Still Reading...

Well, not much to say for tonight, since I am just about to wrap up Marek Halter's Sarah, so I should be reading instead of blogging!
I will leave you with a little preview though. This is a category of literature which has long enchanted me. I am not sure when fictionalizing religion became a popular thing, but I find the genre fascinating. Beginning with the first time I read The Gospel According to the Son, by Norman Mailer, I have never been entirely sure what I thought of taking these exalted figures of religious history and making them into real people. I have been decidedly drawn to these stories; most recently before Sarah I read Petru Popescu's Girl Mary, but the list is long and includes many others. On the one hand, these stories bring holy figures down to an ordinary level and at times take liberties with what are generally accepted events in religious history, to the extent that I occasionally worry about blasphemy. On the other hand, these novels make important stories from our religions more approachable, more understandable and certainly more interesting than the drier formats in which we are accustomed to reading them. (Obviously, no disrespect meant to the holy writings) Further, they have the decided benefit of sending me running back to the internet or to my copies of holy scriptures to fact check, which means I am reading the originals with more attention than I might likely otherwise would have spent!
Anyway, the debate in my head rages on and your thoughts and contributions to the subject are certainly welcome! In the meantime, I must return to the world of Sarai and Abram until tomorrow. And don't worry, you can be sure I have already prepared with my historical fact checking! :-)
Keep Reading!
Sarah