Book of David The biblical framework for a novel of redemption. By David J. Wolpe
http://www.weeklystandard.com/book-of-david/article/2000914
The Hebrew Bible is shaped by two extended portraits, of Moses and David. Of the two stories, Moses’ is better known, but the narrative of David is more psychologically complex and dramatically vivid. As they divide the great mountains (Sinai and Zion) and two dominant terrains (desert and land) between them, Moses and David represent, respectively, the giving of the law and the attaining of ultimate redemption through the line of the Messiah.
The story of David is less familiar, partly due to its placement in the book of Samuel instead of the Pentateuch. David’s story is intricate, incident-packed, and follows several different strands. Fascinating in all its parts, it requires some thought and time to weave it together. In some ways, therefore, David’s life is ripe for a novel. Skillful novels unfurl complicated stories and run a strong narrative line through them, helping the reader to understand their shape. Novels can also alter or supplement the original to help the reader understand its essential shape. Here, in Geraldine Brooks’s skillful and eloquent account of the life of David, rather than hint at the apparent hostility David’s brothers bear him, she has one of them accuse him of bestiality. There is no warrant for this in the biblical text, but it certainly does fix the animosity in the reader’s mind.
A novelist whose historical fictions have dealt with the 17th century and beyond, Brooks now turns her gaze far back. David lived about 3,000 years ago; to create a recognizable world and credible speech patterns for ancient characters is not easy. There are very few biblical novels that work, since they contend both with the entrenched narrative of the Bible itself and the alchemical requirement to make the reshaped characters live in the mind. To write a decent biblical novel requires research—full disclosure: Brooks writes very kindly about my biography of David in her acknowledgments—and, as Robertson Davies said was essential in a writer, “the wand of the enchanter.”
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Brooks succeeds here by fashioning a compelling narrative voice in the prophet Nathan. In the Bible itself, Nathan plays a key role in the Bathsheba saga and the succession at the end of David’s life. The book of Samuel does not state that Nathan was present at the events he narrates in Brooks’s account, or even knew the people he quotes. But Nathan is a reasonable choice to see the many sides of David: lover, warrior, poet, musician, murderer, penitent, leader, father, son, king. The king’s protean personality comes through in the biblical story. Brooks tries to flesh it out, with the inevitable loss of the Bible’s cryptic power but with a gain of fully orchestrated scenes that, in the Bible, are single notes. When describing Amnon’s rape of Tamar, for example, Brooks forces the reader to encounter the full depravity and cruelty of the event.
She also takes stands on some controversial issues in interpretation and aligns them with her overall presentation. In his dying days, both Nathan and Bathsheba “remind” David of his promise to make Solomon king. Was such a promise ever given? The text is unclear. In Brooks’s reading, all the parties concerned know it was not but conspire in the useful fiction because Solomon is David’s choice. Were Jonathan and David lovers? The Bible is ambiguous, but here they are lovers and their relationship is a widely acknowledged secret.
Brooks gives Nathan the power of prophetic foresight, calling attention to the position of both narrator and reader—who, after all, will know the major turns of the story being told. One of the striking characteristics of David’s life is his serious and often respectful engagement with other characters, both men and women. Brooks provides important characters, such as Abigail and Michal as well as Bathsheba, an even greater voice than the Bible affords them. The challenge in writing about David is to portray a man both lovable and brutal. The biblical tale is unvarnished: The same David who wipes out entire villages to protect himself weeps uncontrollably when his rebellious son is killed and writes pious songs to God. Such titanic inconsistencies are not permitted in fiction, only in life.
The Secret Chord is not biblical backstory in the manner of Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent or a modern allegory like Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses. It is, rather, an adept and knowing recounting of the Hebrew Bible’s most gripping, contradictory, and (along with Moses) consequential character, the man who wrote imperishable poetry, created a unified Israel, and whose line leads to the Messiah.
David J. Wolpe, rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, is the author, most recently, of Why Faith Matters.
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