The Book of Eve
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant, feminist twist on the Book of Genesis from Carmen Boullosa.
What if everything they’ve told us about the Garden of Eden was wrong? Faced with what appears to be an apocryphal manuscript containing ten books and ninety-one parts, Eve decides to tell her version of the story of Genesis: she was not created from Adam’s rib, nor was she expelled for taking the apple from the serpent; the story of Abel and Cain isn't true, neither are those of the Flood and the Tower of Babel...
In brilliant prose, Carmen Boullosa offers a take on the Book of Genesis that dismantles patriarchy and rebuilds our understanding of the world—from the origin of gastronomy, to the domestication of animals, to the cultivation of land and pleasure—all through the feminine gaze. Based on this exploration, at times both joyful and painful, The Book of Eve takes a tour through the stories we’ve been told since childhood, which have helped to foster (and cement) the absurd idea that woman is the companion, complement, and even accessory to man, opening the door to criminal violence against women. Boullosa refutes this entrenched, dangerous perspective in her foundational and brazen feminist novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
