The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve / Stephen Greenblatt

3 out of 5 stars

Bolder, even, than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity’s first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole, long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.

Tracking the tale into the deep past, Greenblatt uncovers the tremendous theological, artistic, and cultural investment over centuries that made these fictional figures so profoundly resonant in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds and, finally, so very “real” to millions of people even in the present. With the uncanny brilliance he previously brought to his depictions of William Shakespeare and Poggio Bracciolini (the humanist monk who is the protagonist of The Swerve), Greenblatt explores the intensely personal engagement of Augustine, Dürer, and Milton in this mammoth project of collective creation, while he also limns the diversity of the story’s offspring: rich allegory, vicious misogyny, deep moral insight, and some of the greatest triumphs of art and literature.

The biblical origin story, Greenblatt argues, is a model for what the humanities still have to offer: not the scientific nature of things, but rather a deep encounter with problems that have gripped our species for as long as we can recall and that continue to fascinate and trouble us today.

My many hours spent listening to CBC radio tend to expand my TBR list beyond what I would usually choose for reading material. This book is but one example of that phenomenon, as I heard the author interviewed and became curious about this book.

It was interesting, although not quite as riveting as I could have hoped. Nevertheless, I learned a number of things that I found intriguing. I wasn’t fully aware of the creation myths of cultures surrounding the ancient Hebrews (Sumerians,Assyrians, Babylonians, etc.) but now I have some desire to learn more about all of those cultures.

I also learned more about St. Augustine and John Milton than I expected to (especially their sex lives!).

The Genesis story is so brief that it practically cries out for people to embellish it with fiction. I know that, as a child, I asked a lot of the same questions that Greenblatt explores in this book. I’m sure that this lack of detail has caused major headaches for Sunday School teachers for as long as there has been Sunday School. The tale has certainly inspired a lot of art work and it may be the ultimate tale of the “good old days,” referencing a gone-but-not-forgotten Golden Age.