Customer Reviews

Forgiving Ararat

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved this book and couldn't put it down. This book transcends several genres being both a legal thriller, spiritual novel and an amazing work of literary fiction --worthy of the Life of Pi and Cold Mountain. Gita Nazareth tells an amazing story of the life and afterlife of Brek Abigail Cuttler that pulls you in from its first chapter where Brek finds herself sitting in an abandoned train station covered in blood but unable to remember how she got there. From the first page the reader is taken on Brek's incredible journey as she tries to cope with her death and bring her killer to justice. Gita Nazareth has created a main character in Brek that every lawyer, wife and mother can easily identify with-- her struggle to balance home and work life as a woman, her quest for justice as a lawyer , and her spiritual awakening as a human being. As she continues on her afterlife journey, Brek comes to realize how her life intertwines with those around her in miraculous ways. Gita Nazareth has a gift of storytelling that is not found in most modern novels. I have heard this book being compared to The Shack and the Lovely Bones. While Forgiving Ararat has the spiritual study of forgiveness found in The Shack and the afterlife experiences as told by a first person narrator in the Lovely Bones, neither of these books can hold a candle to the rich prose found in Forgiving Ararat. The dialogue is wonderful, easy to read and the stories as told through the first person narrative are much more vivid and realistic. I have read all three books and can say, without a doubt, Forgiving Ararat is by far my favorite of the three. I am buying this book for everyone I know- you should too.

Forgiving Ararat is, without a doubt, the most original book I have ever read. First-time novelist Gita Nazareth (surely not her real name?) has created a story world which seems to live at the intersection of the film What Dreams May Come, the Bible, and a John Grisham novel, with all the best aspects and deeper meanings of each.

The story begins as the heroine, Brek Cuttler, arrives at a train station called Shemaya just after her death. Perhaps the only previously used image in this novel is the station metaphor, but in the skillful, lyrical hands of Nazareth it becomes much more than a wayplace for the dead. A lawyer in life, Cuttler has been chosen to represent the souls of these dead as they pass their Final Judgment, but first she must learn to accept that she has died and why, as well as learning how to be a presenter of souls in this shimmering, shifting purgatory.

Both a spiritual novel and a rivetingly juicy tale, I found reading Forgiving Ararat almost a religious experience. Nazareth's prose bathes the reader over and over in the light of justice, love and hope, tempering the sinister stories of man's inhumanity with the truth of their reasons for making these dark choices. She turns murderers and rapists, lawyers and newscasters alike, delving back across centuries and even millennia, into dimensional human beings and argues successfully that the pursuit of justice may itself be irrational and unjust, but it is how we order our lives, and forgiveness, if not love, can still conquer all.

Underlying an epic stocked three deep with characters of every ilk, whose stories are interwoven like a colorful hand-knit afghan (even the book's publisher gets a fictional nod as the press of one of the novel's doomed souls) is Nazareth's startling prose: "... the morning sun strikes the bright yellow fall leaves of a maple tree, making the tree appear as though it has burst into flame. A small sparrow lands on a branch, risking immolation." Every sentence bursts with a transcendent pride of place, as if each word is happily embracing the next, and even the least significant description is worth rereading to see what new light Nazareth has shone upon usually mundane text.

Though Nazareth's story of good, evil and the search for justice in what at times can seem like a very unjust world, is spiritual, it also deals with the religions of man: of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, as well as the fanaticism of Nazis, the Aryan Nation, and Holocaust deniers. It is here that Nazareth excels the most, expertly navigating these dangerous waters and bringing the understanding of truth and the desire for reason and justice all the way to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, even to Jesus and Yahweh Himself (or Themselves, depending on how you look at it). It is as if she is asking us to look at each religion, at each viewpoint, as Cuttler is asked to look at each soul, impartially and without judgment, and we are richer for it by the end of the tale. Forgiving Ararat is not to be missed, and Nazareth's novel, I hope, will be the first of many.

