Sunday, May 27, 2007
Handmaid and the Carpenter
Do it or don’t do it. The Handmaid and the Carpenter is such a short little piece and by its nature has to include so much that is known (that Mary is visited by an angel, that she and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, that Jesus is born in a stable, that they have visitors, that Herod wants him killed, and on and on) that there is room for little else. Near the end, Berg goes ahead and gives Mary and Joseph 6 other children (one of whom is named Judas) but has no room to explore that. The beginning is the most beautiful thing about the book with Joseph’s love for Mary outweighing his uncertainty about her unexplainable pregnancy. Then it just has to move through all those familiar events. I wish it had been a fully fleshed out story like The Red Tent and had given itself room for a lot of characters and a lot of development. Instead, I’m left wondering why Berg chose to take on this project at all.
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2 comments:
Sorry it didn't work out. Your comments about The Red Tent got me searching Amazon customer reviews. The Biblical setting initially made me leery after reading The Silver Highway which had but one agenda: to preach. The Red Tent sounds more of a study of and about women, that just happens to be set during Biblical times, with all that time period entails. What is your analysis Christine? Would I like it?
Yes, you would like it. It tells the story of Dinah, the one sister to Joseph and his 11 brothers, who has no more than a sentence about her in the Old Testament, and imagines her life story. It is a strong women's book showing how they might have worked together in those ancient times and dealt with sharing husbands and children. It is historical fiction at its best, taking Biblical names we've heard and many we haven't, and creating an imaginable, if not believable world.
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