The Book of Eve

February 20, 2023
Mexican writer Boullosa follows up The Book of Anna with another mischievous and winning revision of a classic story, this time drawing on the creation stories of Genesis. Eve awakes to a flat version of the paradisial Eden, which Boullosa describes as “silent and unashamed, fleshless.” From Eve’s perspective, there is no time, language, or understanding, though Boullosa puts her primordial impressions into words (the being she names “Thunder,” which Adam calls “God,” produces “sounds like those made by shovels and hatchets”). Eve, “with her fiery disobedience,” is no shameful sinner. Rather, she leads her fellows down the Divine Mountain to Earth, where she finds fire, sex, words, and becomes the mother of all people. Adam doesn’t like these developments; he transforms from Eve’s “puppy-dog” to a violent and spiteful man, distorting the truth of creation and twisting his version into a patriarchal religion: “Abel and Adam spoke to a ‘He.’ They made up prayers that allowed them to repeat their monologue ad nauseam.” What makes this so delightful is Boullosa’s chronicle of Eve’s discovery of pleasure, and of the misogyny of Christianity, in a tone as straightforward as Genesis itself. It’s a stirring challenge to an age-old narrative.

February 15, 2023
Eve explains what happened in Eden--and afterward. Boullosa's latest novel is a retelling of the story of Eve--yes, that Eve. The novel begins with the Garden of Eden and ends with the Tower of Babel; in between, Eve explains what really happened and how that truth got all twisted and tangled. To start: She wasn't made from Adam's rib, and there wasn't any serpent. Those are just lies that Adam spread: "Adam insisted upon his version of history, continuing to repeat his stupid lie," Boullosa writes. "Adam stole the true story of our origins." Boullosa's goal here--a feminist reclamation of one of the world's oldest stories--might be admirable, but the result frequently feels didactic and, at times, even trite. Boullosa clearly wanted to replace Eve's shame with pleasure in sensual things, but her prose in these parts becomes flat and repetitive; she simply repeats the word pleasure. So, for example, Eve feels "unparalleled pleasure, pleasure greater than you'd think the senses could perceive." As a whole, the book feels less like a novel than a thinly veiled manifesto. Then, too, because there is no plot, the book has a shapeless on-and-on quality that quickly becomes tedious. Eve simply goes on describing things. As a frame for the work, Boullosa has chosen to present Eve's narration as if it were a lost manuscript. Sections are followed by miscellaneous "papers," which hold additions to and alternative versions of Eve's story--some "written" by Eve herself, some by other characters (like Adam and Cain, for example). This gimmick strains credulity to the breaking point. This retelling is too indebted to its own ideological arguments to come alive as a work of art.

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