A Flavour of the Book: “She
goes to her husband and says, ‘A man of God came to me.’ And the reader’s ears prick up, because
the woman does not use the same word as that of the biblical narrator – ‘an
angel of God appeared to the woman’ – but rather ‘came to me’, a charged
phrase rich with double meaning, which more than once in the Bible refers to
the act of copulation itself.”
The Authortrek View:
This is a fascinating insight into one
of the greatest biblical stories, and one that has modern ramifications, as David
Grossman makes clear. David Grossman
goes into great depth, examining every morsel that the biblical narrator of the
tale has thrown to us. Samson is
often portrayed as a mindless brute, but David Grossman successfully challenges
this interpretation by pointing out how poetical and eloquent the muscleman was,
and how ingenious he was – albeit highly destructive – with his plan to burn
the Philistines by tying flaming torches to the tails of bound foxes. David Grossman also does a good job of
bringing the women of the story alive, from Samson’s nameless mother to the
infamous Delilah. Little is
actually known of the latter apart from her name, and Grossman is very
successful at empathising with both women, prying away at their possible
motivations (Samson’s mother doesn’t tell her husband all that her angelic
visitor has related to her). At
times though, the prose of Lion’s Honey is a little too prosaic - “let’s
rewind the tape” - although, given that this is a translation, it’s hard to say
whether this is the fault of Grossman or his translator, Stuart Schoffman. Also, I think Grossman has missed a
trick by not comparing Samson’s story with that most famous tale of immaculate
conception, and by not questioning too much Samson’s acquiescence as God’s
tool, as Grossman concludes that Samson’s fate was due to divine providence. David Grossman only subtly compares to
Samson’s final act to that of the suicide bomber, preferring the phrase “suicide-killer”,
and this is probably just, given how close this is to home in the current
Israeli context. However, in his
Notes, David Grossman does bring to the fore Rabbi Saadiah Gaon’s comments on
the “damaging effect of the lust for revenge upon the soul of the avenger as
well as his victims”. In
conclusion, this is a mature and compelling journey to find the real man behind
the biblical story of Samson.
Press Reviews: “The
story strikes numerous sparks in Israeli history, and one of the pleasures of
the book is where he locates the precise settings of the biblical narrative in
Israel and Palestine” – Linda Grant for the Independent
“Grossman’s genius is his ability to make Samson completely plausible, and to make us accept his conjectures in Lion’s Honey are real facts. With his profound knowledge of Israel, Grossman has illuminated Samson in Biblical times as well as our own and made the myth a tragic reality” - Geoffrey Elborn for the Sunday Herald
“What he does is to deal with
an old, neglected text in a way that rekindles interest in and fascination for
it” – Digby Anderson for the Spectator
“His tone is both informal and
didactic, the result both enriching and entertaining” – Gerald Jacobs for TLS
You can read a resume of the book on our Amazon store below. To find out more about the editor, please visit our David Grossman page.
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