Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Different Lens on the Garden, June 16, 2004
By A Customer
In the Afterword to this debut novel, author Aidinoff relates how the idea for it came to her in church. Specifically, she was studying one of the Old Testament creation stories - remember, there are two in the book of Genesis! -- and found herself unsatisfied with the cryptic telling of the story of Adam, Eve, and serpent. So she decided to embark on a retelling that lengthened and elucidated the text, as she saw it. This process of retelling is a longstanding tradition in Bible study and teaching, made popular by Diamant's The Red Tent. Aidinoff's efforts are considerable. The fruits, though, are mixed to say the least. The problem is a heavy-handed agenda. First on it is to paint God as an irredeemable corner and then hurl felonies at him. Aidinoff depicts God in her narrative specifically as she describes him in the Old Testament in her Afterword: choleric and impetuous. Within the text, Aidinoff does everything she can to underscore this characterization, even having God encourage Adam to rape the virgin Eve. This rape is Eve's first sexual experience. God, have you stopped telling your son to rape your daughter? Andrea Dworkin must be applauding, someplace. Second, Aidinoff brings to the table a conception of the Almighty that matches how she sees the scientists at Los Alamos who developed the world's first operating nuclear weapon during the Second World War. That is, as she writes in her Afterword, "geniuses...that never considered the moral implication of the [atomic] bomb, or the suffering it would bring." Put aside for a moment that the author apparently is not a nuclear scientist, was not part of the Manhattan Project, and therefore would have no idea about what scientists talked about in their living rooms or in church. The fact is that the writings and speeches of such scientists as Robert Oppenheimer make it clear that there was no dearth of moral struggle over the creation of the ultimate weapon. "I am become as death," Dr. Oppenheimer famously muttered, quoting the Bhagavad Gita phrase about the Hindu death god Shiva, while witnessing the May 1945 nuclear test at Alamagordo, New Mexico. Third, Aidinoff is intrigued by the Snake in the Adam and Eve story, and wants to recast the serpent as hero instead of villain. The snake becomes Eve's tutor, teaching her an idealistic view of equality amongst the creatures of the world: "The Serpent says we're all equal, us and the creatures and the plants and the land. We all have the same right to live and use the things around us." Nice sentiments, yes. But this is the same sort of moral claptrap that leads kids to deadlock when asked: "A dog and a child are drowning. You can only save one. Which do you save?" Some will certainly dismiss The Garden as blasphemy, causing others to rush to its defense on the grounds of artistic freedom. Yet God is hardly beyond reproach and I'd be the first to say there is sanctity in our God-given ability to create art -no subject too sacred. I laughed hard at George Burns in Oh, God! and Jim Carey in Bruce Almighty. I hardly think that Harry Potter promotes the worship of the devil. I thought The Red Tent was terrific and The Da Vinci Code a cracking good read. Blasphemy isn't the issue. Some of the world's greatest thinkers were supposedly blasphemers - the brilliant philosopher Spinoza was excommunicated for blasphemy. My fear is that Aidinoff's audacity is going to turn this novel into the literary equivalent of the Andres Serrano "Piss Christ" furor at the Brooklyn Museum a few years back - a brouhaha over a work of art that isn't good enough to merit the hubbub. What matters more to me than blasphemy, and what's going to matter most to the young readers for whom this novel is purportedly intended, is that The Garden turns out to be a muddled mess of New Age pseudo-wisdom that is not fun to read; four hundred pages with little forward thrust toward what we will know will come near the end: the consumption of the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Even that climactic moment is undercut when you stop and think how many moral judgments Eve has made during the preceding ninety percent of the novel - a logical inconsistency from which the text never recovers. Yes, it's good to be audacious. More writers should be audacious. But it's more audacious to be good.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking, May 26, 2005
In this provocative retelling of Genesis, modern values such as freedom, independence, and equality are juxtaposed with a definitively Old Testament God--petulant, controlling, jealous, and easily angered. God wants his creations to do as he says and is disturbed to find that they have minds of their own, minds more complex than he ever envisioned. He created human beings to amuse and worship him, not to go around questioning him.
