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| First Written | 1993 |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | HarperOne |
| ISBN-10 | 0062501178 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0062501172 |
| My Copy | cheap paperback |
| First Read | April 10, 2019 |
Son of Laughter
I read The Red Tent, a novelization of the life of Dinah (Jacob's daughter), a long time ago, and those two tellings have already kind of blurred in my mind. How long ago was that? Before I started ExLibrisKirkland???
Noted on May 10, 2019
The big highlight, once you get over the bronze-age nomad thing, is The Fear. Buechner takes Genesis 31:42 (the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac) and spins out pagan world where the God of the Bible has only begun to reveal himself, and Isaac and Jacob refer only to The Fear. It's a simple little linguistic twist but one that implies a ton about what these people know of their god, and what they can expect of him.
Noted on May 10, 2019
This was an interesting read; a novelization of the story of Jacob. While I don't love the novelize-the-bible genre, I've been reading the bible and sharing versions of these stories all my life, and so I'm always a sucker for a new version that puts some psychological flesh on the scriptural bones.
Noted on May 10, 2019
The Shield was another of the Fear's names. According to Laughter, it means he shields the seed of Abraham the way a man starting a fire shields the flame. When Sarah was about to die childless, the Fear gave her a son. When Abraham was about to slaughter the son, the Fear gave him the ram. He is always shielding us like a guttering wick, Laughter said, because the fire he is trying to start with us is a fire that the whole world will live to warm its hands at. It is a fire in the dark that will light the whole world home.
Quoted on May 10, 2019