Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
This is the kind of retelling that expands the story considerably beyond the original, and does thematic work, rather than trying to make everything match to the typical interpretation. As a result it can seem off canon even when it's not. It gets very... feminist metaphysicsy for lack of a better term. The author clearly knows the reference very well, and the sections with Sarai were my favorite. However, I'm only about 90 percent that the ending stuck. The good parts were excellent however. I think it would make a good book club book.
An interesting premise, interesting questions to explore, but this just wasn't a way of exploring them that I could connect with.
I've seen other reviews make the case for midrash. This is not midrash. It's smutty Bible fanfiction and it's horribly written.
I'm conflicted because I didn't hate this but I didn't love it either but the writing was beautiful. Such a unique story.
Naamah is a person is a person I've never paid attention to but then again, I feel like many women in the Big Book were overshadowed.
Naamah is a person is a person I've never paid attention to but then again, I feel like many women in the Big Book were overshadowed.
We know Noah had a wife bc he had sons, but do you know her name?
🐅🐅
You could be forgiven for being hazy on this detail. Nobody I asked in the course of reading this, even regular church-goers, could conjure it; & that’s bc they probably never learned it. Her name appears in an ancient midrash (commentary on part of the Hebrew scriptures), but is absent in the Bible itself. In NAAMAH, Sarah Blake gives Noah’s wife everything the Bible doesn’t: a clear voice, powerful agency, & a place in the unfolding of a story even the most biblically-illiterate of us can outline.
Chosen man.
Angry god.
Real big boat; Great Flood.
Animals marching 2 by 2.
🦏🦏
It’s impossible not to compare NAAMAH to CIRCE, as both are projects that begin from the premise that women are fully actualized human beings and seek to insert them back into a Western canon which rendered them invisible. But this book is distinctive for its lucidity & strangeness.
🦒🦒
The story vacillates btw Naamah’s dreamscapes & her reality on the ark, but is rooted in a stark viscerality. In a world where churches have drowned, bodies are the only remaining sites of worship. We are served the practicalities of living on an ark with a Whitman’s sampler of god’s creatures (the shit that must be shoveled, the calves birthed, the walls patched where a rhino got frisky) as well as a procession of the supernatural, when a kind of sailor’s psychosis threatens Naamah’s tranquility & she retreats to the water for long swims & journeys below the surface, in a watery land of the dead.
🦔🦔
Blake’s explorations are as psychological as they are metaphysical. Naamah has no ownership over the directive/visions which sealed her fate, nor does she possess Noah’s righteousness in their actions. Yet she bears the burden of humanity’s erasure—carries shame & guilt in a way Noah does not. As bizarre as this tale is, there are enough vividly recognizable elements of the embodied female experience that you’ll begin to question what, if anything, has changed in the whole of human history.
🦜🦜
NAAMAH is out today from @riverheadbooks & I’d looove to chat if you’ve read it (or think you might). Thanks to Ally @oldtownbooks for the ARC!
🐅🐅
You could be forgiven for being hazy on this detail. Nobody I asked in the course of reading this, even regular church-goers, could conjure it; & that’s bc they probably never learned it. Her name appears in an ancient midrash (commentary on part of the Hebrew scriptures), but is absent in the Bible itself. In NAAMAH, Sarah Blake gives Noah’s wife everything the Bible doesn’t: a clear voice, powerful agency, & a place in the unfolding of a story even the most biblically-illiterate of us can outline.
Chosen man.
Angry god.
Real big boat; Great Flood.
Animals marching 2 by 2.
🦏🦏
It’s impossible not to compare NAAMAH to CIRCE, as both are projects that begin from the premise that women are fully actualized human beings and seek to insert them back into a Western canon which rendered them invisible. But this book is distinctive for its lucidity & strangeness.
