Lilah by Marek Halter

In 397 BC in Susa, the opulent capital of the Persian empire where the Jews are living in exile, a young woman seems destined for a happy life.

Her name is Lilah

Lilah is due to marry Antinoes, a great Persian warrior well known at the king's court. But her beloved brother Ezra, whom she has been close to since childhood, is opposed to this marriage with a foreigner. If Lilah insists, she will have to renounce Ezra, and that is something that she cannot do. Fore she senses that he has been chosen by God to lead the exiled Jews to Jerusalem and, after centuries of displacement, revive the laws of Moses: laws which promote justice and give human life a meaning.

Abandoning the prospect of a golden future, Lilah urges her brother to leave for Jerusalem and gives him new hope that a return to the Promised Land is possible. But Ezra, blinded by faith, orders the rejection of all foreign wives. At the risk of losing the one person who still has left in her life, Lilah opposes her brother's fanaticism, thereby ensuring the survival of the women and children condemned to leave the city. But her opposition comes at great personal cost...

This is the third book in the Canaan trilogy after Zipporah, and unfortunately this is the weakest of the trilogy.

This story focuses on the little known story of Ezra, who led the people of Israel back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. Growing up Ezra had been incredibly close to his sister, Lilah and the Persian boy Antinoes. Antinoes has grown up to become a famous warrior who is still in love with Lilah, but the relationship between Antinoes and Ezra has completely disintegrated. Lilah is determined that she is going to marry Antinoes, but there is not only her brother's opposition to get past, there is also opposition from the very scary queen, who has been known to throw people who have betrayed her, or who she just doesn't like, to her pet lions!

So the first half of the book focuses on Antinoes and Lilah as they try to find a way to be together, and then accept that they are to be parted, as Ezra is granted approval from the King to be allowed to lead the Jewish people to Jerusalem, and Lilah must go with him.

The second half of the book not only changes focus to the journey to Jerusalem, and then what happens once the people get there, but it also completely changes format. The first half is broken into chapters, whereas the second half changes to being a letter written by Lilah to Antinoes, a letter that she knows he will never actually receive or read. This change of format doesn't really work at all in my opinion, and only seems to make the book feel disjointed and uneven.

The other thing that really through me was at one point the Queen was getting massaged with oils, and the author listed several different oils, and then said Eucalyptus. Now, as far as I am aware Eucalyptus is native to Australia, with a couple of species being found in New Guinea, Indonesia and Philippines, but there is no way known that Eucalyptus trees were available in Persia in 357 BC. It was just one of those facts that when I read it, I was completely thrown out of the story.

After quite enjoying the first book in this trilogy, and mostly liking the second, this was a disappointingly uninspiring conclusion to the trilogy.

Rating 2.5/5


Other Blogger's Thoughts:

Age 30 - A Year of Books

Zipporah by Marek Halter

Set over three thousand years ago, a passionate love story divides an ancient world.

Her name is Zipporah.

A black child, she was found on the shores of the Red Sea, and given a name that meant 'bird'.

But, because of the colour of her skin, no man wanted her as his wife. Then, as she was drawing water at a well, she met a stranger. An outcast like herself, he was a fugitive.

His name was Moses.

A beautiful woman and a generous lover, Zipporah was to share Moses' destiny. Together they set out on an epic journey across the desert to Egypt, where they would confront the Pharaoh and beg him to set their people free.

But Zipporah's love for Moses condemned her too: for among the Hebrews of the Exodus her status as a black woman was to have catastrophic consequences.

This is the second book in the Canaan trilogy by Marek Halter, following on from Sarah, and once again the author is focusing on an important figure in the Old Testament, Moses, and his wife Zipporah.

As far as the characters go, Halter made some quite interesting choices in relation to Zipporah - there is very little known of her in the Old Testament, other than how she met Moses at a well, and that she is the daughter of Jethro. In this book, Halter chooses to make her a Cushite, so that she is much darker skinned than the people around her, and makes her the adopted daughter of Jethro - the daughter of his heart - therefore causing jealousy within her adopted household. This also has the effect of making her a stranger among the people, a theme that is mentioned more than once, particularly with Moses' experiences initially when he comes to live with the Midianites, and then later again when he returns to Egypt. It also introduces the spectre of racial issues and of familial disharmony that is echoed later as Zipporah meets Moses' true family.

The initial meetings and courtships of Moses and Zipporah were well written, and the chemistry between the two was quite strong but this was not strong enough to carry the whole book.

