What do you think?
Rate this book
Joseph
Joseph is the story of Joseph and his brothers first recorded in the Old Testament in the Holy Bible. Max Bolliger retells the story in an impressive yet childlike language while adhering closely to the Holy Scriptures. Joseph is a family story involving jealousy among siblings, ill-treatment of the younger brother, repentance and reunion. Originally published in German, this English edition was translated by Marion Koenig. The many black/white illustrations throughout were done by Edith Schindler. See my images.
110 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 15, 2022
As a child in Germany, I absolutely loved Max Bolliger's retelling of the Old Testament story of Joseph and his jealous brothers, how he is sold into Egyptian slavery by them, how he becomes the trusted friend of and main political advisor to the Pharaoh (and how he finally reconciles with his family, and how Jacob and Joseph's brothers are then finally even invited to settle in Egypts a honoured guests). I received Joseph along with about ten other mass market paperback children's novels for my eighth birthday in 1974 (all from Ravensburger Taschenbuch Verlag), and it was both amongst the first full length children's novels I read in German and the first novel I actually read more than once.
But as much as I truly did adore this biblical retelling as a child, as an older adult rereading Joseph for the first time in decades, I tend to find Max Bolliger's general presented storyline not nearly as evocative and as engaging as I did at the age of eight, with especially the rather now to me obvious fact that there is not nearly enough textual, narrative criticism leveled at Joseph's brothers, and that they according to the author, almost seemingly immediately or at least rather soon after their nefarious deed become at least amongst themselves and privately contrite and ashamed at having sold their brother, at having sold Joseph into slavery rather problematic to say the least (because after now and repeatedly having read Joseph's story as it is actually presented in the Bible, as it appears in the Old Testament, especially the latter does not really all that much appear to have been the case). Perhaps as a novel for younger children, and as a story first published in 1967, it might have made somewhat sense for Max Bolliger to have Joseph's brothers at least amongst themselves appear contrite and full of blame, full of shame (even though the author thankfully does and clearly show how the offending siblings do hide their deed, do conceal that they have sold Joseph as a slave by callously telling Jacob that his favourite son has been devoured by a wild animal).
But considering that Jacob's sons are on the whole not all that glowingly depicted in the Old Testament (and that especially some of them were in fact described in the Bible as always being rather majorly brutish in character and that they never really seemed to show all that much shame or a sense of personal responsibility, let alone remorse regarding the horrible way they abused and basically for all intents and purposes tried to kill their brother), as an adult rereading, I do find this novel, I do consider Max Bolliger's Joseph while still readable and mildly enjoyable, also a bit and simply too proverbially good to be true, a bit too positive an assessment of Joseph's brothers, a decent enough biblical retelling for children, but not all that believable, not all that special, and also not all that engaging on an emotional and reading pleasure level (an adequate, but in no way spectacular three star read, with the additional caveat that Joseph is both long out of print and penned in German, and thus a decent intermediate fluency in the language is both strongly suggested and likely even required).
But as much as I truly did adore this biblical retelling as a child, as an older adult rereading Joseph for the first time in decades, I tend to find Max Bolliger's general presented storyline not nearly as evocative and as engaging as I did at the age of eight, with especially the rather now to me obvious fact that there is not nearly enough textual, narrative criticism leveled at Joseph's brothers, and that they according to the author, almost seemingly immediately or at least rather soon after their nefarious deed become at least amongst themselves and privately contrite and ashamed at having sold their brother, at having sold Joseph into slavery rather problematic to say the least (because after now and repeatedly having read Joseph's story as it is actually presented in the Bible, as it appears in the Old Testament, especially the latter does not really all that much appear to have been the case). Perhaps as a novel for younger children, and as a story first published in 1967, it might have made somewhat sense for Max Bolliger to have Joseph's brothers at least amongst themselves appear contrite and full of blame, full of shame (even though the author thankfully does and clearly show how the offending siblings do hide their deed, do conceal that they have sold Joseph as a slave by callously telling Jacob that his favourite son has been devoured by a wild animal).
But considering that Jacob's sons are on the whole not all that glowingly depicted in the Old Testament (and that especially some of them were in fact described in the Bible as always being rather majorly brutish in character and that they never really seemed to show all that much shame or a sense of personal responsibility, let alone remorse regarding the horrible way they abused and basically for all intents and purposes tried to kill their brother), as an adult rereading, I do find this novel, I do consider Max Bolliger's Joseph while still readable and mildly enjoyable, also a bit and simply too proverbially good to be true, a bit too positive an assessment of Joseph's brothers, a decent enough biblical retelling for children, but not all that believable, not all that special, and also not all that engaging on an emotional and reading pleasure level (an adequate, but in no way spectacular three star read, with the additional caveat that Joseph is both long out of print and penned in German, and thus a decent intermediate fluency in the language is both strongly suggested and likely even required).
Displaying 1 of 1 review