In Lion's Honey, award-winning writer David Grossman takes on one of the most vivid and controversial characters in the Bible. Revisiting Samson's famous battle with the lion, his many women and his betrayal by them all, including the only one he ever loved. Grossman gives us a provocative new take on the story and its climax, Samson's final act of death, brining down a temple on himself and three thousand Philistines. In exhilarating and lucid prose, Grossman reveals the journey of a single, lonely and tortured soul who never found a true home in the world, who was uncomfortable in his very body and who, some might say, was the precursor of today's suicide bombers.
**
From Publishers Weekly
Samson, the biblical strongman whose strength lay in his long hair, has long been viewed as a hero. Before his birth, an angel told his mother that her child would be consecrated to God and save his people. But his is a strange and tragic story. Only in defeat, after his duplicitous lover Delilah cuts off his tresses and hands him over to his enemies, can he fulfill the prophecy and bring down the Philistine temple, killing himself and his captors. Acclaimed Israeli novelist Grossman ( The Body ) revisits the story in Canongate's series the Myths. He views Samson as an impulsive, lonely, failed man. Grossman's consideration falls squarely into the Jewish tradition of biblical exegesis, imparting both psychological and literary meaning to the story. His mastery of the Hebrew allows for depths of consideration not available to anyone working with a translation. But his reading of Samson is oddly contradictory: on the one hand, he insists that Samson is a man controlled by outside forces; on the other, that deep psychological needs drive him to self-destructive behavior. In the end, Grossman refuses to entertain the most glaring possibility the myth opens up: that only in his failure can Samson succeed and fulfill his life's mission. (Apr. 18)
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Review
"'There isn't a more interesting novelist in the West today' HARPER'S MAGAZINE 'We should all thank heaven that the world has such writers in it' LOS ANGELES TIMES 'A writer of passionate honesty, unafraid to ask terrible questions' NADINE GORDIMER 'A writer who has been, for nearly two decades, one of the most original and talented not only in his own country but anywhere.' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'A writer of devastating power.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY"

Memory of the World Librarian: Quintus

2025-02-18