There were several things in this novel that did not quite sit right with me - for example Moses' and Zipporah's relationships seemed kind of unusual because they were not married until quite some time after they had had children, and also in the events at the conclusion of the novel. It also seemed that the author was trying too hard to keep on trying to mirror Zipporah's experiences in Moses' life and vice versa.

I wondered at times when reading this story if at times the novelist couldn't quite decide if he was really telling Moses' story or if he was more interested in Zipporah's story - not that those two aspects were incompatible - but just that the two threads didn't seem to be connected all that well, particularly in the second half of the book when the story seemed to lose a bit of steam in some ways, with some parts of the story being quite simplistic at times.

I guess the bonus in taking the characters like the women of the Old Testament is that so little is known about them, so there is a fair amount of freedom to write stories within the restrictions of the little that we do know of them, and the well known stories of their men folk.

Once again, reading this story did make me want to pull out the trusty Bible, which last saw light of day when I read Sarah, and have a quick read to see what was known and what was completely fiction.

For me, whilst this book was interesting, it wasn't great, and I think that there were some issues with pacing, and tying the major strands of story together. There is one more book in the Canaan trilogy, called Lilah, and I am sufficiently interested to want to read it. Hopefully there won't be the same kind of issues in the next book.

Rating 3.5/5

Edited to correct an error...thanks Zeek!

Sarah by Marek Halter

The first novel in a dazzling new trilogy about the women of the Old Testament by internationally bestselling author Marek Halter.

The story of Sarah--and of history itself--begins in the cradle of civilization: the Sumerian city-state of Ur, a land of desert heat, towering gardens, and immense wealth. The daughter of a powerful lord, Sarah is raised in great luxury, but balks at the arranged marriage her father has planned for her.

The groom is handsome and a nobleman, but on their wedding day, Sarah panics and impulsively flees to the vast, empty marshes outside the city walls. There she meets a young man, Abram, a member of a nomadic tribe of outsiders. Drawn to this exotic stranger, Sarah spends the night with him, but reluctantly returns to her father's house. But on her return, still desperate to avoid another wedding, she drinks a poisonous potion that will make her barren and thus unfit for marriage.

Many years later, Abram's people return to Ur, and he discovers that the lost, rebellious girl from the marsh has been transformed into the most splendid and revered woman in Sumeria--the high priestess of the goddess Ishtar. But the memory of their night together has always haunted Sarah, and she gives up her exalted life to join Abram's tribe and follow the one true God, an invisible deity who speaks only to Abram. It is then that her journey truly begins--a journey that holds the key to her remarkable destiny as the mother of nations.

From the great ziggurat of Ishtar and the fertile valleys of Canaan to the bedchamber of the mighty Pharaoh himself, Sarah's story reveals an ancient world full of beauty, intrigue, and miracles.

Last year, one of my favourite reads was The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Shortly afterwards I read another novel with a biblical theme (In the Shadow of the Ark), which I thought was average, and I was then a bit reluctant to read any more biblical fiction because I didn't want to have any more average experiences.

I can't remember where I first saw this one mentioned (might have been on my Amazon recommends list but I am not really sure), I was definitely interested, and gradually over the last couple of months my interest has been steadily growing until finally I got the book from the library.

This book tells the story of Sarah, the eventual wife of Abraham. When we first meet Sarai she is a young girl, on the verge of womanhood. We get to see the ceremonies that the author thinks a young girl might have been subjected to as she becomes a woman. At the first sign of her blood, the time has come for her to be married off to the man that he has chosen for her. Sarai balks at this choice and runs away as before the ceremony can be completed, and she meets a young man, Abram. Because he is from the nomadic tribes, there is no way he can be an acceptable husband for her, but he has found his way into her heart. When they are separated, Sarai takes steps that are very nearly tragic.

The next phase of the book deals with Sarai's life as a priestess of the goddess Ishtar, with more details on ceremonies. She is the most beautiful of the priestesses and is about to be granted the highest of honours when Abram reappears in her life, and has to choose between life as an exulted priestess or as the wife of a nomadic man who lives in tents.

As Sarai makes her choice, her earlier actions come back to haunt her, and as Sarai becomes older she despairs of ever having her dream fulfilled, despite the promises of Abram's God, and especially as the trials of their marriage are an increasingly heavy burden.

This story is at once a familiar tale, and yet the author manages to make the tale that he has built around the Bible story both fresh and interesting. There is a lot of detail about the every day life of both the citizens of Ur, the nomadic people, life in Egypt, as well as some pretty steamy content at times.

I guess I know that the author has me interested in the story when I pull out the dust covered Bible in my house and read the relevant chapters! Overall an interesting retelling of a well known story.

Rating 4/5