It is the rare person who does not stop and occasionally wonder what really happens to us when we die. First-time novelist Gita Nazareth's Forgiving Ararat explores this very question in a way not yet seen in our literary canon. From its lyrical beginnings, we are swept into a world beyond death that is both foreign and yet achingly familiar.
We meet Brek Cuttler immediately after her death, sitting in a deserted train station that we later learn is the heart of Nazareth's imagined afterlife world of Shemaya. Shemaya is both magical and beautiful, and yet is simultaneously filled with lawyers and trials and other familiar human terrains, a focus clearly reflected in the early images of the rundown train-station bench and building. As she is initiated into the world of the dead, she finds herself at her beloved great-grandmother Nana's house and with a new job at the train station. As she was a lawyer in life, in death she is asked to be a presenter for those getting ready to stand trial before God for the Final Judgment. From here she is caught up in an unfolding drama of history and the consequences of human choice that eventually, in an unforgettable climax, leads her face to face with her killer.
This book reads like a fantasy novel, with the emergence of the afterlife as a parallel world filled with such curiosities as simultaneous seasons, limitless shopping excursions in empty malls, and cars that navigate the roads without drivers or passengers. These early images of life after death come together to form a world that is at once comforting to consider (as Brek is cared for by loved ones long gone) and yet somehow missing something rather essential, something quite vital to what we the living understand to be "life." What results is a version of the afterlife both poignant and heartbreaking as Brek struggles to come to terms with not only the circumstances of her death but the tenets by which she lived her life. The reader is reminded again and again of Brek's plight and what she has lost in the emptiness of the streets, the haunting images of aspects of her former life forever frozen in time in the home she once shared with her husband and daughter: dirty dishes out on the counter, a half-empty dog dish, her infant daughter's favorite jumper slung over the rail of the crib. Likewise, peppered throughout the story are glimpses that remind us of what she stands to gain, threads of hope and light that can be traced through the recounting of familiar Bible stories reconfigured and retold, and are visually accentuated by images of flourishing gardens, rainbows, and the endless possibilities of cocreation.
The heaven Brek enters is filled with trials and lawyers as she moves to fulfill her "destiny" of being a presenter for those who are coming before God for judgment. Thus, more recent teachings of many contemporary religions in the living world that place a greater focus on universal love and forgiveness are replaced by a more antiquated singular focus on justice and the law. Indeed, this world of Shemaya is posited as "where the final battle is fought between good and evil." Yet to Brek, unfairness and injustice seem to lurk everywhere she looks. Trials appear not to contain the entire life story, focusing instead on the transgressions, and she resolves that in her tenure of presenter, things will be different. Ultimately what we discover is that while for Brek in life, justice is the only salvation, in death, the consequences of that conviction become all too real.
At times literary and prophetic, Forgiving Ararat speaks of the truths that many of us in the living world are reluctant to face. Better yet, it is a compelling story that keeps us turning the pages quickly till the end. Exploring core human issues of judgment and forgiveness, conviction and faith, hatred and love, and our unending search for meaning in this life, Forgiving Ararat speaks to all who have ever sought to understand the complexities of the world we live in.

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Jump on the roller coaster ride of Forgiving Ararat and immerse yourself in a thrilling story that is never predictable. As a young attorney, wife, and mother, Brek Cuttler's journey from life to death is so graphic that you feel her fatal wounds and experience her bittersweet memories. While struggling to understand her eternal fate, she is tasked with representing individuals who appear to have few redeeming qualities at their Final Judgement. Then, she transforms into their souls to live the key moments of their lives and gains a unique, extraordinary perspective. Tangible images such as the four seasons occurring simultaneously in Nana's backyard make the afterlife picturesque and sometimes grotesque as Ms. Nazareth vividly describes the dead arriving at Shemaya Station as they looked when taking their last breath. Forgiving Ararat is realistic fiction that makes you reexamine your conscience.

Forgiving Ararat is Gita Nazareth's first novel aiming to educate readers on love and justice. As the title suggests, this novel is about forgiveness. Forgiving the wrong and right; the friend and foe; the love and justice; and most importantly, forgiving oneself.

