Rating: 
Summary: Scorching
Review: I hate to bring attention to the idiocy of previous reviews, but I must. Those who seek the broadest understanding of "plot" and "character" may very well find the treasures of this book outside of their blinkered vision. However, those who understand language and are moved by its beauty, those whose imaginations are ignited by the sparest of choice words and the densest of poetic description, those who adore detail and allusion, will find themselves enraptured by this masterpiece. This tireless description of the quarantine of five men and a woman (one of whom is Jesus) produces images of staggering beauty and movement. Each of the characters (who also include a merchant and his abused wife) uncoil brilliantly, terrifyingly, slowly, and mysteriously over the course of the novel. Such stories of survival and religion are not often told, and almost never with such insight and sensitivity. Which is why their appearance inspires us so. A must.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring, Dull, and not worth the time
Review: If you like a book that makes you keep reading and you do not want to set the book down, then DO NOT read this book. There is no point to the story, the characters are dull and boring. From page 1 to the end of the story the plot does not take you anywhere. The characters are dull, and in no way can relate to the reader. Do not get this book!!
Rating:
Summary: IMAGERY GALORE`
Review: A DEFINITE GRASP OF THE LANGUAGE AND THE AWE THAT DETAIL CAN INSPIRE. HIS DESCRIPTIONS NEVER LACKED AND I WAS PULLED IN FROM THE START. I READ THE FIRST PAGE JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY AND WAS ONTO THE SECOND CHAPTER BEFORE I REALIZED IT.I AM NOT A RELIGIOUS PERSON BY NATURE BUT JESUS IS CERTAINLY SOMEONE EVERYONE WONDER ABOUT AND I THINK IT WAS A RICH ATTEMPT AT PORTRAYING HIM AT A SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HIS LIFE. THROUGHOUT THE BOOK A RANGE OF EMOTIONS CAME UP BECAUSE OF THE CHARACTERS AND CRACE'S HANDLING OF EVENTS AND I WAS THOROUGHLY SATISFIED THOUGH I FELT THE ENDING WAS A LITTLE ON THE TEPID SIDE.
Rating:
Summary: Complete rubbish
Review: I found the story tediously slow, the characters under developed, the setting dismal and the concept unlike what it should have been. I was hoping that the characters would become more interesting as the book progressed but that did not happen, the author simply spent more time pondering the innessentials that did little to enhance the characters he was trying to create. The Jesus character was annoying, pointless, and weakly sketched, the Miri character was yawn inspiring. I find it difficult to get over just how much of an Anti-climax this book was, I have no idea how it ever won a Whitbread prize, and frankly, I believe the judges are beginning to lose the plot on what makes a good book. I like the idea of examining Jesus's 40 days and nights as quarantine, I like the idea of other people making that difficult. But this book to my mind did not make enough of a story out of it. I was hoping the unctuous Musa character would be less obviously evil incarnate. Mart! ! a, Badu and Shim could have been more realistic dupes, and the story could have kept a better tempo through out. There was no rhythm, no stylistic flourishes, little interesting metaphor, and a story that went nowhere. It certainly was not worth the 118 pages of reading effort which was all it took before I put the book down in dispairing disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: The subversion of the known
Review: The clever little ba***rd. Stripped the land of mysticism and miracles. The only miracles are as imagined by the willing lost souls within. Landscape busting its guts out with elements but ultimately just a blank godless canvas for the battle amongst the people within. In a time and place devoid of godliness, the only manifestation of the battle between Satan and God is within human nature. Very clever harnessing a Biblical premise and totally subverting it with an existential resolve. The most stunning miracles are not the raising of the dead or the turning of stones to bread but hitherto downtrodden folks taking their destinies into their own. Inverts a familiar story of Christ's triumph by making his triumph almost accidental - he only achieved godliness by losing his battle of the Quarantine. And he is so clever in inverting most of the well-known themes - Christ's story here is a crafty mesh of Gethsmane, Golgotha and of course, the desert temptation. Mary Magdelene and her folks and Golgotha = Miri and Marta. And of course our dear MUSA is devil cum future prophet. Crace really has a great sense of humour too - invoking the absurd in various instances to subvert the land of miracles worshipped by the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Best Jesus novel I have read!
Review: Better than The Gospel According to the Son, The Nazarene, The Robe, Last Temptation of Christ, and Yes even better than King Jesus by Graves. This book is different than all of the above.It places religious experience where it belongs, in the land and people of everyday life. The prose in this story wings it's way off the page troubling your eye and ear just long enough for your imagination to transport you to the Judean desert for a 40 day quarantine. Settle into your own private cave for an enjoyable read, and remember God is in the spaces.
Rating:
Summary: Each page is a masterpiece on its own, priceless imagination
Review: In reading this book, I felt myself gleening jewels of imagery from each and every page.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully original, beautifully told
Review: This is one of those rare books that takes you to a place you never could have anticipated. Naturalistic details resonate with multiple meanings. A biblical story is not just retold, it's re-imagined in terms of 20th-century sensibilities. Still, some things never change. Though the author struggles mightily to make it not so, as with Paradise Lost, the incarnation of evil is far more interesting than the incarnation of good. One quibble: Christ is referred to by the Latin version of his name, Jesus, not his original Hebrew one.
Rating:
Summary: UNSTOPPABLE MASTERPIECE
Review: ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BRITISH NOVELS OF THE LAST TWENTY YEARS, A HEAVEN SENT UNDERLINING OF THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEMPORARY FICTION. BELIEVER OR APOSTATE, YOU WILL BE CONVERTED BY QUARANTINE
Rating:
Summary: A read to haunt your dreams
Review: Quarantine is a book you can't put down. From the first page until the last YOU want to know what happens to Musa the sadistic trader who wants to capitalise on miracles, his abused and repressed wife, the woman he rapes, and the other characters that drift in and out of the pages. The character of Jesus is wholly human and his temptations are not so much from the devil than the people around him. However, Jim Crace still manages to keep a mythical sense of Jesus and the task ahead of him, his curing of the dying Musa and the granting of Marta (the woman Musa rapes) her chance to have a child shows that miracles can come in many forms. The most grotesque (but by the far most fascinating character) is Musa. He is obese, obscene and brutal but it is through him (as much as Jesus) that the story threads its magical web. His cruelty to his pregnant wife Miri is only seconded by his cruelty to the other pilgrims who surround him. He is the ultimate salesman in the desert, demanding attention from those around him like a spoilt child, selling his wares and even the only source of water as if he were God himself. The only reason this book gets four starts out of five is that I think it should have been longer. I would have liked to have known more about the pilgrims return to their homes and families, especially Marta and Miri who flee together from Musa. They may not be sisters in flesh but they are sisters in spirit because of their suffering at the hands of a man whose only kindness to them is the children they carry in their bellies.
Quarantine is an excellent read for those people who like a book with an attitude and never a boring page to turn. Most of all it is filled with characters who come to life with each passing page. Now that is what I call a good read.
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