Jonathan Goldstein (2) (1969–)

The author reimagines the biblical stories, in some cases adding motivation to the strange behaviors. The stories are presented in modern language (with occasional tongue-in-cheek use of faux-King James English when characters are speaking, lots of thee and thou). The take on them is mostly irreverent and amusing. While the blurb on the back cover suggests that they show us the universality and timeliness of the Biblical stories, I would suggest they actually do otherwise. By taking out the high sounding poetic language, they bring the stories down to what they actually say, and present fully how ludicrous most of them are, and how not relevant to modern times is a story about David providing 100 (make that 200) foreskins of Philistines in order to pay the bride price for his (first) wife. Recommended reading for anyone who insists that the Bible is full of nothing but high minded morality and rules for good living.… (més)

While I enjoyed several moments and descriptions in this book, the form made it difficult to do more than skim the surface of the story. Instead of a continuous narrative, it is made up of brief parts, from a single sentence up to several short paragraphs, but never more. Its "chapters" rarely frame the material in a meaningful way and instead seem like arbitrary groupings of anecdotes. Every new piece feels like it could be the beginning of a longer story, and eventually the lack of forward momentum becomes the most enduring aspect of the story.

While some meaning does seep through, in the end it feels slight, as if the experimental structure has dissipated the book's intent. Some readers may feel that there's simply no story there to be told, and while I don't think that's entirely true, I do think it's fair to expect writing to pull readers closer rather than push them away.

As an experiment, this is an interesting one. As a read, it's much less than I hoped it'd be. There were some threads that seemed to promise so much that I wanted them more fully developed, and the fact that each small section simply hit its solitary note and then ended left me frustrated. I'm looking forward to reading Jonathan Goldstein's book in which he retells some stories from the Bible, because from the piece I have heard on This American Life, he employs a similar style to greater narrative effect.… (més)