Although the story starts when Brek's life ended, this novel is full of the precious aspects that make up life. By delving into her past life, Brek discovers many lives before hers that intertwined with her own, the branch of history that determined her life, or rather, death. Nazareth cleverly blurs the line between dream, life and death; and leaves one to question if these realms might not be so different afterall.

The novel is heavy with issues on war, religion, politics, law and history. It would have been a dread to read if not for Nazareth's smart and playful choice of words. It is fascinating how she engages readers through the significant subjects and touches us with beauty, sadness and forgiveness.

In this novel, there's not just one story, but a collection of stories from different people. Each life brings with it the beautiful, the injustice and ultimately seeks the forgiveness that they deserve. Each life affects readers as they read, creating a bigger and complete picture, that is, the life as we know it. During the course of a lifetime, we've met and bonded with numerous people and created our own stories. By taking a step back, one will see how many lives they have touched, hurt and changed.

Nazareth also mocks the religion as an intellectual and challenges the possibility of anyone who would actually know what happened years before even the great ancestors were born? In opening our eyes and mind, Nazareth allows us to accept how different each of our perspectives is.

Furthermore, by using death as a platform, Nazareth strengthens her idea of forgiveness. For nothing else matters in death except forgiveness. No matter what wrong and bad a man has done, as long as one is willing to look through the man's eyes, one will always see reason and learn to forgive.

For a first publication, this novel left me pondering and questioning long after the last pages, and I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who's looking for an intelligent read speckled with vivid imagination.

Forgiving Ararat is, without a doubt, the most original book I have ever read. First-time novelist Gita Nazareth (surely not her real name?) has created a story world which seems to live at the intersection of the film What Dreams May Come, the Bible, and a John Grisham novel, with all the best aspects and deeper meanings of each.

The story begins as the heroine, Brek Cuttler, arrives at a train station called Shemaya just after her death. Perhaps the only previously used image in this novel is the station metaphor, but in the skillful, lyrical hands of Nazareth it becomes much more than a wayplace for the dead. A lawyer in life, Cuttler has been chosen to represent the souls of these dead as they pass their Final Judgment, but first she must learn to accept that she has died and why, as well as learning how to be a presenter of souls in this shimmering, shifting purgatory.

Both a spiritual novel and a rivetingly juicy tale, I found reading Forgiving Ararat almost a religious experience. Nazareth's prose bathes the reader over and over in the light of justice, love and hope, tempering the sinister stories of man's inhumanity with the truth of their reasons for making these dark choices. She turns murderers and rapists, lawyers and newscasters alike, delving back across centuries and even millennia, into dimensional human beings and argues successfully that the pursuit of justice may itself be irrational and unjust, but it is how we order our lives, and forgiveness, if not love, can still conquer all.

Underlying an epic stocked three deep with characters of every ilk, whose stories are interwoven like a colorful hand-knit afghan (even the book's publisher gets a fictional nod as the press of one of the novel's doomed souls) is Nazareth's startling prose: "... the morning sun strikes the bright yellow fall leaves of a maple tree, making the tree appear as though it has burst into flame. A small sparrow lands on a branch, risking immolation." Every sentence bursts with a transcendent pride of place, as if each word is happily embracing the next, and even the least significant description is worth rereading to see what new light Nazareth has shone upon usually mundane text.

Though Nazareth's story of good, evil and the search for justice in what at times can seem like a very unjust world, is spiritual, it also deals with the religions of man: of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, as well as the fanaticism of Nazis, the Aryan Nation, and Holocaust deniers. It is here that Nazareth excels the most, expertly navigating these dangerous waters and bringing the understanding of truth and the desire for reason and justice all the way to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, even to Jesus and Yahweh Himself (or Themselves, depending on how you look at it). It is as if she is asking us to look at each religion, at each viewpoint, as Cuttler is asked to look at each soul, impartially and without judgment, and we are richer for it by the end of the tale. Forgiving Ararat is not to be missed, and Nazareth's novel, I hope, will be the first of many.