The story is told from the first-person perspective of Eve, who is a curious, artistic, and brave. She can't understand why God made her physically weaker than Adam and wants to run with the gazelles as he does. The serpent is recast as Eve's mentor, a wise being as ancient as God who recognizes the necessity for Adam and Eve to learn their own lessons and to think for themselves. He does not trick them into eating the apple but lets them know exactly what they will be gaining (freedom) and what they will be giving up (ease and safety).
The book is written in simple but poetic prose that is easily gobbled up. I finished all 400 pages in a day. Despite the fact that I already knew the ending, I still wanted to keep reading. Eve is a well-realized and sympathetic character, particularly for young girls. Adam is not so well-developed, but this is really Eve's story. Furthermore, The Garden questions pertinent issues such as death, the soul, justice, free will, obedience, science vs. religion, and whether God is omnipotent. Some of the most interesting parts of the book concern Eve and the serpent's philosophical discussions. To many critics, this book is unsatisfactory merely because it calls into question the established religious dogma. To me, this kind of questioning is a good thing. I don't think Aidinoff is trying to start a new religion here, but merely to ask...what if?
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a beautiful exploration of the problems of human existence, May 17, 2004
THE GARDEN is a retelling of the events in the Garden of Eden from Eve's point of view. Elsie V. Aidinoff's Eden will be recognizable to those who have read it in Genesis or heard the story retold elsewhere, but she adds some completely original twists. Adam and Eve are raised separately: Adam by a controlling, jealous and angry God who insists on total obedience, and Eve by the wise and gentle Serpent, who encourages her to ask questions and challenges her to think for herself. It is no surprise that such drastically different characters come into conflict. Eve cannot understand a god who refuses to accept her questioning. Adam does not know how to disobey God who, in Aidinoff's Eden, is not always looking after the best interests of his creations. A quarter of the way into the book, this conflict leads to rape. The rest of the story deals with Eve's recovery from the violation, and how she comes to make her decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, a choice that Aidinoff equates with freeing humans from the hands of an angry god. Aidinoff's ideas are compelling and poetic, but even in the hands of a clearly gifted writer there are unavoidable conflicts in the narrative. One of the largest narrative problems is the rape itself and the necessity for Eve to forgive her attacker who, after all, is the only man in all of creation. Still, this book explores a number of interesting ideas and is an excellent place to begin asking many of the difficult questions that are a part of human existence: the problem of evil, science vs. mythology, the hierarchy of living beings and, ultimately, freewill. It is beautifully and lovingly written. The characters of Eve and the Serpent are especially well-realized. The Serpent is not equated with Evil or Satan, but with Justice and Wisdom. When Eve asks him who he is, the Serpent replies, "My role on this earth: to counterbalance the excesses of a jealous god." One of the most interesting questions that THE GARDEN asks is how much Adam and Eve knew before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge. In this story, Eve has learned a great deal about the nature of good vs. evil, not to mention suffering and the soul, before she makes her choice. As part of her healing process, Eve and the Serpent travel outside the garden to see the rest of the world. Even before she has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, Eve experiences the desert, the mountains, the ocean and the volcano, and learns the skills she will need to survive outside the garden. Ultimately, Aidinoff's novel makes a powerful case for Eve's choice and for the idea that the introduction of knowledge, and the death that comes with it, is necessary for human development. "If there were no death," the Serpent tells Eve, "most beings would be very old. The ancient would rule, for they would have power. And they would believe they know best ... The Earth would be quickly overrun. You could not have a succession of beings progressing through life, each generation learning and growing and giving in its own way, rediscovering beauty, taking joy in the world around them. Death makes way for the young." This is a powerful message for readers, some of whom will be experiencing these questions for the first time. THE GARDEN is an excellent place to begin their journey, and would also be a good choice for an intergenerational book club. There is likely to be controversy about Aidinoff's version of the Judeo-Christian creation myth, but this also makes for good discussion and reading. --- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
