Let’s shift this conversation to some positive depictions of women, both in sacred/archetypal history and today! My new friend Elissa Elliott, a Books & Culture contributor, is now blogging. You should start reading her ruminations here. At the top of the new year, her provocative Eve: A Novel of the First Woman will be coming out from Delacorte Press (Bantam/Dell) at the first of 2009. Think The Red Tent in the 21st century.
Special related note: We are once again looking for a few good Ooze Select bloggers, to help populate a new cotiere of intrepid bibliophiles. If you’re interested, drop me an email at zoecarnate [at] theooze [dot] com and I’ll give you the full lowdown!
Mike, I am interested in Ooze Select, but I can’t find a contact email for you. So…drop me a line, eh?
Mike, so I’m loving getting the books, just got a new set in.
But I have to admit some jealousy upon discovering what some of the other select bloggers have received.
Any chance you could give us a pick of what’s available before you ship? If not no worries. Still enjoying it!
What an incredibly fascinating novel. In some ways the very notions discussed in this book are as tempting as eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! I often wondered if I should linger longer in its pages or put it down altogether. Yet, the story bids me continue.
The reader will not agree, at first or at all, with Elliott’s portrayal of Eden, God, Lucifer or the characters of this worlds first family. Each chapter compels the reader to return back to the scriptures wondering if what has been stated in this book is a legitimate interpretation of the scriptural account. Then again, this is a novel. Does it need to be ‘accurate’, or merely a spin off the old, old story? Certainly this rendering of Eden and this world’s first family challenges many of my long held notions.
Another teasingly curious attribute of this story is the projection of 21st century cultural experiences into the thinking of the first years of creation. Is Elliott actually writing herself into Eve – the first woman, wife, and mother? Or, was she intending to connect any woman with Eve?
Though there are many theologically confrontative issues in this book, if we are unafraid of being challenged we will enjoy the throught provoking, emotionally titillating, and spiritually awakening rethinking of our human beginnings – in particular the woman we call Eve. As we have in recent years re-imagined Mary, the mother of Jesus, it seems only fitting that we re-introduce ourselves to Eve – the mother of us all.