🦒🦒
The story vacillates btw Naamah’s dreamscapes & her reality on the ark, but is rooted in a stark viscerality. In a world where churches have drowned, bodies are the only remaining sites of worship. We are served the practicalities of living on an ark with a Whitman’s sampler of god’s creatures (the shit that must be shoveled, the calves birthed, the walls patched where a rhino got frisky) as well as a procession of the supernatural, when a kind of sailor’s psychosis threatens Naamah’s tranquility & she retreats to the water for long swims & journeys below the surface, in a watery land of the dead.
🦔🦔
Blake’s explorations are as psychological as they are metaphysical. Naamah has no ownership over the directive/visions which sealed her fate, nor does she possess Noah’s righteousness in their actions. Yet she bears the burden of humanity’s erasure—carries shame & guilt in a way Noah does not. As bizarre as this tale is, there are enough vividly recognizable elements of the embodied female experience that you’ll begin to question what, if anything, has changed in the whole of human history.
🦜🦜
NAAMAH is out today from @riverheadbooks & I’d looove to chat if you’ve read it (or think you might). Thanks to Ally @oldtownbooks for the ARC!
TLDR: An ambitious novel, with an okay execution. Worth the read if it already interests you.
Naamah is a retelling of Noah's Ark from his wife, Naamah's, point of view. Since I am not familiar with the Great Flood story on anything other than a superficial level, some concepts may have gone over my head.
Plot: The plot is very meandering and you spend much of the book in Naamah's dreams. I think because of this there is something a bit strange about the pacing.
Writing: This is what bummed me out the most about this book. The writing was good, but it didn't really match the plot and vibe of the book. I wanted the writing itself to be a bit more hallucinatory, I wanted the lines between dream and reality to be a bit more fuzzed. Upon reading, I thought this book would have been better served if it had been in first person and a bit more stream of consciousness. I also wasn't a huge fan of the two timelines, the now and the before the flood, switching between past and present tense.
Themes: Religious themes are obviously very present, but I'm not well enough versed to speak to them. Family dynamics come into play, gender and sexuality as well. The family dynamics is the one that felt most completely discussed, but the others felt a bit disjointed and in some regards completely forgotten. The themes could have been tightened up a but and another round of edits with this focus in mind would have accomplished that.
**I won this as a Goodreads giveaway**
Naamah is a retelling of Noah's Ark from his wife, Naamah's, point of view. Since I am not familiar with the Great Flood story on anything other than a superficial level, some concepts may have gone over my head.
Plot: The plot is very meandering and you spend much of the book in Naamah's dreams. I think because of this there is something a bit strange about the pacing.
Writing: This is what bummed me out the most about this book. The writing was good, but it didn't really match the plot and vibe of the book. I wanted the writing itself to be a bit more hallucinatory, I wanted the lines between dream and reality to be a bit more fuzzed. Upon reading, I thought this book would have been better served if it had been in first person and a bit more stream of consciousness. I also wasn't a huge fan of the two timelines, the now and the before the flood, switching between past and present tense.
Themes: Religious themes are obviously very present, but I'm not well enough versed to speak to them. Family dynamics come into play, gender and sexuality as well. The family dynamics is the one that felt most completely discussed, but the others felt a bit disjointed and in some regards completely forgotten. The themes could have been tightened up a but and another round of edits with this focus in mind would have accomplished that.
**I won this as a Goodreads giveaway**
Oddly beautiful, wryly funny, and reverently sacrilegious. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't really this. The story is so fractured and dreamy, things got hard to follow and I nearly gave up on it. By the end I was glad I didn't, but I'm not sure what sort of reader I'd recommend this to.
I would describe this book as an amazing technicolor dream about the woman who save the Earth during the Great Flood.
It's poetic, imaginative and enthralling. A book you cannot put down once you're involved.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Riverhead Books and Edelweiss for this ARC
It's poetic, imaginative and enthralling. A book you cannot put down once you're involved.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Riverhead Books and Edelweiss for this ARC
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
