Synopsis: Set in Paradise this is Eve's story as you've never heard it - the elderly, cantankerous figure of God, the wise and beautiful serpent, the gentle Adam and the enquiring, intelligent Eve, who has been given by God to the Serpent to raise. The Serpent introduces her to life in Paradise and she learns about nature, love and the way that the new and fascinating world works. When she comes into contact with God - who rears Adam - she is wary of his dominance and egotism.

Review: The book opens as Eve, the narrator, is emerging into consciousness after her creation. She wakes to find the Serpent coiled on her stomach, an image presaging the scene later in the novel when it makes love to her. The God he takes her to is an Old Testament God, high-handed in the extreme, and impatient to discover whether or not he has designed male and female who can procreate properly. With only this in mind, and regardless of the feelings of his human creation, God rushes Adam and Eve into intercourse. The Serpent alone recognizes the consequences of God's act, and supports her as, devastated by the experience, she leaves the Garden to distance herself from God and to discover what exists in the outside world. The Serpent is characterized as a far more caring and attractive figure than God, or Adam, who is portrayed as an unimaginative and obedient servant to his irascible Master. Eve and the Servant make several journeys to different geographical areas, a volcano, a desert, a mountain range and the sea, thereby developing Eve's fascination with the physical world. On their return to the Garden, the roots of the apple tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil begin to grow, to the horror of God, who attempts to destroy it. The Serpent, sensing that time is running out to teach Eve that love making is good, changes into a man and makes love to her with great sensitivity, encouraging her to accept her role as the mother of humankind. Outraged by the humans' interest in the tree of knowledge, God reveals his capricious worst and insists that everything must bow to his wishes. As a consequence Adam and Eve realise that if they are to have any freedom of will they must leave God and the Garden. The Serpent warns them that this will involve future suffering but Eve feels she must develop and be her own person. Together they leave, and find that the natural world is filled with great danger, fear but with an ultimate beauty and drama which was not accessible in the perfection of the Garden.

Certainly unusual, extremely thought provoking, but stylistically unpolished and verging on the sentimental, this is a confused attempt to redress the traditional theological take on Eve as humankind's downfall. Aidinoff sees her heroine as a genuine heroine, prepared to take on an unreasonable and cruel God. Eve is thoughtful, innocent, tender and creative, loyal and courageous, in stark contrast to the insignificant Adam, who is little more than a cipher until he turns his allegiance from God to woman, and as a result gains his independence. Even more unusual to a mainstream Christian reader is the depiction of the Serpent, an infinitely more sensitive, thoughtful and admirable character than God. Despite its stylistic shortcomings, Adinoff's novel would provide fascinating discussion material in RE, philosophy and PSHE for Key Stage 3 readers and above.

2006-10-05