This is the first novel by Robert Graves, who would come to be most well-known for I, Claudius, considered by many to be the greatest historical novel ever written. In this book, Graves presents a revisionist take on the story of the prophet Elisha and his relationship with the Shunamite Woman; this is a good story, originally found in I Kings, and the Shunamite Woman is, though unnamed in the Scriptures, one of the most interesting female characters of the Old Testament to me. Graves then backs into a revisionist take on the Pentateuch via the conceit that Elisha, as a prophet, is privy to a kind of “secret history” of the Jewish people, a more historically accurate version of the story presented in the holy scriptures. Due to the Shunamite Woman’s probing questions and insatiable curiosity, Elisha decides she has demonstrated sufficient spiritual insight and wisdom for him to share this secret history with her.
I’m a sucker for these kinds of revisionist Bible stories. I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover numerous times and done some pretty deep studies of various books, so, while I would never claim to be an expert, I do know a lot of these stories on a pretty granular level and that’s when revisionist takes get really fun, when you can spot even very small changes. I’m not a hundred percent on board with everything Graves does here. A key plot point of the frame story is that the Shunamite Woman is unable to have children, but after Elisha prays for her, she has a son. Well, in this version of the story, Elisha basically hypnotizes the Shunamite and then, while she’s in a trance, impregnates her himself. No miracle, just some prophet action of a more carnal nature. This gives the remainder of the story, in which tragedy befalls the Shunamite’s family, more emotional weight for Elisha, I suppose; or, rather, I think that’s what Graves is going for, though it doesn’t really work. There’s little emotional heft here and, while I understand that Graves isn’t always interested in emotional heft, he’s still not typically this cold. Regardless, I get that Graves is trying to create a quasi-historically-accurate version of these Bible stories and thus wants to steer clear of the miraculous. But couldn’t it just be a coincidence that Elisha prays and then the woman becomes pregnant the following year? Or couldn’t you just make the sexual relationship between Elisha and the Shunamite consensual? I imagine fundamentalists would have a hard time with that, but probably not a harder time than with making the beloved prophet a BCE date-rapist. Anyway, 1925 . . . different time. Still, somewhat problematic. On the whole, I enjoyed this one, even as I did find it a little lacking; Graves is good at a lot of things but this is his first novel and it shows. The prose isn’t as rich as it will be later and the integration of the frame story and the flashback story is clumsy. Still, it’s entertaining enough that you won’t be bored by it and it certainly succeeds at bringing a new perspective to an often overlooked Bible story. 2 ½ stars.
tl;dr – debut novel from Graves is entertaining Biblical revisionism, but it’s somewhat clumsy and not as rich as later Graves works. 2 ½ stars.