Lazarus, has, as the basis for the story, a most startling premise: that when Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave he brought him back from the dead but not back to life. Jesus comes to Lazarus's tomb, after failing to heed pleas from Lazarus' family to heal him from the illness which caused his death. Jesus performs the miracle at the tomb, but Lazarus, while he walks and breathes, and becomes a testament to the miracle, can no longer make love to his wife, no longer has the strength to work at his craft, cannot sleep; indeed cannot die! When the Sanhedrin try to have him murdered because they fear the evidence of Jesus' miracles, Lazarus does not bleed from the multiple stab wounds, nor does he feel pain. He realizes he has become a walking zombie, smelling of the dank tomb, reeking of death, a source of curiosity and. disgust, but unable to die. Lazarus becomes obsessed with finding Jesus to discover why God has done this to him. He traces Jesus to Jerusalem only to discover him being crucified. He then hears of the resurrection and tries to find the resurrected Christ. Along the way he meets the Apostles who are hiding in fear of retribution from the Jewish authorities, and Jair, the blind man to whom Jesus gave back his sight. Each he questions, receiving platitudes or even deceit. Mary. Jesus's mother. tells him "fear not, everything he does is for the glory of God." John tells him it is important that he not look alive or no one would believe he had been brought back from the dead. Lazarus asks. "What kind of God is it who, in order to be recognized, is willing to destroy forever someone who never did any harm?" who in fact had aided his Son when he was hiding from the authorities. People keep asking Lazarus what death was like, expecting tales of heaven and visions of Abraham, yet he insists it was only nothingness, like a "black pit."
Absire’s vision of the world is truly bleak. Murderers and beggars are familiar features of the landscape. In the end Lazarus holes up in an abandoned sewer while Jerusalem is destroyed by the Romans. He has a terrifying thought, "What if Yahweh does not exists, never had existed. And that everything the children of Israel put their faith in, that he had faith in, was a lie." In the end he abandons himself to await eternity in a semi-alive state, his desolate journey having become a nightmare.
The Chicago Tribune describe Lazarus in a mastery of understatement: "It is hard to picture a more effectively sustained achievement: Bleakness here is wrapped in gloom inside a shroud of despair within a veil of dreariness enveloped by a swathe of nothingness." I'm still not quite sure why I finished the book except that the tale is riveting, insidiously beckoning the reader toward a glimmer of hope and light only at the end to dash you upon the rocks of utter gloom.
