Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis, 2)

Rating:
Summary: Astonishing retelling of the biblical story of Rebekah
Review: "Rebekah" tells the intimate life's story of the Old Testament woman of the same name: wife of Isaac, mother of Jacob and Esau. The woman who is so widely familiar to anyone who's ever attended Sunday school is also so little known. Orson Scott Card, acting as historian and believer as well as novelist, uses a few chapters from the book of Genesis as the jumping-off point in a quest to imagine the story of Rebekah's life. What did she go through that would eventually lead a real, flesh-and-blood woman to have the faith she had, but also to commit her famous deception of her prophet-husband by jockeying her favorite son into the inheritance in place of Esau, the rightful heir?

After "Sarah," the first in series-happy OS Card's "Women of Genesis" series, I had been a little disappointed. Card has long been trying to overcome his sci-fi fame to direct some attention to other genres like his religious-themed novels. He often does this by blurring the lines between the two, adding religious miracle to fantasy and science fiction on the spectrum of speculative fiction. However, even with such as "Stone Tables", he had succeeded brilliantly in showing he could drive a historical religious novel with no traditional sci-fi or fantasy theme with the same gripping character-driven plotting that has made his sci-fi novels so well-loved. Unfortunately, "Sarah" seemed like something of a misstep, where the good and happy characters were brightly delineated from the evil and miserable ones, at the expense of a compelling story. But be warned, anyone who has so far let the first episode's flaws prevent them from picking up Round Two. In "Rebekah," Card has regained his balance and is in top form again. This time, the bad guys behave pretty well and the good guys get pretty bad, everyone struggles, and any moral clarity has to be well-earned if it can be come by at all. Although the difference could be blamed on the source material, since the novels follow a mandate of at least loose consistency with the relevant passages from the biblical Genesis, there is still a clear distinction in choices made by the author. After all, "Sarah" avoided the most difficult, and juiciest, story opportunity by ending right before Abraham's attempt to sacrifice Isaac, while Rebekah's toughest moment in the afore-mentioned "switcheroo" is made to seem just a natural continuation of a lifetime of moral dilemma.

The issue of both biblical consistency and relative lack thereof is actually fascinating. Card takes some pretty well-justified creative liberties to fill in the quite substantial gaps the scriptures leave in the life-story of Rebekah, Isaac, and their various family, that form a rich source of surprising complexity in the family and character dynamics. Occasionally this comes in the form of fun feminist and otherwise irreverent retorts to the male-dominated Bible, but more often it takes shape as a much more convoluted background to explain the biblically depicted idiosyncrasies in this holy family. And I really mean convoluted; Card can rival "Memento" for the cleverness with which he sets up personal relationships and chains of consequences that obliquely dovetail in ways you suddenly realize were inevitable. Also clever is the consistency with which he addresses the prevalent theme of faith in a miraculous God from the point of view of the main characters. Anyone, regardless of personal beliefs, could read and enjoy the novel and accept that the characters' perception of divine action makes just as much sense as any character seeing the world through the lens of his own preconceptions. At the same time, Card paints a fair depiction of earnest believers and their honest morality and faith, that forms a more compelling and understandable explanation of Judeo-Christian faith than most literature explicitly intended for that purpose. Nevertheless, though Rebekah's God comforts, he does so sparingly. In "Rebekah" as often in life, there are no easy answers, no enemies without endearing qualities and family connections, and no loved ones without mutually inconsistent priorities and goals that are apparently insurmountable more often than not. For being based on a story so familiar, this novel is far above most from-scratch novels in suspending the reader's wonder in how things will turn out next.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put it Down
Review: I believe I read this book in record time for me. It only took a few nights to read it--although I must confess that one night I got in bed at 6:00 just so I could read it.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put it Down
Review: I believe I read this book in record time for me. It only took a few nights to read it--although I must confess that one night I got in bed at 6:00 just so I could read it.

Rating:
Summary: Another good Card book
Review: I bought this book for my wife for Christmas, and yet I was the one who read it in one sitting the day after. A must-read for anyone who is a fan of Card's characterizations.

A good litmus test for whether you will like this book: Do you like the Alvin Maker books as well as the more sci-fi Ender series? If so, you will enjoy this one.

