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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book of Biblical proportions, August 21, 2004
This review is from: In The Shadow Of The Ark (Hardcover)
I discovered this Provoost novel at the Wal-Mart here in the Hill Country and was shocked to see it salted into the romance titles. But after reading it, I guess that the romance element is central.
Yes, this is a shade of Anita Diamant's "Red Tent" and there is even a red tent in the story line, the tent of the Builder, i.e. Noach, and his sons and their entourage. And there is a touch of Tracy Chevalier here, as Provoost takes license in creating a story line around the famous creation of the ark. As Chevalier creates stories around works of art, Provoost creates the primitive and stark reality that must have surrounded the mythic tale of Noah fulfilling his command to Jehovah God.
The forbidden love story that runs the length of the novel, the attachment of Ham, Noah's youngest son, to ReJan, the marsh dweller's daughter, is key to the larger-than-life tale. There is almost a Jean Auel quality to this story. For how can anyone truly know how things must have been during those early Biblical days, much less during the times of cave dwelling man?
Curious behavior includes the reverence of Noah for his "shaman" messenger in the guise of a dwarf, who sees into the future of the sinful tribes of man and forecasts the doom of the Unnamable's flood. How equally curious is the paralyzed and beautifully naked mother (who "talks" with her one good eye) of ReJan who so skillfully controls both ReJan and her father, the master ship builder who aides Noah and his myriad workers in the ark's construction. There is an air of mysticism that parallel's any early civilization's relation to nature and the powers that govern the success and failure of man versus the elements. The very magic of ReJan's grooming hands which clean and groom the weary bodies of Noah's sons, with special oils and water, hold hypnotic sway over the bodies of the Rrattika, the wandering tribes who have accepted the task of being chosen to survive the flood's doom. There is power in this girl and her small family who leaves the marshes for the quarry land of rocks and dust, the site of the almighty shipbuilding.
Not being chosen for one of the ark's saved occupants makes ReJan's family's life even more stressful. And the intrigue of being desired, actually loved by Ham, against his father and brother's commands, adds tension to the plot line. With the advent of even more complex ties to Ham's chosen wife, and to the best divined spring water, ReJan becomes not just the forbidden but the necessarily desired, the most valuable of the unchosen. Ham risks almost everything to have her with him, even the process of special hidey hole building within the massive ship, executed by none other than ReJan's father.
Suspense builds and Provoost almost overwhelms the reader with the detail of the actual loading of the ark with all the animal species which have fled to the quarry location. And as the ark fills and the rains come down, the massive destruction and brutality of exclusion of the mobs of people who have believed themselves to be included in the ship's roster is excruciating to read. The agonies of riding in that great vessel, so filled with penned up animal and human flesh and battered without by the most spectacular of natural disasters are vividly executed by Provoost. Nieuwenhuizen's translation of the Dutch text lacks nothing in making the English language reader feel saturated in the doom of this madman's journey.
The women of this novel are the strong, diverse and colorful characters, to say the least, but the animal-like behavior of all the people, even in their determination to follow their god is fascinating. This book certainly presents another view of this ancient saga. And I am glad I found the book, bought it, read it, and, thereby, chose not to miss the boat. I do recommend this novel and will look for Provoost's other novels that have been translated into English. I truly look forward to her "The Rose and the Swine" which has yet to be made readable for the likes of me. Its synopsis on Provoost's web cite is intriguing.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clever and powerful reworking of a biblical tale, September 17, 2004
This review is from: In The Shadow Of The Ark (Hardcover)
Do you remember the biblical tale of Noah's ark? What comes to mind? Do you picture a bearded old man, surrounded by sheep, cattle, horses, and dogs? Do you imagine the man floating in a sea of water, protected from the rains in the shelter of a wooden ark?
In her new book, IN THE SHADOW OF THE ARK, Flemish author Anne Provoost shatters the traditional image of Noah and his ark. Provoost provides a clever spin for the biblical tale by re-imagining this time-told story through the eyes of a young woman named Re Jana.
Powerfully written in beautiful prose, the story transforms readers into Re Jana's world. Re Jana and her family have lived on the waters of the marshes for years amongst skilled fishermen and shipbuilders. After a terrible accident that leaves her mother crippled, the family decides to travel to a city in the middle of the desert. They have heard rumors about a builder, named Noah, who is creating a massive ship. Re Jana's father, an expert boatmaker, seeks work from these desert peoples who are curiously constructing the huge boat. These people, however, are not like Re Jana and her family. Called "Rattika" they are wanderers and are accustomed to a life very different from the marsh people.
