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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lost in translation? Not this time..., August 20, 2008
The basic concept behind this novel is pretty interesting: The granddaughter of a famous archaeologist is frantically searching for the first copy of the Book of Genesis, which was written on clay cuneiform tablets by a young scribe almost 4,000 years ago. The author? Abraham himself supposedly dictated the story before leaving Ur.
Unfortunately, these mysterious tablets lay hidden underground in Iraq -- just days before the outbreak of the Iraq War in March 2003. Mix in some old Nazis, concentration camp survivors, government agents and you have one heck of a race underway.
Sadly, the thin writing and poor narrative structure of this novel simply can't sustain the intriguing plot line. Navarro's sense of pacing is very choppy and most of the characters are poorly developed, if at all. In fact, I'd say this would be a much better novel with about half the number of players.
After a while, I wondered: "Could this be the translator's fault?" Driven by curiosity, I accessed a long excerpt in the original Spanish, only to conclude that we can't blame the translator this time around. The original is just as stiff as the English version.
¡Qué lástima! Better luck next time.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
How strong is The Bible of Clay? Very strong., April 1, 2008
Have you been DaVinci Code'd to death? If not, and without any clear cut political enemies to make great fiction, few of us can be, then The Bible of Clay is a great read. Combining previously unknown histocial documents (herr a "bible" transcribed by Abraham onto clay tablets, with the fall of Iraq, Julia Navarro continues the fine work of Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud.
There is no sophomore slump here. Navarro works magic with a great plot, faced pace action and old Nazi's to boot. Yet, despite these desprite elements the story works well. A little poitical thriller also adds to the mix to keep the action flowing. With flashbacks to biblical times as well as to World War ll, the Bible of Clay involves the quest to recovery ancient tablets containing the biblical tales. Seeking these tablets are a Nazi and his granddaughter, Saddam's forces and the Nazi's business partners (and, of course, fellow Nazi's). Opposing them are Holocaust survivors (not presented in the best light they typically recceive) and several hired murderers.
Why 4 stars, not 5? Sometimes you can suspend reality a bit too often to make plot work. I felt that Navarro resorted to plot tricks at times when they were not needed and lost a bit of the flow while trying to conclude one too many plot lines.
Nevertheless, The Bible of Clay will keep you interested, will bring you back to your daily reading schedule and does open great promise for this year's vacation reading prospects.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Promising Beginning but Falls Short, June 5, 2008
I had high hopes for this book. It was very promising in the beginning, but I think, ultimately, the lack of compelling characters caused my interest to wane. The story was a bit too convoluted and long, there was no character I cared about or liked, and the underwhelming denouement left me with an overall reaction of "So what?" Maybe a more stringent editor would have helped the plot along, although how to make me care about these characters, I do not know...
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