"Forgiving Ararat", the first novel from Gita Nazareth, is a unique and inspiring afterlife adventure! The book's heroine is Brek Cuttler, a 31-year-old lawyer, wife and mother who happens to be recently deceased. Leaving behind her new baby daughter and her TV reporter husband, Brek suddenly finds herself sitting in a deserted train station, not yet aware of her own passing. She meets Luas, who reveals she has come to a place called Shemaya, the place between life and death, Heaven and Hell. Luas looks like a combination of people she knows; he appears to each soul as they expect or desire to see him. In fact, much of what Brek sees is only because it's what she wants to see. When she wants, she sees herself dressed in her favorite black silk suit but alternately she's naked and bloody, three bullet holes in her chest. She can't remember how she died and won't until she's ready.

We travel with Brek as she explores Shemaya, a place where all four seasons exist at once, where her long-dead great-grandmother waits with open arms, where God judges arriving souls and decides their eternal fate. Luas tells Brek she is to join his team of elite lawyers, charged with representing souls in the Final Judgment. As she clings desperately to her earthly life, in agony longing for her family, she struggles with her new job in the afterlife. To learn her new trade, she observes the trials of other souls, viewing glimpses of their lives through their own eyes. As she watches their lives unfold, connections form, leading her to solve the mystery of her own death. Meantime, she recalls pivotal moments in her own life; she puts childhood friends "on trial" for crayfish murder, she struggles to accept her parents' divorce, and she confesses her deepest and darkest secret. And we see it is justice she's been after since childhood, that's why she became a lawyer. And it is justice she seeks in death.

Religious themes are prevalent throughout the novel, mostly Judeo-Christian with some hints of Buddhism. Raised Catholic, Brek is drawn to Judaism, the religion of her husband. With Brek we visit the Garden of Eden and sway on the deck with Noah. And it is the afterlife after all, so she eats whatever she wants without gaining an ounce, she shops without money, she climbs mountains without breaking a sweat, and she travels to whatever destination she imagines. Well-drawn characters from her life and those she meets after death are woven in adding to the suspense.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The author drew me in so deeply, I felt Brek's emotions as if they were my own. The author creates an image of the afterlife that is altogether beautiful, frightening, gory, inspiring, mysterious, joyful and sad. I think anyone regardless of their beliefs, can gain something from this book. It's a murder mystery, supernatural thriller and a theological debate all rolled into one. Clever and imaginative, "Forgiving Ararat" is a fulfilling read!

Excellent opening chapter, followed by a couple chapters with too much back story, followed by slow build to excellent and gripping vignettes, several surprises and a well imagined conclusion.

The author describes vividly scenes touching on the holocaust, the legal profession, and other minutiae which make the tale come to life, even when the narration takes huge swaths of a character's life and compresses them into a few paragraphs. Her imagining of the afterlife is fresh and adds to the story, unlike some stories that have a bland and underdeveloped setting. I can see some aspects that remind me of the movies "What Dreams May Come" and "Beetlejuice".

After I passed the slow parts, I enjoyed the story very much. The philosophical and theological points are well integrated into the story. The use of two characters who appear to be in conflict forced me to withhold my judgment concerning the contradictory propositions that were posited until I reached the end, creating philosophical as well as plot suspense.

But ultimately, though the author argues her views persuasively, passionately, and with genuine artistry, I strongly disagree. Thus from the view of artistry, I would probably give this book five stars, from the point of truth I would give it a three. Much is made of the conflict between justice and forgiveness. I read the Old Testament in a different light. Micah 6:8 says, "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Justice and mercy are BOTH required, and one cannot be sacrificed to obtain the other. And a comparison between the Old and New Testaments seems to find a contrast: the author claims that the word justice appears many times in the Old Testament but only four times in the New, suggesting a change of focus, or an abandonment of justice in favor of forgiveness. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." The only change was that God himself would perform the just actions and attribute them to us since we cannot live up to his standards otherwise. God shows his forgiveness not by overlooking our crimes, but by absorbing the brunt of the punishment himself.

