Speaking of Haman, he is constantly referred to throughout the novel as an Edomite or “the Palestinian,” and he has a severe inferiority complex based on relatives of the king resenting his position of favor. Having Esther’s closest family member essentially guilt trip her into seeking the king’s favor – well prior to anything actually threatening the Jewish people in the novel – screams of paranoia and unnecessary manipulation, distasteful qualities that negatively alter the tone and impact Esther’s rise to favor in the palace has in the biblical text.
There are major problems with this plot twist, though, not the least of which is the fact that according to the scriptures, Esther had no choice in the matter – she was “taken to the king’s palace” (Esther 2:8) well prior to Haman’s elevation to a position of power in the Persian government. Should she win, she would then gain the king’s ear and could serve as an undercover advocate for the Jewish people. Mordecai, concerned that the king’s closest friend Haman is an Edomite (a long-standing enemy of the Jewish people), decides to take pre-emptive action and enter Esther in the competition to become Queen. In A Reluctant Queen, when Queen Vashti is deposed, a “competition” to win the king’s favor is established. Mordecai is also transformed from Esther’s kindly cousin into a manipulative, almost conniving uncle, which forcibly strikes me as a complete misreading of his character and role in Esther’s story. By making Esther half Persian - notwithstanding the fact that she would be considered Jewish since that is transferred through the mother’s line - the impact of her status as a hidden Jewess in the king’s court is dramatically lessened.
Wolf also reinvents Esther’s parentage, asserting that while her mother was Jewish, her father was a Persian cavalryman, a possibility contradicted by Esther 2:15, which states that her father was Abihail, Mordecai’s uncle and therefore a Jew.
To begin with, Esther is referred to as Esther, and not Hadassah (her Jewish name) from the start of the novel. A Reluctant Queen falls short in that regard, serving as more of a rewritten than retold version of the Esther story, with several unaccountable alterations to the scriptural basis for Esther’s story that robs the tale of a great portion of its dramatic impact. What I look for in biblical fiction is a firm grounding in scripture that expands on what is known, and breathes fresh life into “bare bones” of the characters we meet on the page, reminding the reader that they were once flesh-and-blood humans like ourselves.
0 kommentar(er)
