Sarai
Wives of the Patriarchs, Book 1
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Sarai
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Vanessa Daniels
About this listen
Sarai, the last child of her aged father, is beautiful, spoiled, and used to getting her own way. Even as a young girl, she is aware of the way men look at her, including her half brother Abram. When Abram finally requests Sarai's hand, she asks one thing—that he promise never to take another wife as long as she lives. Even her father thinks the demand is restrictive and agrees to the union only if Sarai makes a promise in return—to give Abram a son and heir. Certain she can easily do that, Sarai agrees.
But as the years stretch on and Sarai's womb remains empty, she becomes desperate to fulfill her end of the bargain—lest Abram decide that he will not fulfill his. To what lengths will Sarai go in her quest to bear a son? And how long will Abram's patience last?
Jill Eileen Smith thrilled listeners with The Wives of King David series. Now she brings to life the strong and celebrated wives of the patriarchs, beginning with the beautiful and inscrutable Sarai.
©2012 Jill Eileen Smith (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
However, I did find this one rather a disappointment. Abraham and Sarah/ Abram and Sarai are depicted like highly-sexed American teenagers, even in their 70s, after 35 years of marriage. They frequently have public displays of affection such as kissing and touching, which would NEVER have been permitted at the time. Modern American slang pops up in the text - words like "ornery" which have no place in a Bible story. Almost all the female characters show rebellion and petulance, they sulk and pout to get their own way - which again would never have been tolerated. You can't modernise all the historical context out of a 4000 year old story!!
An additional irritant (especially for someone who finds the American accent irritating as it is, and especially feel it was an inappropriate choice for a cast of ancient Hebrew characters) is the mispronunciations of Hebrew names!! For God's sake, it's easy enough to Google name pronunciations, surely?! To me this a sign of a lazy reader. So "Eliezer" (proper pronunciation: Elly-ey-zor) becomes "Elliezzer" and Hagar's name (correctly: Haygar) becomes "Haggar" or "Hager". Other common English words are also mispronounced - "overseer" is pronounced as "overser" for some weird reason.
Apart from this, the narrator reads expressively and each character is depicted sensitively and with feeling. The narrator does her best with the material, but could have done with finding correct pronunciations. The author has produced a story which is enjoyable and interesting overall, just marred by the wincing modernisations.
Not believable
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