Marlee Pinsker

"These stories are written in the tradition of midrash," author Marlee Pinsker informs the reader in her brief foreword to In the Days of Sand and Stars, going on to explain that this means that "they explore the Biblical text to find new insights for our times," expanding upon and filling in the details of the stories found in that ancient text. Specifically, in this case, the stories of the women of Genesis, and in one case, of Exodus. In ten tales, Pinsker examines the lives of eight Biblical women, beginning with Eve (of course), and continuing with Naamah (Noah's wife), Sarai/Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Dina, and Yocheved (Moses's mother). Here we have: Eve wanting to speak with creation, while Adam is busy naming it; tiny but indomitable Naamah, more interested in freedom (with limitations!) than in maintaining a prison; Sarai/Sarah, bullied by her brother as a young girl, and laughing at her miraculous pregnancy, as a ninety-year-old woman; Leah and Rachel, each telling her side of their famed rivalry, and their marriage(s) to Jacob; Dina, the half-sister whose weaving of the coat of many colors, for her half-brother Joseph, helped to bring her out of a terrible spiritual darkness, following a brutal assault; and finally, Yocheved - "The Glory of God" - who was raised in slavery, but secretly told the story of her proud ancestors.

An engaging collection, one which leads the reader on a journey of exploration into the unspoken, unwritten realities behind the snippets of female experience to be found in the first two books of the Hebrew Bible, In the Days of Sand and Stars gave me quite a bit to ponder, in my ongoing (although frequently stalled) efforts to read the Bible in its entirety. As a sister myself, I particularly liked the parallel narratives offered in Leah and Rachel and Rachel and Leah, and the ways in which each sister is revealed to be a victim of circumstance, and of patriarchy. The artwork, done by François Thisdale, has a lovely, indistinct quality to it, that suits the text quite well - perhaps because both somehow give the feeling of being viewed from far away, whether temporally or visually? In any case, this is just a wonderful collection of stories (and thanks goodness for that, as it was written by the mother of one of my goodreads pals, and I wouldn't have wanted to give a less-than-positive review!)- one I would recommend to readers looking for excellent retold and expanded Bible stories.… (altro)