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Nobody Will Bury Us If We Die Here
Adam and an unnamed woman build a language and a world to share. Unfortunately, they must be wounded in pursuit of each other. Mortally.
Inspired by the experimental tradition of scripture, Shakespeare, Italo Calvino, Virginia Woolf, Anne Carson, Jorges Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and others, this peculiar story begins in the Garden of Eden with a man, a woman, and a serpent. Breaking tradition, the woman flees the garden to travel through time and space. “Why were we taken away from the nothing we so perfectly were?” she wondered.
Inspired by the experimental tradition of scripture, Shakespeare, Italo Calvino, Virginia Woolf, Anne Carson, Jorges Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and others, this peculiar story begins in the Garden of Eden with a man, a woman, and a serpent. Breaking tradition, the woman flees the garden to travel through time and space. “Why were we taken away from the nothing we so perfectly were?” she wondered.
182 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 11, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 1, 2022
From the book’s description: “Adam and an unnamed woman build a language and a world to share. Unfortunately, they must be wounded in pursuit of each other. Mortally. Inspired by the experimental tradition of scripture, Shakespeare, Italo Calvino, Virginia Woolf, Anne Carson, Jorges Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and others, this peculiar story begins in the Garden of Eden with a man, a woman, and a serpent. Breaking tradition, the woman flees the garden to travel through time and space. ‘Why were we taken away from the nothing we so perfectly were?’ she wondered.”
This is experimental fiction, which is not generally my type of book. I am familiar with the Christian creation story, but other than providing a general context, I did not find it particularly helpful. It felt to me like reading three linked short stories. Unfortunately, the links are obscure. I kept wondering what the author was trying to convey. The three stories are all set in different times and places. The first involves the Garden of Eden, the second features a family, and the last is set in space. The characters do not carry forward. I need more of a "bread crumb trail." It's as if the author expects me to read her mind. In the end, I didn’t hate it, but I did like it much either.
This is experimental fiction, which is not generally my type of book. I am familiar with the Christian creation story, but other than providing a general context, I did not find it particularly helpful. It felt to me like reading three linked short stories. Unfortunately, the links are obscure. I kept wondering what the author was trying to convey. The three stories are all set in different times and places. The first involves the Garden of Eden, the second features a family, and the last is set in space. The characters do not carry forward. I need more of a "bread crumb trail." It's as if the author expects me to read her mind. In the end, I didn’t hate it, but I did like it much either.
July 28, 2022
Cainan, on the other hand, begot while the begetting was begood: Mehalaleel, Enan, and Mered. Next came Jared, Jubal, Jabal, and Tubal-cain. All of these were men. Of course, there were also women. For example, Queen Elizabeth II was the one-hundred-fifty-fourth descendant of Adam. Some of the other women were also given names. This is how to create a fallen world. Genealogy is the way. Didn’t you know that?
I felt like this held a lot of potential. Moved from a kind of experimental retelling of the Garden of Eden with some humor to a jump in time to contemporary days and right into the future. It made me think a lot, but I struggled so hard to make sense of the book as a whole that I fear I've tried to make it much more complicated than it actually was. It felt like a feminist rejection of woman's "place" in traditional Christianity while still ultimately pointing to the promise of eternity in Heaven... Ugh, I can't even put this into coherent text... Maybe I summarize it as:
Women will never have the equity and position they deserve because this world is destined for a Fall.
The longer portions of this book told in more traditional narrative form were a real slog, which didn't help my enjoyment overall, especially given how short a book it is.
Chun is a fascinating writer (I was quite taken with her experimental How to Break Article Noun). It is surprisingly hard to find out much about her as a writer (a scarcity of professional book reviews; no author interviews that I could find). I do hope she continues to write fiction as she pulls from such various elements/fields (math, science, poetry, love, religion, philosophy).
August 7, 2022
I nominated this book for the wild card discussion on the 21st Century Literature for July 2022. It won and a small group of us proceeded to read it. It was a challenging read and discussion. We were unable to find any reviews of the book (there were none on GR then, even though the book was published in 2013) or any interviews or discussions with the author about the book. The opening was fairly easy to follow -- it was the Biblical creation story with a twist -- the woman did not allow Adam to name her. Adam spent much time trying to find the woman, who seemed to be evading him.
Then the story jumps to New York. Adam is following the woman but never catches up. He gets a job and marries a woman he later, after a new hire in his offices notes that she is hairy, berates her and becomes hostile. The woman, now referred to as Shelah or Mommie, has encounters with Eden. Then she has a son named Corwin and then Corwin has a son named Harold. Other stuff happens that makes no sense. Then we are on a space ship on a mission to find planets for those on Earth to escape to but before the space ship has gone too far, nuclear war erupts on Earth and all goes quiet. The spaceship captain commits suicide by going outside. The crew decides to return to Earth except for one member who takes the shuttle he can barely fit in to the moon.
Then it is the epilogue and Adam and the woman are on the moon and it has become Eden. But the serpent has the final word.
What does it all mean? What does the author think it means? Is there a moral? Is there a lesson? What is the author telling her readers?
Then the story jumps to New York. Adam is following the woman but never catches up. He gets a job and marries a woman he later, after a new hire in his offices notes that she is hairy, berates her and becomes hostile. The woman, now referred to as Shelah or Mommie, has encounters with Eden. Then she has a son named Corwin and then Corwin has a son named Harold. Other stuff happens that makes no sense. Then we are on a space ship on a mission to find planets for those on Earth to escape to but before the space ship has gone too far, nuclear war erupts on Earth and all goes quiet. The spaceship captain commits suicide by going outside. The crew decides to return to Earth except for one member who takes the shuttle he can barely fit in to the moon.
Then it is the epilogue and Adam and the woman are on the moon and it has become Eden. But the serpent has the final word.
What does it all mean? What does the author think it means? Is there a moral? Is there a lesson? What is the author telling her readers?
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August 1, 2022Honestly I don't know what category to place this in, and I only made it through 1/3 of the book before bailing, but the 1/3 that I did read involved what were clearly meant to be Adam, Eve, and the serpent, though the name "Eve" was not used ("Selah") . . . but it was too experimental and disjointed for me to read at this time. Perhaps at another time.
January 1, 2023
A beautiful cover drew me into this book with high artistic and philosophical ambitions but a rather bleak vision about human relationships. It took me a bit to get into it, the early rupture between Adam and Eve before she could be named was a bit rocky, but later fragments shone more brightly for me and the longer story sections help to fold me into enough narrative to get my bearings on the major themes. This is the second of Chun's books and I continue to enjoy reading her poetic fractals.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews