Hock G. Tjoa's Blog
June 21, 2020
Our Story
This review first appeared in ŷ,/review/show/2491467631
Rao Pingru wrote this charming "graphic novel." It contains text and numerous paintings.
My first clear memories are of the ceremony that marked the formal start of my schooling: the Four Treasures of Study, the brand-new brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. Uncle Huang, whose calligraphy was beautiful, grasped my hand and together we traced the first lesson.
In 1940, Rao set off to join the First Command Whampoa Academy. I admired Napoleon and chose the artillery but upon graduation (1943) chose the 100th Army stationed in Yongfeng county in Jiangxi. I was determined to go home first and pay my respects at my mother's grave. Then I would go and kill the enemy and die without regret.
He married Mao Meitang in 1948 and writes of walks by a lake or snacking on Nanchang's "ovenside sesame cakes," chatting and sipping tea. Once they quarreled and stopped talking for a few hours. It was the only instance in their marriage that Rao could recall.
After the Revolution of 1949, Rao tried his hand at business. The family settled in Shanghai where heworked as an accountant at the hospital and as Art and Literature editor at Dade Publications.
1957 brought a drastic change in the political climate and Rao spent 1958-80 in "Re-education through Labor." Meitang survived with their five children on work in factories. Rao worked at a factory during reeducation and was allowed to go home for Chinese New Year. When released he had to sign an agreement not to return to the factory or make any future demand on them. He registered at the Shanghai neighborhood and got his old jobs back.
"When winter is at its coldest, spring cannot be far behind." He hoped that "the two of us should find a quiet spot in the countryside, have a small allotment, and live the simple life.
This world no longer exists. We are grateful for Rao's story.
Rao Pingru wrote this charming "graphic novel." It contains text and numerous paintings.
My first clear memories are of the ceremony that marked the formal start of my schooling: the Four Treasures of Study, the brand-new brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. Uncle Huang, whose calligraphy was beautiful, grasped my hand and together we traced the first lesson.
In 1940, Rao set off to join the First Command Whampoa Academy. I admired Napoleon and chose the artillery but upon graduation (1943) chose the 100th Army stationed in Yongfeng county in Jiangxi. I was determined to go home first and pay my respects at my mother's grave. Then I would go and kill the enemy and die without regret.
He married Mao Meitang in 1948 and writes of walks by a lake or snacking on Nanchang's "ovenside sesame cakes," chatting and sipping tea. Once they quarreled and stopped talking for a few hours. It was the only instance in their marriage that Rao could recall.
After the Revolution of 1949, Rao tried his hand at business. The family settled in Shanghai where heworked as an accountant at the hospital and as Art and Literature editor at Dade Publications.
1957 brought a drastic change in the political climate and Rao spent 1958-80 in "Re-education through Labor." Meitang survived with their five children on work in factories. Rao worked at a factory during reeducation and was allowed to go home for Chinese New Year. When released he had to sign an agreement not to return to the factory or make any future demand on them. He registered at the Shanghai neighborhood and got his old jobs back.
"When winter is at its coldest, spring cannot be far behind." He hoped that "the two of us should find a quiet spot in the countryside, have a small allotment, and live the simple life.
This world no longer exists. We are grateful for Rao's story.
October 7, 2019
Cassandra's Vision
Agamemnon Must Die, a retelling of the Oresteia by Aeschylus, I wrote a chapter about Cassandra. The most beautiful of Trojan princesses had been chosen by Agamemnon to be his war bride. In my retelling, her visions become one of the "choruses" that typically comment or editorialize on the "action" in classic Greek plays.
Perhaps this did not do Cassandra justice for she has captured the imagination of artists since then. There are wonderful Attic vases that portray the plight of the doomed princess, but those are best seen directly on proper websites. I offer instead a medieval woodcut (Penn Libraries call number: Inc B-720Penn Librariesfrom a 15th century German translation of Boccacio) and a painting from the late preRaphaelite period ([Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons" href="/"> by Evelyn de Morgan).
On Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 6.30 p.m., I read this chapter to a
For information about buying Agamemnon Must Die, please see
To those who are interested in historical fiction, I am pleased to introduce a wonderful Group on ŷ. It is one of many.
August 2, 2019
The Hundred-year-old Man
Jonas Jonasson's Hundred-year-old Man who Escaped is a charming story, told with gentle good humorand sly wit. A hundred-year-old man tires of life in a senior home and its restrictions on his consumption of vodka. So he climbs out a window and escapes. His adventures begin with an encounter with a young man from a criminal outfit ("Never Again") and a suitcase (full, it turns out, of money, a lot of money).
What follows is a tall tale, a shaggy-dog tale, with many long flashbacks. Our hero meets Franco, Truman, Madam Chiang Kai Shek, Madam Mao, the Koreans, a gulag, a trek across the Himalayas and Iran ... You get the picture.
Oh, yes, there is also a tough-talking dame and an elephant. Why not?
The characters are all sympathetic and the tone of the story beguiles. Notwithstanding the longueurs of this journey (and its occasional lapses), the book has received wild approval. The author has projects to continue his rapport with his readers. Check out his and sequels.
The cover, above, and the original edition in Swedish on right.
July 7, 2019
Promotions on Smashwords
During the month of July, the following three items will be on promotion at Smashwords.com. The promotion is only available through Smashwords, an "aggregator."
The Battle of Chibi is available in almost any e-format for $1.50 instead of $5.99. Go to this . There is a coupon code and you will probably have to "join" - but it is free.
The Battle of Chibi is my own "take" on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in 23 chapters instead of 120. The ROTK is a very popular novel based on events from the third century in China. The novel itself was "published" in the 16th century. It is read all over East Asia and has spawned movies, tv series, anime, and computer games.
Like The Battle of Chibi, my novel Agamemnon Must Die is based on a classic work. Aeschylus' Oresteia was a dramatic trilogy gathering up myths of the royal family of Mycenae after the Trojan War. This will enable you to get an ebook for free.
The Chinese Spymaster is the first of my attempts at writing a spy novel and it is also free at this .
I made a start of explaining why I chose to write novels based on classics and spy novels in my fledgling
Anyone wishing to leave a comment or ask a question may try to leave a comment on the website or this blog or reach me via
or
Happy reading. If you can spare a moment, a rating or review would be most welcome.
The Battle of Chibi is available in almost any e-format for $1.50 instead of $5.99. Go to this . There is a coupon code and you will probably have to "join" - but it is free.
The Battle of Chibi is my own "take" on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in 23 chapters instead of 120. The ROTK is a very popular novel based on events from the third century in China. The novel itself was "published" in the 16th century. It is read all over East Asia and has spawned movies, tv series, anime, and computer games.
Like The Battle of Chibi, my novel Agamemnon Must Die is based on a classic work. Aeschylus' Oresteia was a dramatic trilogy gathering up myths of the royal family of Mycenae after the Trojan War. This will enable you to get an ebook for free.
The Chinese Spymaster is the first of my attempts at writing a spy novel and it is also free at this .
I made a start of explaining why I chose to write novels based on classics and spy novels in my fledgling
Anyone wishing to leave a comment or ask a question may try to leave a comment on the website or this blog or reach me via
or
Happy reading. If you can spare a moment, a rating or review would be most welcome.
May 27, 2019
The Three-body Problem
This is a brilliant book. It tackles hard science in a manner that one associates with Isaac Asimov. And it weaves the story with incidents from the Cultural Revolution.
But I wish it had more emotion in its characters. The main character faces all life with the same repressed self that she faced the murder of her father, enacted in front of her young eyes by fanatical revolutionaries. A similar stolidness sustains her through her decades under suspicion.
When she replies to a radio signal from the Trisolaris world - despite the clear warning NOT to do so, it appears to this reader to be with a similar sullenness, a flatness of spirit that defies reason.
One feels a need to be "fair" to the author. He has already stretched his art to include consideration of the three body problem - the random periods of hot and cold on the Trisolaris world is perhaps the best way to "show" and not tell about the problem. Their climate changes require that the inhabitants prepare themselves for indeterminate storage each time an emergency is announced. I will only say that the author managed to make getting one's body prepared fantastic and believable. He also discusses with aplomb possible states of certain substances in alternative universes with one, two, and many others more than three dimensions.
But the main character goes on to dispose of others who perhaps get too close to her. Her thin-lipped lack of remorse over these pages chilled my veins. It left an aching emptiness as I followed the author through his story. Perhaps we are from Mars and the author is from Vulcan.
February 4, 2019
The Emperor of All Maladies, a review
S. Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, 2010. A review.
This is a large book. There are nearly 600 pages, including a 26-page index, 59 pages of notes, and a select bibliography. Nonetheless, it is a lively book with prose at times more purple than common in nonfiction writing. The subtitle calls it "A Biography of Cancer." It is well-informed in the history of many branches of medicine as well as bravely philosophical in its inquiries.
It tells of the many forms of cancer from the point of view of an oncologist (S. Mukherjee, B.S. 1993, Stanford, D.Phil. 1997, Magdalen College, M.D. 2000, Harvard). As he treats his patients, he asks: where are we in the war against cancer? how did we get here? is there an end? can this war be won?
Often, the first person voice of a doctor tells of an individual patient, such as Carla, a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher, and mother of three. On May 19, 2004, she asked her doctor to perform tests that might explain a month of worsening headaches, bruises, and lethargy. A lab assistant noted her blood looked watery, pale, and diluted. She was diagnosed in a few days as suffering from “acute lymphoblastic leukemia � a special incarnation of cancer [with] its pace, its acuity, its breathtaking, inexorable arc of growth …� But in 30% of cases, it was curable.
Mukherjee next skips back 57 years to 1947, and starts the story of Sidney Farber, a pediatric pathologist who then conceived of using chemicals in “therapeutic intervention� � chemotherapy. The author next goes back a whole century to 1845 and the autopsy of a slate-layer by John Bennett a Scottish doctor that revealed the patient's blood, full of pus but no sign of infection. Bennett speculated whether or not there had been a “spontaneous suppuration.”�
The author then describes the work R. Virchow, a German doctor familiar with Bennet’s work. Virchow renamed the illness weiss blut � leukemia. Like the Greeks who believed that philosophy began when things were given their proper names, Mukherjee zeroes in on the importance of Virchow’s achievement. The correct naming of this and other forms of cancer was important in bringing focus to the analysis of the disease, which by the end of the nineteenth century led to a study of the cells in a patient’s body.
This insight was important to frame Farber’s astounding work. Concentrating on human cells, Farber explored the chemistry of cell growth: what quickened cell growth or retarded it? Would some chemical analogy work on diseased cells? If science was founded on measurement, then Farber and his team surely proceeded on scientific ground, measuring every detail - blood count, transfusion, fever, etc. The researchers narrowed in on the complex vitamin B12 and variations of folic acid critical for the growth and development of normal cells. How would they affect the growth and development of cancer cells? They tracked the treatment of twins and pursued therapies even if one twin did not respond as well as the other.
They observed that several patients experienced partial remissions before succumbing to a variation of their illness. Cancer cells not only multiplied to overwhelm the bodies of their victims, but when checked by one or another of the drugs Farber and his team used, appeared to regroup and multiply again. The cells mutated spontaneously and evolved by the same mechanism that enabled life on earth to develop—natural selection.
Observing late in the nineteenth century that the removal of breast cancer tumors often resulted in the reappearance of the disease elsewhere had led William Halsted to invent and refine the radical mastectomy. (The brutality implicit in the elaboration of this therapeutic pathway had a pale reflection in that pursued for prostate cancer.)
Radiation therapy would not be widely accepted until after the work of Pierre and Marie Curie in the early 20th century - after their exposure to radioactive material showed that radiation could not only cure cancer but also cause it.
The chemotherapy that Farber pioneered inspired Min Chiu Li and Roy Hertz when they faced patients suffering from cancer of the placenta. Li, in particular, became obsessed with treating his patients even when their cancer appeared to have been eliminated. Li wanted to pursue the chemotherapy until the blood show absolutely no trace of the hormone that diseased cells secrete. He ignored the toxicity of the therapy to the patient and thus was fired. Not until five years later was it found that in the patients he had treated to the point of zero, there were no relapses. He had unwittingly achieved the first chemotherapeutic cure of cancer in adults.
Farber’s work on antifolates won him fame in the 1940s and 50s. He also grasped that much of the war on cancer needed to be waged outside hospitals and labs. To arouse a reluctant nation to support research into cancer required a political crusade. He teamed up with Albert and Mary Lasker, philanthropists. "To Farber's evangelistic tambourine, [Mary] Lasker added her own drumbeats of enthusiasm."
The doctor championed cancer research and one of his patients, Einar Gustafson was renamed Jimmy for what became the Jimmy Fund. The Farber–Lasker combination brought together political lobbyists and a strategist well-informed in the science. The team visited Congress regularly to lobby for funds for cancer research.
A major achievement of Mukherjee’s book is that to the fluent description of the doctors, patients, cancers, and cures he brought also an alert perception of the sociopolitical environment. As the March of Dimes gave a great boost to medical and cancer research, so the tobacco industry sought to thwart public health efforts against smoking. It rested its case ultimately on the contention science did not show that smoking caused cancer. [This was not the last time a basic requirement of hard science was used to thwart public health policy.]
The search for a cause, a virus, or germ that could be exhibited as the origin of cancer might have foundered on semantics. Could there be an exogamous cause for a disease that sprang from endogamous mutation? Broad history was anecdotal: during the nineteenth century, cancer of the alimentary tract was widespread, ‘no doubt� due to poor (misunderstood) hygiene; in the twentieth century, lung cancer was undeniably rampant, was this the result of cigarettes being given to soldiers in the world wars to boost morale?
The author shows how relevant statistics can be collected. The introduction of the national health system in the UK in 1948 required a registration of 40,000 doctors. Their death statistics shed perhaps helpful light. Between 1951 and 1954, for instance, 36 doctors died of lung cancer. Every one of them had smoked.
The debate over the cause of lung cancer continued in the US. In 1965, Bradford Hill, enunciated principles to guide epidemiologist to show a connection between possible cause and effect: was the relationship strong, was it consistent, specific, plausible, coherent, did it increase with time or 'biological gradient'? That same year, Congress passed the act requiring the label, “Caution: cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.�
Halfway through the book, the author quotes William Carlos Williams, “If a man dies, it is because death has first possessed his imagination� to introduce the work of an oncologist in “repossessing� his patients� imagination from death. It demanded an act of “exquisite measuring,� for too much and “imagination might bloat into delusion� while too little “might asphyxiate hope altogether.�
Such was the case with Susan Sonntag whose first doctor was “totally pessimistic.� (Her story was captured by her son’s memoir.) She battled for months to find a doctor “whose attitude was vastly more measured and who was willing to negotiate with her psyche.� Of the clinicians that the author trained with, Thomas Lynch, who treated lung cancer patients was such a master of “medical nuance.� He recognized that a patient who had survived the removal of a large lung mass was “catatonic with fear.� The doctor spent an hour talking about the surgery, her family, and a grandchild nearby, before broaching the subject of recurrence or metastasis, perhaps even a fifty or sixty percent chance. There are ways, Lynch said, “that we will tend to it when that happens.� When not if, care not cure.
How does an author of a biography end a book in which the subject seems far from being terminated? When Mukherjee began the book, he thought it might have ended with Carla’s relapse and death, but no. She had undergone five years of chemotherapy without a relapse, which meant she was as close to cured as she could be. So he closes with Atossa, a Persian queen who was diagnosed with what was most likely breast cancer. With her case in mind, he recapitulates the treatments/cures that have been developed since 500 BC. Mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, genetic sequencing, and targeted drugs � not so much curing the disease as prolonging life. The scientist is hopeful, the doctor is philosophical.
The Emperor of All Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 and was made into a PBS miniseries in 2015.
September 25, 2018
The Chinese Spymaster
My first spy novel is free through October 4, 2018, at . The code isBP72R. You'll have to sign in at the site but it won't cost anything. (Writers should know about this site anyway!)
Please leave a comment or review if you can!
Please leave a comment or review if you can!
July 6, 2018
Book Reading - Six Stories
These six stories show some characters from the Shu and Wu kingdoms. Liu Bei, thewarlord who dedicated himself to the defense of the Han Dynasty, and his oath brothers Zhang Fei and Guan Yu as well as their brilliantstrategist Zhuge Liang and their champion Zhao Zilong.
1. The Peach Orchard Oath. The story of the oath that Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu took at the beginning of the Huangjin rebellion became the standard for all associations not based on family or locality. Some scholars think that the paradigm was even borrowed by those who formed secret societies, those 18th-century forerunnersof the Hongs and the Tongs. [The image is that of the cover of the book.]
2. Borrowing Arrows. This story shows the cleverness of the strategist for the Shu kingdom, Zhuge Liang. The movie version Chib, Red Cliff, lingers over this story. [The image is from the Internet.]
3. Conjuring the East Wind. This story is represented by the image of a Zhuge Liang who is larger than life (suggesting a paranormal power?). In the dead of winter when the prevailing winds are from the North, he calls up the East Wind to help the armies of Shu and Wu attack Cao Cao who is on the north bank of the Yangzi.
4. The Bride as Bait. When Liu Bei's wife dies, the schemers in the Wu kingdom propose a marriage with their Princess in order to lure him into their clutches so they can get a large province back. Again Zhuge Liang turns things to the advantage of the Shu kingdom.
5. The clever strategist provides advice, in the form of three pouches with "emergency instructions," that suffices for the fifth story as well - The Princess Saves the Day.
The movie Red Cliff focusses on the battle [A. D. 208] which owed the final victory to the charismatic leadership of Zhou Yu, the Commander in Chief of the Wu kingdom.
[The image is that of a movie poster. ZhouYu is the middle figure.]
6. The sixth story is of Zhou Yu's funeral, at which his friend, rival, and nemesis - Zhuge Liang delivers an oration.
I am pleased to announce the reading of these stories at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 21 at the Helling Library in Nevada City, CA.
This free reading is sponsored by the Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra (CATS). Visit their website .
1. The Peach Orchard Oath. The story of the oath that Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu took at the beginning of the Huangjin rebellion became the standard for all associations not based on family or locality. Some scholars think that the paradigm was even borrowed by those who formed secret societies, those 18th-century forerunnersof the Hongs and the Tongs. [The image is that of the cover of the book.]
2. Borrowing Arrows. This story shows the cleverness of the strategist for the Shu kingdom, Zhuge Liang. The movie version Chib, Red Cliff, lingers over this story. [The image is from the Internet.]
3. Conjuring the East Wind. This story is represented by the image of a Zhuge Liang who is larger than life (suggesting a paranormal power?). In the dead of winter when the prevailing winds are from the North, he calls up the East Wind to help the armies of Shu and Wu attack Cao Cao who is on the north bank of the Yangzi.
4. The Bride as Bait. When Liu Bei's wife dies, the schemers in the Wu kingdom propose a marriage with their Princess in order to lure him into their clutches so they can get a large province back. Again Zhuge Liang turns things to the advantage of the Shu kingdom.
5. The clever strategist provides advice, in the form of three pouches with "emergency instructions," that suffices for the fifth story as well - The Princess Saves the Day.
The movie Red Cliff focusses on the battle [A. D. 208] which owed the final victory to the charismatic leadership of Zhou Yu, the Commander in Chief of the Wu kingdom.
[The image is that of a movie poster. ZhouYu is the middle figure.]
