Status
Available
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Collection
Publication
New York/London : W. W. Norton & Company
Description
Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Michael_Godfrey
Alter, whose reputation as a translator of Hebrew narrative has long been established, achieves the miraculous end of placing the David narrative on a par with the great narratives of Homer, or the timeless legends of, for example, Maui, at a time when Judaeo-Christian narratives are lrgely passe.
In one respect it is almost necessary to use Atler's own technique to review this masterpiece: Atler places his stunningly clear and literary yet accessible translation of the narrative at the top of the page, and his explanation beneath it. In reviewing his achievement there are two distinct facets: above the line (as it were) is his translation, which compels the reader onwards through a text that many biblical translators have rendered soporific. Below the line he explains his linguistic choices, comments on detail, or makes links between the Davidic narrative and parallel biblical and other near eastern narratives. Yet this technical commentary is as distinctively compelling as the translation: I found myself reading Atler's comments as compulsively as I devoured the text. Above the line his re-presentation of an ancient narrative is outstanding.Below the line his explanations are no less addictive!
Atler has achieved for the Judaeo-Christian tradition a remarkable feat: in a post Judaeo-Christendom world (to coin a phrase) he has re-provided and explained a profound ur-narrative that can be once more as socially seminal as it should always have been. This is a story - not of Atler's making - of the workings of the Divine through the foibles of humanity. Atler is a conduit for potential rediscovery of Judaeo-Christendom's fundamental narrative: this version of this story should be compulsory reading on every final year High School syllabus!
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In one respect it is almost necessary to use Atler's own technique to review this masterpiece: Atler places his stunningly clear and literary yet accessible translation of the narrative at the top of the page, and his explanation beneath it. In reviewing his achievement there are two distinct facets: above the line (as it were) is his translation, which compels the reader onwards through a text that many biblical translators have rendered soporific. Below the line he explains his linguistic choices, comments on detail, or makes links between the Davidic narrative and parallel biblical and other near eastern narratives. Yet this technical commentary is as distinctively compelling as the translation: I found myself reading Atler's comments as compulsively as I devoured the text. Above the line his re-presentation of an ancient narrative is outstanding.Below the line his explanations are no less addictive!
Atler has achieved for the Judaeo-Christian tradition a remarkable feat: in a post Judaeo-Christendom world (to coin a phrase) he has re-provided and explained a profound ur-narrative that can be once more as socially seminal as it should always have been. This is a story - not of Atler's making - of the workings of the Divine through the foibles of humanity. Atler is a conduit for potential rediscovery of Judaeo-Christendom's fundamental narrative: this version of this story should be compulsory reading on every final year High School syllabus!
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
On the road again, no time to write a proper review, so I'll just say that if you want to read/understand these books I've not encountered a better, more gripping, more fulsomely annotated, less irksomely "biblical," translation/way.
LibraryThing member solla
I have just finished the David story which is an Robert Alter translation of Samuel I and II of the Bible. Prior to this I read his translation of the first five books. From that prior translation my favorite parts were in Genesis, the creation story, and perhaps the story of Joseph and his
It makes more sense to me to take these books more as a set of stories about a people, and not as a moral guide. And, regarded this way, the David story is rather impressive. The two main dramas are David's relationship to Saul - the prior king who had been chosen by Yaweh, and then dropped in favor of David, but who also was in a sort of father role to David - and David's relationship with his own son, Absolom. It is not always clear what David's motivations are, whether his relationships win out over his drive to power or the other way round. At times, in fact, he seems a passive character, letting those around him take actions for him or simply not opposing them strongly enough. It feels like this could be fleshed out into a full-fledged novel, which, presumably is what Faulkner did in Absolom, Absolom, but I think that is one Faulkner I haven't read.
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brothers. I found it hard to push through Numbers and Deuteronomy. The book of Joshua could have been renamed the book of Genocide, although according to research into biblical history, all the massacres of people that the Israelites ran into once they had crossed the Jordan did not really happen. Still, it is hard to think that the bible could seriously be a guide to moral conduct. God in the old testament seems to order as many cruelties as kindnesses. Yaweh had supposedly told the Israelites to wipe out the worshippers of other gods and even was angered if they were not thorough enough, though they were told to be kind to orphans, widows and the strangers among them. It makes more sense to me to take these books more as a set of stories about a people, and not as a moral guide. And, regarded this way, the David story is rather impressive. The two main dramas are David's relationship to Saul - the prior king who had been chosen by Yaweh, and then dropped in favor of David, but who also was in a sort of father role to David - and David's relationship with his own son, Absolom. It is not always clear what David's motivations are, whether his relationships win out over his drive to power or the other way round. At times, in fact, he seems a passive character, letting those around him take actions for him or simply not opposing them strongly enough. It feels like this could be fleshed out into a full-fledged novel, which, presumably is what Faulkner did in Absolom, Absolom, but I think that is one Faulkner I haven't read.
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LibraryThing member JDHomrighausen
This book hardly needs another rave review. However, avoid the Kindle version, as the formatting for the footnotes and clumsy and in some places left undone.
LibraryThing member stillatim
Five stars for the translation, which is wonderfully readable. But the commentary often sounds like special-pleading rather than than information and feels too in-depth for what is, at the end of the day, a story able to stand on its own (compare Alter's 'Genesis,' the commentary to which is
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extremely helpful and never feels forced). Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1999
Physical description
448 p.; 5.5 inches
ISBN
0393320774 / 9780393320770