The Bible of Clay
A Novel
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کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
March 3, 2008
International bestseller Navarro (The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud) wades back into the religious artifact suspense pond, but this time she's pretty much dead in the water with too many unpleasant characters, repetitive exposition, a plodding plot and flat unimaginative prose (perhaps the fault of the translator?). In Iraq, shortly before the current war, Iraqi archeologist Clara Tannenberg announces an incredible find: two cuneiform clay tablets that refer to another set of tablets that record the biblical patriarch Abraham's story of the creation of the earth. The twist is that this clay bible with Abraham's narrative was written a thousand years before the papyrus version we know today. This discovery, one character asserts, will \x93change history, with repercussions in religion and even politics.\x94 How this will happen and what the repercussions will be are never really explained, as a group of off-the-shelf evil Nazis vie with Clara's thuggish grandfather and a few other interested parties to find, seize, steal or sell the clay tablets.
February 15, 2008
Best-selling Spanish author Navarro ("The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud") crafts two fiction genres into one novel. On the surface, we have another religious thriller about a cache of sacred texts that will change all of Christendom; in this case, a version of the Bible dictated by Abraham to an apprentice scribe. The predominating story, however, is a revenge tale, and that is where the novel becomes a suspense thriller. There are two sets of four people. Each group consists of lifelong friends, committed to a monumental goal, bearing the load of a tremendous secret, and with seemingly unlimited resources. One group is after the clay tablets; the other has been seeking to exact revenge for 60 years. The backstory linking our groups depicts Nazi atrocities in unexpected and gruesome detail. As the book is set mostly in Iraq in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion, the author benefits from historical hindsight; however, her European political perspective at times seems more pontification than dialog. In the end, there's plenty of action and revenge, but no religious upheaval. Like her previous novel, the denouement is tragic and unsatisfying. Recommended for larger popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 12/07.]Laura A.B. Cifelli, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., FL
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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