6. The sixth story is of Zhou Yu's funeral, at which his friend, rival, and nemesis - Zhuge Liang delivers an oration.
I am pleased to announce the reading of these stories at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 21 at the Helling Library in Nevada City, CA.
This free reading is sponsored by the Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra (CATS). Visit their website .
January 29, 2018
Simplicity and children's books
This book is addressed to children aged five to ten. It is beautifully produced with illustrations by the author herself. The story is uncomplicated. A poor girl, Padme, grows up in arich household. Her task is to sweep which is all she does, all day long, all life long, for her demanding employers. But she is grateful to have work and a place to live.
One day, a great man arrives. This is theBuddhahimself, who is gracious and cheerful. After a meal, he invites everyone into the garden where he teaches about life, suffering, and meditation. Everyone receives a blessing. Padme asks how she could meditate in her very busy life - there is always something to clean or dust. The Buddha teaches her about meditation while working - to work and live mindfully, in meditation.
The Buddha returns to teach another lesson. That caring for others, concern for their suffering and their happiness, can be a prayer. That a heart filled with such prayer is an indication of greatness.
This story is perhaps what five-year-olds need. Stories are perhaps what ten-year-olds need. Mindfulness and compassion are what we all need.
Time was, we had daughters of between five and ten. I tried to read to them and sometimes succeeded. I remember Goodnight Moon and Charlotte's Web and Where the Wild Things Are. I think fondly of The Phantom Toll-Booth and of Holes. They grew up, naturally. For a while, there were the Harry Potter books.
Now they are on their own. May mindfulness and compassion fill their lives.
December 20, 2017
Historical fiction - Sarah, by Marek Halter
This is an ambitious book.It takes us into the mind of its characters, particular Sarah's. "She did not need to look down to know that her tunic was stained. She could feel the fine woolen cloth sticking wetly to her thighs and knees ...Fear, disgust, and denial mingled in her mind."
Was it physical revulsion or youthful rebellion or ... that drove this twelve year against what seems to be the tradition of her society when"Bridal blood" appears at the onset of puberty. This sets her off on a willful rebellion against her father's plans for her betrothal. But this reader cannot relate to this - nowhere does the author provide a hint WHY Sarah resented her predicament. "In exchangefor a few shekels of silver or a few measures of barley," she would be given to a man. Should someone reading this in the 21st-century project into the story a present-day motive?
IchbiSum-Usur, her father, notices that she has a stubbornstreak asstrongas his own but Sarah does not appear motivated simply to thwart her father.All the details regarding oaks and terebinth, the ointment of cypress that a Sumerian groom puts on the brow of his betrothed at their nuptials, the odors of almond, orange peel, sesame seed oil, the olive oil in woolentampons -appear as smoke and mirrors to distract the reader.
The poor thing is twelve years old and reads in the eyes of her prospective groom his judgment of her - "thin, graceless, without breasts orhips." It seems creepy that a wedding is planned for her and this man, but we don't have any inkling that this is what propels her to flee her home (in a posh section of town reserved for Sumerian nobility) to find a kassaptu, a witch, who could sell her herbs to prevent fertility. (The word reportedly appears in Sumerian incantations against witchcraft.)
Sarah's rebellion, in that it is unexplained, does mirrorAbraham's against the traditions of his own tribe - the many gods, made of wood or clay, that even his father Terah worshipped. This reader was left with the impression that his arguments against the many gods make more sense than his faith in the One, invisible and unrepresented, who speaks very occasionally to him. The same wilfulness, lack of clear motivation, shrouds both main characters. For Abraham, it was a leap of faith. A reader of this novel does not expect to make a similar effort to follow the story.
As a result, the book lacks the "why" that would carry a story, but not a plot. The author relies on the traditional, Biblical story for aguide to what happens and when. Thus the narrative moves along despite the absence of motivation that a reader can detect in the main characters.
Many other things are brought to life in this book. Sarah's embarrassment over Lot's infatuation, her distrust of Eliezer of Damascus - a boy thatAbrahambrings into his trust, her intriguing ambiguity over Pharoah's advances. Despite the book's brevity, each of these motifs leaves the reader with a sense of understanding - but not the desperate resort to those herbs.
