The Garden (Teen's Top 10 (Awards)) (Hardcover)

by Elsie V. Aidinoff (Author) "SOMETHING HEAVY ON my center, smooth against my skin, shifting very slightly within itself, stretched and retracted..." (more)
Key Phrases: feathered ears, Great Creator, Finally God

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 11 Up–A revision of the Fall as written in Genesis, The Garden is told from the perspective of Eve, a quizzical woman who questions everything from her own "birth" to God's authority. Aloof and careless, Adam is the more physical of the two; he enjoys the paradise of Eden, running with the antelope each day, never paying attention to the lessons that his didactic God has to offer. The two other characters in the novel are God, an authoritarian who views his children as toys, and the Serpent, his close friend and Eve's kind and understanding mentor. By writing from Eve's point of view, Aidinoff proffers an alternate perspective on an old story, but, unfortunately, the book ends up reinforcing old ideas, that women are more "emotional" and men more "physical." In the climax of the story, God impulsively, in an effort to see the fruits of his creativity and labor, forces Adam upon Eve. This rape leads Eve to distrust God and eventually–with the Serpent's help–leave the Garden. The Genesis story has incredible revisionist possibilities, but the characters here are flat and uninteresting, and the simplistic dialogue is not compelling. Ultimately, the author's effort to retell the "Fall" in a fresh way frankly falls, and fails to do just that.–Kelly Berner Richards, St. George's School, Newport, RI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
One of the world's oldest stories becomes new again in the hands of a 70-year-old first-time novelist. The setting is a lush, freshly formed Garden of Eden, where Eve is just awakening to the all-wise, feathered Serpent who is her guardian. Nearby, Adam is being raised by a cranky, white-bearded God intent on seeing that His creations adhere to His vision. But the Serpent has something far different in mind for its charge, and under the Serpent's painstaking tutelage, Eve begins to think and to question. Journeys with the Serpent outside the garden give Eve a breadth and depth of knowledge forbidden to Adam, who learns to fear a god who is both capricious and demanding.

Despite the Serpent's strenuous objections, God insists that Adam and Eve mate, and the event turns into a rape, for which Eve is loath to forgive either God or Adam. Only later, when the Serpent changes form, becomes a man, and makes love to Eve, is she prepared to accept her central role as the mother of humankind. Even then, however, she's still not ready to forgo her independence. Although the Serpent explains all the hardship that will come to her if she eats the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, she accepts the challenge to become a fully realized human, as does Adam, who, though lacking Eve's strength, also yearns to be his own person.

In an author's note, Aidinoff explains that she has drawn on lore that equates the Serpent to Wisdom, who is said to have been with God at the creation, and the smart, empathetic, even romantic Serpent will evoke the most response from teenagers (God is certainly one-dimensional by comparison). The story at times is overly descriptive. It is at its best during the dialogues between Eve and the Serpent, when age-old questions are asked and real answers are given--although not necessarily the answers that have been accepted for ages. For instance, when the Serpent asks Eve what she thinks of the songs of praise God has taught her and Adam, Eve wonders, "Why does God need to be adored all the time? We know he made the sea and the dry land and all the rest. Why does he have to hear it over and over again?" There's no doubt this book will upset some people, both in its depiction of God and because of its sexual scenes, which, though not salacious, are intense and uncompromising. Perhaps most disturbing is the scene in which God urges Adam to take Eve against her will. Some readers, however, will find the book liberating--a meditation on the role of humanity in the world and on the compromises people make when they choose freedom instead of obedience. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen (April 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060556056
• ISBN-13: 978-0060556051
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #677,937 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #32 in

  Books > Children's Books > History & Historical Fiction > Fiction > Prehistory

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 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.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking, May 26, 2005

By	C. Daly - See all my reviews

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?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A missed opportunity, February 5, 2007

By	S. Hoge (Minnesota) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Garden (Hardcover)

I too am delighted to live in a country that allows the freedom to write a book that may be viewed critically by those in the dominant religion, even if that the book is simplistic and echoes popular-culture thinking and a one-dimensional view of God. The author's intriguing thesis could have been greatly improved by introducing dimensions to all of the characters and questioning the assumptions behind her protrayal of the Serpent. This book regretably reminded me of "Clan of the Cave Bears". The portrait of Eve is one I might have conjured when I was a young female teen with a view that one must rebel against The Man (or in the case, The God). I can see its likely appeal to the typical adolesecent grappling with the time-old effort to separate oneself and progress from a child to a young adult. The book fails to make a meaningful attempt to coax the reader to consider the larger issues and dilemnas posed by free will and thus misses a rich pondering opportunity that this story could have offered. The Serpent character too neatly affirmed the uber-girl Eve and seems a compilation fantasy figure drawing on the ideal qualities of a teacher-mother-father-lover-fan. It's pity the intriguing thesis failed an opportunity to offer a path towards grappling with the more complex issues around forging our relationship with God. I would have hoped this author would have written another draft of this book and pushed herself beyond her "easy" thesis to dig deeper into ideas that may be worth chewing a bit longer and and being of lasting value, rather than writing just a story. OTOH, my daughter loved it....