San Francisco -- ©1993 -- 274pp
ISBN: 0-06-250116-X
The story of Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, told simply, realistically.
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I think that Buechner is an amazing author.
While I was disappointed with THE STORM (and I realize that I'm in the minority on that), this book was quite exceptional.
First, I didn't realize, before reading it, that it would be an historical fiction account of Jabob (of Jacob and Esau notariety). I have to admit that I might not have been as eager to read it, had I been aware of that. There's something about historical biblical fiction that has not held a great deal of appeal to me. That might change now, after reading Buechner.
Buechner's characters are 'real.' You get a sense of people that you can relate to, despite their having lived nearly 3000 years ago. I goute here my favorite passage in the book, which made me laugh and typifies the 'real-ness' of the characters:
I was like a man caught out in a storm with the wind squalling, the sand flailing me across the eyes, the chilled rain pelting me. The children were the storm, I thought, until one day, right in the thick of it, I saw the truth of what the children were.
One boy was pounding another boy's head against the hard-packed floor. Another was drowsing at his mother's teat. Three of them were trying to shove a fourth into a basket. Dinah was fitting her foot into her mouth. The air was foul with the smell of them.
They were (God's) promise. That is what I suddenly saw the children were. I forgotten it. They were the dust that would cover the earth. The great people would spring from their scrawny loins. Kicking and howling and crowing and pissing and slobbering food all over their faces, they were the world's best luck.
I started to weep. ...
What parent can't identify? All children are mankind's best hope for the future ... no matter what stupid, childish thing they might be doing at any given moment.
There is quite a bit of biblical information here, well time-lined, but the way in which Buechner manages to infuse it with a real ordinariness, and yet still hold our interest, is remarkable.
Definitely worth reading.
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