The author has stretched to cover all the high points of the Biblical story and added many details regarding ancient history. This is entirely an author's prerogative. It is also the fate of those who write historical fiction to have to decide how much history to include. This is a matter of judgment, but thereare consequences.
Choosing to make Sarah a Sumerian is a huge step that allows the author toavoidthe question of whether and how Sarah is related to Abraham. Tradition speaks of her as having the same father as Abraham and there is withinsome circles much anguish over the taboos thathad to be finessed.
Making her the daughter of a Sumerian nobleman solves this. Sarah is not only from a different family but from a different people, a different civilization. But it raises other questions. The Sumerians are obscure butnotso obscure as to preclude raising otherquestions regarding the timeline of the events retold in this novel.
The Sumerian aspect becomes entangled with Halter's choice to tell his story with several appearances byMelchizedek. This is anenigmatic figure about which Jewish, Christian and other traditions have an uneasy body of knowledge. Such a figure might have been left in the mists of legend. But he lives and breathes in this novel with a remark that suggests he is the first of the Hebrews. If he is a "historical" figure, when did he live and was it any time that made an association with Abraham possible or likely?
Can one ignore these questions on grounds of an author's discretion?
I believe that this depends. Everything an author writes builds a world. If the author invests his story with pieces of Sumerian facts or lore, then "consistency" requires that the world created jives with known facts. An author is free to choose to write fantasy, for instance, but to write about Polish knights or Luftwaffe battle tactics begins the process of circumscribing his novel, his artistic freedom. In choosing to write ofMelchizedekas the king of Salem, who called his people "Hebrews," Halter brings the question of known facts upon himself.
Not an expert on the history or legends of Melchizedek, I am however aware as Halter must be that tradition makes him a son or grandson of Noah through Shem. This is most inconvenient for a historical Abraham - usually dated around 2000 B.C. But a "historical" Melchizedek must be dated close to 2500 B.C. - if we accept the tradition that he was somehow related to Shem. And it should be noted that Shem as the great-grandson of Enoch, whose life overlapped with his as well as Adam's, is a link to the Creation. Halter has wisely chosen to disregard this complication, but he himself invited this by inserting so much of Melchizedek into his story.
I found understandable Sarah's love-hate feelings towards Hagar. She was a gift from Pharoah who wanted nothing left that would remind him of the woman Abraham passed off as his sister. The picture of a rambunctious Ishmael is likewise engaging though brief. But what is one to make of Sarah's request in the prologue when she is on her deathbed - that both Isaac and Ishmael would gather with all the people at her tomb? Nothing in the story shed further light.
Finally, in the mystery that, since Kierkegaard,one confronts with fear and trembling - the sacrifice of Isaac that Ywvh asks of Abraham - Halter has given Sarah an enviable role in resolving this heart-rending turn of events.
Was it physical revulsion or youthful rebellion or ... that drove this twelve year against what seems to be the tradition of her society when"Bridal blood" appears at the onset of puberty. This sets her off on a willful rebellion against her father's plans for her betrothal. But this reader cannot relate to this - nowhere does the author provide a hint WHY Sarah resented her predicament. "In exchangefor a few shekels of silver or a few measures of barley," she would be given to a man. Should someone reading this in the 21st-century project into the story a present-day motive?
IchbiSum-Usur, her father, notices that she has a stubbornstreak asstrongas his own but Sarah does not appear motivated simply to thwart her father.All the details regarding oaks and terebinth, the ointment of cypress that a Sumerian groom puts on the brow of his betrothed at their nuptials, the odors of almond, orange peel, sesame seed oil, the olive oil in woolentampons -appear as smoke and mirrors to distract the reader.
The poor thing is twelve years old and reads in the eyes of her prospective groom his judgment of her - "thin, graceless, without breasts orhips." It seems creepy that a wedding is planned for her and this man, but we don't have any inkling that this is what propels her to flee her home (in a posh section of town reserved for Sumerian nobility) to find a kassaptu, a witch, who could sell her herbs to prevent fertility. (The word reportedly appears in Sumerian incantations against witchcraft.)
