the Church ( child sex abuse cases , complicity with those in power, debates on priestly celibacy and the limited role of women), it is with a certain caution.
"Despite the sincere pleasure I got from reading this, I have the impression that, consciously or not, the writer has been used to some extent for propaganda purposes," concludes journalist Juan Marqués in El Mundo.
A point that rather excited ABC journalist José María Pozuelo Yvancos, for whom the fact that the book “takes place at the end of the world (in Mongolia) and that it is written by an atheist who ends up drawing the most enthusiastic portrait that has ever been written of a pope, is what makes it so powerful.”
