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| November 23, 2005 |
REVIEW: The Jezebel Letters
 Give Eleanor Ferris Beach credit. Ancient archeological research isn't exactly the most scintillating of subjects (though I admit to being quite the nerd in my own interest in the topic), so why not dress it up in novel-esque clothes? It's a noble effort, an attempt to show the intrigue and drama that so typified the lives of such epic figures as the Kings of Israel and she who has been immortalized as the ultimate corruptor: Jezebel.
A noble effort. One deserving of credit. But let's leave it at that.
The problem with Beach's well-informed piece of speculative fiction is that it reads less like a novel and more like the contents of an academic paper's appendix. Letter after fictional letter, too many written in the style of dull Biblical passages, unfold until you're literally numbed into submission. Your eyes will glaze over long before you can get wrapped up in the "assassination plot supported by the conniving Queen Jezebel." It sounds sexy. It isn't.
Which is perhaps why this realm of academic research is so confined to the dusty back rooms of universities or museums that draw too few visitors. It styles itself too much like its antiquated subject matter, and finds itself utterly incapable of telling the vivid stories it discovers. Archaeology is fascinating, and its stories are dramatic, sometimes even sexy.
But without a strong framework of well-crafted prose, these "letters" read like so many chapters in some obscure book of the Bible. Hebrew school was never so boring.
'Tis a shame, really. The rise of alternate histories, particularly those that revisit the viewpoints of women figures, is ripe for grand tales. If ever there was a character more deserving (and more appealing), Jezebel is she. This book, however, doesn't make the cut.
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