The title of the book is a fair description of a peculiar view of Noah espoused in the book, to wit, that Noah (or us) had to forgive God for his judgment of the world, and God returned the favor by dying on the cross to forgive man. The problem is that forgiveness presumes justice. If nothing is wrong, there is nothing to forgive. The judgment of the world in the time of Noah was just because it followed open and notorious conduct deserving such a punishment, and came only after a one hundred twenty year advance warning, which is pretty patient if you ask me.

I am not a trained theologian, but as near as I can tell, the departure from ideas I can believe began with the assumption that God created mankind because He was lonely. As a trinitarian, I believe that God is eternally self-sufficient in and of Himself, because as three persons, each person can display love for the other two, therefore the creation of intelligent beings was not necessary for God to show love. Thus when He created us, He was under no compulsion to do so, and the love He shows us is not forced, not an obligation, but freely offered.

And as for the possibility that even Noah could have disobeyed, hence God might have destroyed all life, making His plan reckless, that is refuted by the promise He made to Adam and Eve that one of their descendants would obtain victory over the evil one. However much free will we have as humans, it will never invalidate one of God's promises. God's earlier promise ensured that humanity would survive, even before the promise that He would never again destroy the world by flood.

Nevertheless, I can find common ground with the author on one very important conclusion: our ability to forgive the people that hurt us the most is an essential part of our spiritual growth. As Jesus said, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." The author has painted realistic character studies that illustrate just how unforgivable some people appear, how hard it is for the protagonist to forgive them, and the blessing that awaits when she learns to love and forgive. So while I do not agree with some of the steps in her argument, I agree with her conclusion.

I finished the book Forgiving Ararat last night. I didn't really care for it. I had the impression the author read The Shack and thought, "Hey, I could do a book like that," and proceeded to produce a rather inferior attempt at explaining the afterlife. She's certainly able to do good descriptive writing, but to my mind didn't think through the coherence of her work or the implications of her theology. If you just want a quick-read, supernatural thriller, this will work for you; if you've truly wondered about evil vs. good and justice and love in the world, you'll probably be disappointed.

It's main point seems to be that love trumps justice and that all our lives are interconnected. All well and good, but to get to that conclusion one has to plow through chapter after chapter filled with violence where victims are always the ones who have to act as attorneys representing their killers in final judgment before an unmoving gigantic triangle of stone in a cosmic coutroom. The stone monolith's only role other than evidently a symbol of God (Trinity?), is to always cut off testimony part way through after only the evil deeds of a person's life have been reviewed. Naturally, every gunshot, rape, burning, explosion, electrocution, and beheading is described in loving detail with lots of Nazi memorabilia thrown in for fun.

Spoiler Alert! This is where you need to stop in my review if you do not want to know the ending.

The main character is a woman who ended up shooting her own daughter accidentally while trying to kill the kidnapper who eventually shot her. At one point she gets to spend a year skiing, yachting, and generally living the high life since anything you can imagine you can have. Sadly, that also includes a desire to go back and visit her husband and daughter - evidently also a cruel illusion since the daughter was killed before she was, but she couldn't remember.

God comes off in this story as a distant, uncaring judge who makes the victims present their killers' cases over and over until a verdict is reached. God seems to be the ultimate narcissist, never giving, but always wanting to be loved. The title of the book comes from the shakey theological assertion that because God was so very grateful that Noah forgave Him for wiping out the earth in the flood while He was having a tantrum (yes, screams of the dying and bloated bodies banging against the hull of the ark are included), that he is now willing to give forgiveness to human beings no matter what their crime. Noah, in a sense, becomes the Christ-figure.

This is an amazing book. A beautiful story, beautifully told. Full of startling imagery, but more than that, deeply spiritual. I found myself stopping in several places just to let the images painted by the author float in my mind so I could fully appreciate their richness. Philosophically, the book moves into an area of human interaction that few of us have ever explored and the twist ending is fulfilling in itself. I cannot recommend this book more highly than 5 stars. I certainly would if I could. Kudos to the author and I anxiously await her next offering.