In an effort to find her place among these new people, Re Jana offers her skill to find "good water" for the Builder's family. Along with her water, Re Jana washes the Builder's sons with her sponges and oils. A relationship develops with Re Jana and the youngest son, Ham. Reality breaks the intensity of their love. Through Ham, Re Jana finds out the true purpose of the massive ark. The Builder's god has chosen the Builder and his family to collect all the animals on earth. A massive flood will wash away everything and everyone but the "chosen." Another woman has been selected to be Ham's wife. The future for Re Jana and her family looks bleak.
Provoost does an amazing job transporting the reader into this apocalyptic biblical world. The strength of the character Re Jana is clear. She is a true heroine and we are rooting for her on every step of her challenging journey. Through the use of beautiful language and powerful emotions, Provoost creates a masterpiece. Along with the characters and their struggles, the reader is also confronted with the philosophical questions of the biblical tale. IN THE SHADOW OF THE ARK is an impressive novel that both teenagers and adults will enjoy. It also wouldn't be surprising if this book serves as the basis for a majestic Hollywood epic.
--- Reviewed by Kristi Olson (zooey24@yahoo.com)
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Questions of good and evil, May 11, 2005
This review is from: In The Shadow Of The Ark (Hardcover)
In the great flood story found in Chapters 6-9 of the Book of Genesis, God warned a righteous (i.e., in right relation to God) and blameless man named Noah in time for him to build an ark that would save him and his family from the drowning that befell all other humans of the time, here again owing to their collective wickedness, violence, corruption, and the evil in all their hearts. One of the more memorable aspects of that telling is that Noah took aboard a fruitful pair of each of the world's full range of animal life. The omniscient narrator of this familiar Biblical version is presumably Moses, who, in turn, is assumed to have gotten his information directly from above.
In Anne Provoost's most provocative of retellings of the great flood story, we this time become witness to the enduring saga of when God meted out indiscriminate "justice" to virtually the whole of humanity through the eyes of a young dark-skinned heathen (polytheistic) woman from Canaan - that is to say, of an insignificant member of all those many people collectively judged to have been sufficiently wicked or nonconformist to be consigned to mass execution by drowning. Here (in almost 400 pages rather than the Bible's 4) Provoost offers us the dramatic story of how the ark was constructed in the desert some distance east of Canaan just in time for the rising waters that killed most life on earth, of its time afloat, of the subsequent recession of the waters, and of the ark's ultimate landing - all of this under the direction of Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
As the story opens, the young woman and her parents, whose father is a skilled boat builder, are seeking out the desert construction site both to get away from their increasingly inundated home area in the coastal marshlands of Canaan and to find employment. They join a huge assemblage of construction workers and both father and daughter soon become an integral part of the frantic building process. Life as it might well have been in that early period of human existence is convincingly recreated by Provoost, both as to its day-to-day domestic activities (e.g., personal hygiene was not yet a widespread priority, but full-body massaging was in among some of the heathens) and as to the cultural differences between Noah and his fellow monotheistic believers in the God of the Bible and the many heathens attracted to the building site. The author is particularly good at describing the enormous difficulties in building such a huge structure, then the problem of obtaining and getting the endless pairs of animals aboard and at the same time of keeping at bay the many people desperate to come aboard, and finally of the incredible hardships endured during the time afloat.
As time progresses during the period of construction, the young heathen woman and her father attempt to comprehend and, in time, to thwart the fate decreed for them and virtually all else. Indeed, it becomes slowly evident that these two are fundamentally more decent and thoughtful than the "righteous" and "blameless" Noah and his sons who had been chosen to survive and replenish the earth with their progeny. Among other troubling decisions of the God of the Bible to be challenged by daughter and father were how that God could indiscriminately murder essentially all humans (and in the process all other terrestrial life), including the young, mentally defective, and other clearly innocent humans, whether monotheistic or polytheistic. The great strength of this exposition is that it explores in far greater detail and care than does the Book of Genesis the ethical and moral ramifications of the Biblical God's sweeping cleansing action.
I can strongly recommend this book to anyone over about 16 not only as a fascinating and imaginative bit of action-packed "historical" fiction, but particularly as a stimulating exercise in Bible study and, more generally, in raising basic questions of thoughtful free will versus mindless obedience and in presenting fundamental questions of good and evil.
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