Review: Sarah by Orson Scott Card
Sarah is the first of novelist Orson Scott Card's "Women of Genesis" series. Card is best known for his science fiction (for example, the exceptional Ender's Game). He is an excellent writer, and a devoted Mormon who is not afraid to allow his characters to take their beliefs seriously.
I wish I could recommend Sarah, but I'm afraid I cannot. While Card is great at picking good words and putting them in the right order, there are deep problems with this book.
Most notably is the near-Superman character and capabilities of Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah. They make no mistakes. Well, Abraham makes one rather big one but he soon sees the error of his ways. Abraham somehow has a fully-formed Mormon belief, including the Christian concept of the sacrifice of a Son by his Father, even generations before God gave God's name and the Law to Moses. Sarah can do anything, except have children. (And then, of course, she does that.)
This is even true in what is almost universally considered an act of cowardice by Abram - passing off his wife as his sister to avoid being killed. It occurs twice in Genesis, but Card has chosen to have the act happen only once, which I think is reasonable. However, Abram is shown as acting on the direct instructions of God here. It is not cowardice but obedience. This seems too much to swallow.
Also, one of the most difficult and dramatic passages in Genesis, the so-called "binding of Isaac", where Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice the Child of the Covenant (only to have his hand stayed at the last moment), is almost completely ignored here.
That is not to say that there isn't a lot of very good storytelling here. Card chooses to make Lot's wife Sarai's sister, so that Lot is Sarah's brother-in-law. This character (called Qira by Card) is a lot of fun. She is the ultimate princess, vain, bubble-headed, thoughtless and selfish. The interaction between Qira and the godly Sarah, and between Qira and Lot, shown as a righteous, though human, husband, is a lot of fun to watch.
The character of Sarai/Sarah's slave Hagar, the mother of Abraham's first-born Ishmael, is also quite well drawn. We learn of Hagar as the book progresses. She changes some in the presence of Sarah, but we also learn that there is more to her than seems apparent at first. This is not a flattering picture, and I imagine Muslims, who draw their line of the covenant through Ishmael, might have a different take on what happened at this time. Still, the story is helped by this character. In fact, Hagar and Qira make this book much more readable than if we were just asked to find out (yet again) that Sarah is perfect and Abraham knows (almost) everything.
Another somewhat minor, but irritating thing is that whenever the characters are heard praying to God, they revert to stilted old-style language ("thee" and "thou"), which is jarring to say the least. (There is one point where Sarah apparently forgets herself, but her prayer is not quoted.)
It is probably very difficult to write a novelization of Bible stories. The stories themselves are so well known by so many people, and the characters so deeply formed in our minds, that it is nearly impossible to take the kind of liberties one must to take these short tales and expand them into a novel.
I can think of only two such books that I've enjoyed: God Knows, a four-letter-word laden comedic retelling of the story of King David by Joseph Heller, and The Last Temptation of Christ, a very dramatic re-formulation of the Christ story by Nikos Kazantzakis. Heller's book is funny in spots, and even inspiring in others, but it still isn't exactly anything to write home about. And Kazantzakis book (translated from modern Greek) is stunning, but takes enormous liberties with the story of Christ's life. (For example, Christ in The Last Temptation earns money before his baptism by making crosses for the Romans.)
I found Card's Ender's Shadow a lot more spiritually fulfilling (even though it is not a "Jesus" book), and I'd suggest you read it, after reading Ender's Game, rather than Sarah.
I wish I could recommend Sarah, but I'm afraid I cannot. While Card is great at picking good words and putting them in the right order, there are deep problems with this book.
Most notably is the near-Superman character and capabilities of Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah. They make no mistakes. Well, Abraham makes one rather big one but he soon sees the error of his ways. Abraham somehow has a fully-formed Mormon belief, including the Christian concept of the sacrifice of a Son by his Father, even generations before God gave God's name and the Law to Moses. Sarah can do anything, except have children. (And then, of course, she does that.)
This is even true in what is almost universally considered an act of cowardice by Abram - passing off his wife as his sister to avoid being killed. It occurs twice in Genesis, but Card has chosen to have the act happen only once, which I think is reasonable. However, Abram is shown as acting on the direct instructions of God here. It is not cowardice but obedience. This seems too much to swallow.
Also, one of the most difficult and dramatic passages in Genesis, the so-called "binding of Isaac", where Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice the Child of the Covenant (only to have his hand stayed at the last moment), is almost completely ignored here.
That is not to say that there isn't a lot of very good storytelling here. Card chooses to make Lot's wife Sarai's sister, so that Lot is Sarah's brother-in-law. This character (called Qira by Card) is a lot of fun. She is the ultimate princess, vain, bubble-headed, thoughtless and selfish. The interaction between Qira and the godly Sarah, and between Qira and Lot, shown as a righteous, though human, husband, is a lot of fun to watch.
The character of Sarai/Sarah's slave Hagar, the mother of Abraham's first-born Ishmael, is also quite well drawn. We learn of Hagar as the book progresses. She changes some in the presence of Sarah, but we also learn that there is more to her than seems apparent at first. This is not a flattering picture, and I imagine Muslims, who draw their line of the covenant through Ishmael, might have a different take on what happened at this time. Still, the story is helped by this character. In fact, Hagar and Qira make this book much more readable than if we were just asked to find out (yet again) that Sarah is perfect and Abraham knows (almost) everything.
Another somewhat minor, but irritating thing is that whenever the characters are heard praying to God, they revert to stilted old-style language ("thee" and "thou"), which is jarring to say the least. (There is one point where Sarah apparently forgets herself, but her prayer is not quoted.)
It is probably very difficult to write a novelization of Bible stories. The stories themselves are so well known by so many people, and the characters so deeply formed in our minds, that it is nearly impossible to take the kind of liberties one must to take these short tales and expand them into a novel.
I can think of only two such books that I've enjoyed: God Knows, a four-letter-word laden comedic retelling of the story of King David by Joseph Heller, and The Last Temptation of Christ, a very dramatic re-formulation of the Christ story by Nikos Kazantzakis. Heller's book is funny in spots, and even inspiring in others, but it still isn't exactly anything to write home about. And Kazantzakis book (translated from modern Greek) is stunning, but takes enormous liberties with the story of Christ's life. (For example, Christ in The Last Temptation earns money before his baptism by making crosses for the Romans.)
I found Card's Ender's Shadow a lot more spiritually fulfilling (even though it is not a "Jesus" book), and I'd suggest you read it, after reading Ender's Game, rather than Sarah.
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