Sarah's rebellion, in that it is unexplained, does mirrorAbraham's against the traditions of his own tribe - the many gods, made of wood or clay, that even his father Terah worshipped. This reader was left with the impression that his arguments against the many gods make more sense than his faith in the One, invisible and unrepresented, who speaks very occasionally to him. The same wilfulness, lack of clear motivation, shrouds both main characters. For Abraham, it was a leap of faith. A reader of this novel does not expect to make a similar effort to follow the story.
As a result, the book lacks the "why" that would carry a story, but not a plot. The author relies on the traditional, Biblical story for aguide to what happens and when. Thus the narrative moves along despite the absence of motivation that a reader can detect in the main characters.
Many other things are brought to life in this book. Sarah's embarrassment over Lot's infatuation, her distrust of Eliezer of Damascus - a boy thatAbrahambrings into his trust, her intriguing ambiguity over Pharoah's advances. Despite the book's brevity, each of these motifs leaves the reader with a sense of understanding - but not the desperate resort to those herbs.
The author has stretched to cover all the high points of the Biblical story and added many details regarding ancient history. This is entirely an author's prerogative. It is also the fate of those who write historical fiction to have to decide how much history to include. This is a matter of judgment, but thereare consequences.
Choosing to make Sarah a Sumerian is a huge step that allows the author toavoidthe question of whether and how Sarah is related to Abraham. Tradition speaks of her as having the same father as Abraham and there is withinsome circles much anguish over the taboos thathad to be finessed.
Making her the daughter of a Sumerian nobleman solves this. Sarah is not only from a different family but from a different people, a different civilization. But it raises other questions. The Sumerians are obscure butnotso obscure as to preclude raising otherquestions regarding the timeline of the events retold in this novel.
The Sumerian aspect becomes entangled with Halter's choice to tell his story with several appearances byMelchizedek. This is anenigmatic figure about which Jewish, Christian and other traditions have an uneasy body of knowledge. Such a figure might have been left in the mists of legend. But he lives and breathes in this novel with a remark that suggests he is the first of the Hebrews. If he is a "historical" figure, when did he live and was it any time that made an association with Abraham possible or likely?
Can one ignore these questions on grounds of an author's discretion?
I believe that this depends. Everything an author writes builds a world. If the author invests his story with pieces of Sumerian facts or lore, then "consistency" requires that the world created jives with known facts. An author is free to choose to write fantasy, for instance, but to write about Polish knights or Luftwaffe battle tactics begins the process of circumscribing his novel, his artistic freedom. In choosing to write ofMelchizedekas the king of Salem, who called his people "Hebrews," Halter brings the question of known facts upon himself.
Not an expert on the history or legends of Melchizedek, I am however aware as Halter must be that tradition makes him a son or grandson of Noah through Shem. This is most inconvenient for a historical Abraham - usually dated around 2000 B.C. But a "historical" Melchizedek must be dated close to 2500 B.C. - if we accept the tradition that he was somehow related to Shem. And it should be noted that Shem as the great-grandson of Enoch, whose life overlapped with his as well as Adam's, is a link to the Creation. Halter has wisely chosen to disregard this complication, but he himself invited this by inserting so much of Melchizedek into his story.
I found understandable Sarah's love-hate feelings towards Hagar. She was a gift from Pharoah who wanted nothing left that would remind him of the woman Abraham passed off as his sister. The picture of a rambunctious Ishmael is likewise engaging though brief. But what is one to make of Sarah's request in the prologue when she is on her deathbed - that both Isaac and Ishmael would gather with all the people at her tomb? Nothing in the story shed further light.
Finally, in the mystery that, since Kierkegaard,one confronts with fear and trembling - the sacrifice of Isaac that Ywvh asks of Abraham - Halter has given Sarah an enviable role in resolving this heart-rending turn of events.
