Customer Reviews

Leaving Eden

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

 

 

I could not put this book down as it was an engrossing read narrated by Adam's daughter, Na'amah, by his first wife Lilith. It weaves in ancient folklore with whispers of Lilith, the Mother Goddess of all the earth. And Na'amah tells the story softly to enchant the readers into listening to what may have happened in the Garden of Eden. It weaves together the creationist and evolution theories together.

I must be brutally honest here ~~ I did not care for Adam and Eve in this story. I walked away with the impression that those two are incredibly selfish and bent on having their own way of doing life. In the hunter-gatherer age, the clan was very vital for survival. No one could survive outside of the clan. Adam came up with a new vision to create a new beginning of the way life should be ~~ a farmer rooted in one spot. It's a great vision ~~ for it led the way to our lifestyles today ~~ but to accomplish that, he had to deny the daughter he had. Na'amah wanted nothing more than to haver her father to love her ~~ which he was never able to do, especially after he set eyes on Eve. He wasn't allowed to marry Eve because of the tradition that a man should never remarry while the offspring of his first wife was still alive. He literally had to resort to murder to accomplish his dream of marrying Eve.

It is an awesome feat of changing the way a clan shall live from then on ~~ that is how things evolve over time. Adam can be credited with having the foresight of changing the future ~~ but he can also be credited with destroying a beautiful way of life and for destroying the garden. Eve in this book is nothing more than an immature child with eyes only for Adam. She was the temptress ~~ but so immature!

I could go on and on with discussing this book but I better not ~~ so you can read the book yourself. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant (I think that's her last name!). "Leaving Eden" is a book that leaves you feeling that your vision of Eden is slightly altered ~~ it is a what if book ~~ what if Adam hadn't met Eve, what if Eve was a different woman, and what if the ruler of the universe is a woman. It just gives you a different perspective of how things could have been. It is a book that requires a lot of imagination ~~ just listen to Na'amah tell the story and listen carefully. It'll be worth your journey.

Ann Chamberlin did a wonderous job on the book, her poetic discriptions made the book not only a master piece but it made it come alive. With the facts of Lilith (adams first wife) and a fictional outlook on a the times taken place. I do say that this book is not ment for children under 17 for the material that it does cover throughout the book. Another thing that Ann Chamberlin did to make this book great was putting the book not in the eyes of Lilith or in a third person view but in the view of Liliths daugther (Na'amah). Ann Chamberlin Discribes Na'amah as being abandoned and left to take care of Adam (her father), which in this case brings fact and fiction to the story. With this event Ann Chamberlin puts a sublime twist to the book.

Adam knows the law periodically enforced by the Mother Goddess, Lilith that man must never take a second wife as long as the children of his first spouse live. However, for fifteen years, the clan members discuss Adam's loneliness and need for a helpmate. In many respects, Adam blames his daughter Na'amah, begat from his union with Lilith, for his forlorn situation. If she was never born, he could find a new mate to replace his first wife the Mother Goddess.

With Lilith absent for over a decade and a half, Adam heeds the words of a new God. He is encouraged to mate with Eve, a former member of a different clan. The female members of his own clan recognize the new relationship and begin to whisper "Adam and Eve". However, everyone fears the wrath of Lilith, who will know that Adam has violated the law and slept with Eve. Her punishment for defying one of her prime directives could be death or banishment from Eden forever.

LEAVING EDEN is an incredible pre-historic fiction work that retells the story of Adam and Eve. The fast-paced story line leaves readers enthralled with the characters and Ann Chamberlin's ability to tell an exciting tale. Told in the third person by Na'amah, Adam is described as arrogant, loving, yet filled with resentment. Eve is a friend and a rival. Anyone who takes pleasure from the great biblical love story rewritten based on modern historiography's approach to prehistory will want to peruse Ms. Chamberlin's latest masterpiece.

Harriet Klausner

Leaving Eden is a fresh and elegant retelling of the myth of Lilith, Adam and Eve. The best feature is the ambivalent voice of the narrator, Na'amah--Adam's daughter by Lilith--whose observations on old dogmas and women's knowledge provide--what I would call--ecofeminist insights and questioning. All this is secondary to a great story well told. This book is a fascinating invitation to tell more stories about origins! If God were a woman, how might we narrate stories of "the fall"?

Leaving Eden is a book I should have discarded much before the end of the novel. I found it mostly long-winded and unengagingly written. I am a reader who wants to finish books once I start them, though, and so I carried on. It took me much longer than a 256 page book normally would. Falling asleep while reading, even when I am exhausted, is a bit unusual for me.

Anyway, this is a story unlike any other I have read before, and that is a saving grace for me. Unique plots are worthy of at least one star, this one was worth two. An exploration of what civilization would have existed in the time of Adam and Eve is the basis of the novel. Further exploration of the character of Lilith, and what type of creature she was not only to Eden, but to the other societies populating the earth, gave this novel a second star.

The narrative character of Na'amah, the daughter of Lilith and Adam, did not have enough life for me, though, to keep the story going with the force I demand out of a higher ranked work. She was mostly bland and pat... yes, she was being set up as an outsider, so that she could continue on Lilith's line rather than Adam's... but loners can still have something a reader can connect with. Na'amah had none for me, even as a storyteller and an aspiring writer should.

So, all in all, a mostly interesting read, if you can ignore the main character...

Apart from Chamberlin's elegant prose, this book left me enormously unsatisfied. The idea is very interesting, but the characters are drawn so superficially that it is very difficult to even empathize with them. The characters' motivations are not well illuminated at all, and tend to make them seem like caricatures rather than full-fledged people. All in all, this reading experience was pretty uncompelling.