Obviously, it is a book about the biblical Rebekah, but you don't have to be interested in the Old Testament to enjoy it. This is a book about a largely fictionalized Rebekah (although the facts, such as they are, are mostly left in), not a book about the Bible.

Rating:
Summary: I can't wait to see who's next!
Review: I liked this book. Rebekah is someone I never really thought a whole lot about--other than I knew that she had tricked Isaac. This brings a new layer to her story. I agree that after the mother showed up, some things seemed phony, but I thought that Card did a good job of showing a family that has to deal with disabilities. First Rebekah's father is deaf, then Abraham's sourness & personality, and then Isaac's blindness.

Comparing this to the story of "Sarah" which I also liked, I think that many things are similar. Maybe that was the point in this book--many times it is remarked how similar Sarah & Rebekah were in dealing with Abraham and their families. I know that women in the time period didn't have much in the way of independence, but I would like to hope that some men allowed their wives to be free thinkers, and to have some independence.

I thought that Rebekah was just a little TOO perfect. She flies off the handle, and then after a few hours of thinking about her actions, is all sweetness and forgiving, and asks for forgiveness. Most people I know aren't that easy to get along with.

All in all, I thought this was a good book, and I can't wait to see who he writes about next.

Rating:
Summary: I can't wait to see who's next!
Review: I liked this book. Rebekah is someone I never really thought a whole lot about--other than I knew that she had tricked Isaac. This brings a new layer to her story. I agree that after the mother showed up, some things seemed phony, but I thought that Card did a good job of showing a family that has to deal with disabilities. First Rebekah's father is deaf, then Abraham's sourness & personality, and then Isaac's blindness.

Comparing this to the story of "Sarah" which I also liked, I think that many things are similar. Maybe that was the point in this book--many times it is remarked how similar Sarah & Rebekah were in dealing with Abraham and their families. I know that women in the time period didn't have much in the way of independence, but I would like to hope that some men allowed their wives to be free thinkers, and to have some independence.

I thought that Rebekah was just a little TOO perfect. She flies off the handle, and then after a few hours of thinking about her actions, is all sweetness and forgiving, and asks for forgiveness. Most people I know aren't that easy to get along with.

All in all, I thought this was a good book, and I can't wait to see who he writes about next.

Rating:
Summary: Card Filler, yackaty yack yack
Review: Rebekah, Issac's wife, mother of Esau and Jacob...and a person in her own right! Card's Women of Genesis series (Sarah and Rebekah, so far) is incredibly powerful. It is reminiscent of Diamant's "The Red Tent", in that the women are strong and skillfuly rendered.

Did you ever wonder what it must be like to live in Father Abraham's family? Carry the burden of the birthright? Be a woman who, although you can read and write, never be allowed to see the sacred teachings? Read Rebekah.

This is not sci-fi, folks. I found myself marvelling after Sarah, thinking could this possibly be the same person who wrote the Ender series? After reading Rebekah, I ceased to question-I'm just glad the book was written. Read Rebekah, as a matter of fact, read the whole Women of Genesis series. I can hardly wait for the next installment.

Rating:
Summary: Another wonderful book by OSC
Review: This book is a wonderful characterization of Rebekah. OSC has wonderful insight into how things might have been. If you enjoyed "Sarah" and "Stone Tables", you will enjoy this as well.

Rating:
Summary: Old Testament stories in novel form
Review: This is a novelization of the life of Rebekah from the Old Testament, using the biblical account as a framework and imaginatively filling in the details. Once again, Orson Scott Card has done an impressive job of making sense of some odd biblical scenes and has told an engaging tale that is also spiritually nourishing.

I wished, though, that Card had filled in more of the details. The book felt too sketchy in some places. And like Sarah in the first book in the series, Rebekah was, I thought, a little too easy to identify with. In her attitudes about gender roles, indentured servants, and such, she seemed too much like a time traveler from 21st-century America who'd taken Rebekah's place. The use of casual, contemporary diction in the dialogue added to this effect.

This isn't among my favorite Orson Scott Card books, but that's tough competition. I liked "Sarah" and "Rebekah" enough that I'm looking forward to future books in the series: "Rachel"? "Leah"? "Dinah"? (And I highly recommend Card's "Stone Tables," about Moses.)