The Preservationist

Rating:
Summary: Just read it!
Review: In The Preservationist, David Maine takes one of the Old Testament's most fanciful, seemingly allegorical episodes and brings it kicking and bleating to life. Maine takes the story of Noah's ark and dares to fill in the gaps, rendering the logistics of Noah's (or Noe's) feat surprisingly credible while grounding the narrative in fresh, earthy detail. What ultimately makes this novel more than a precarious literary stunt is Maine's deft characterizations--the women, in particular, inject the tale with sly resourcefulness and dry wit. The Preservationist is darkly funny and often irreverent, but its timely themes (which address family, faith, and the very meaning of life) pack a deceptively powerful punch.

Rating:
Summary: A Book for the Non-Believer as well as the Believer
Review: Noe, at six hundred years old, while out searching for a lost lamb, has been chosen; his God, Yahweh, has come to him in a vision and instructed him to build a boat and to prepare for a deluge.

Noe, with his wife, must gather his sons together; the oldest Cham and wife, Ilya, Sem and his wife Bera and the youngest Japheth with Mirn. They must build a very large ark to hold two of every living species that they can collect, store provisions before the rains start and be ready for a very long voyage.

This first published novel by David Maine is different. Different is good. Therefore, this book is good. However, it is much more - it is a readable, if not a familiar bible story, told in a very familiar style for the 21st century. To explain his reference material, the author notes that "Quotations are taken from the 1914 printing of the Douay Bible, translated by the English College at Rheims in 1582 and first published at Douay in 1609. All names are spelled as in that edition."

The reader is right there, inside each character's head, as the trials and tribulations unfold. What are these people feeling? Living at such close quarters, young and old, animals, insects, reptiles and humans, they experience many emotions. The author reveals to the reader what he thinks would be overwhelming the immediate family members in this confinement, especially the feelings toward Noe. During the early part of the voyage, Ilya imparts passionate insight in a modern colloquial reflection:
"To be honest, when the rain started I was shocked. I had supposed my father-in-law to be something of a crackpot, though admittedly a compelling one. I never expected him to be right."

The morbid conditions of imprisonment in the boat during the deluge "...collecting buckets of dung from the holds" the dangers of firing a cookstove so that "Noe shudders: one solid wave would pitch those coals into the tar...", the foul air, "...the relentless swinging of the boat..." are the no-holds-barred style of Maine that makes his telling of this story so vivid.

Sem is delighted that after six months "Just like that the clouds start shredding, sky showing through. I swear I had forgotten what blue looked like, but there it is. I start crying then. We all do." The boat settles into mud and silt. Noe ventures out and on his return commands the family set about releasing the cargo. A marvelous and picturesque representation by the author of what happened next:

"The animals bolted, a snarling, trumpeting host. Elephants squelched knee-deep in marshy soil; big cats slunk away like sinners; buffalo and wildebeest lumbered off. Giraffes ambled, zebras trotted, wolves darted. Rhinos stepped carefully, shortsightedly, like old people."

How could a reader not be enchanted by Maine's words, believer or not?
After a year at their settlement, the human and animal population has thrived and increased; life is good. Noe, while walking in the hills receives another message from Yahweh, his God. Noe is to send his sons and their wives out into the world to explore, settle and populate. The sons and wives have matured and become settled in their ways, but they heed their father's wishes and prepare to leave. Mirn, the wife of Japheth, who was thought to be the immature and brainless one, has obviously grown emotionally and intellectually. She muses and predicts to Japheth:
"Of course people will tell something, it was the end of the world after all. A story like that won't be forgotten. But things will get added and left out and confused, until in a little while people won't even know what's true and what's been made up".

Even those of us who are Christian non-believers will be charmed with this telling and with the style of the author David Maine. A small book in size but even the jacket design and cover by Jonathan Bennett is creative and adds to the originality of the presentation and the contents.

Rating:
Summary: Simply a great read
Review: This is a remarkable first novel. Let's be frank -- it's a remarkable novel. Art does not need to do this, but Maine has written a work of art that invites its reader to become better, to understand the world more, for having read it.