Title: The Kingdom
Author: Amir Or
Genre: Historical Fiction
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Encounter King David – a man of many secrets who wishes to reveal all…
David’s official history already appears in the Bible, but he wishes the “true story” of his life to be known. The Kingdom portrays King David as a real flesh and blood man: ambitious renegade and strategist, boundless lover, tormented father, politician, poet, and despot.
Power, passion, love, and adventure in a remarkable rendering of the biblical story
It’s the 11th century BC, and David struggles to establish a Hebrew empire in what had been the Canaanite lands. Gods, men, kings, women, and heroes are thrown into a whirlpool of passion, adventure, and the struggle for power.
Search your soul through this biting satire on contemporary reality
Not only a historical novel, The Kingdom is also a satire on contemporary reality with a critical view of the Jewish national story. It offers a stinging inditement of modern Israeli politics.
Most of us know the story of King David from the Bible but author Amir Or gives the story an original spin in this book, The Kingdom, by portraying David as a flesh and blood man, with far more flaws than the biblical version has. He’s ambitious, he struggles as a father, he writes poetry, he’s ruthless in politics. He’s a man who appears as real as any other. You don’t want to stick to the bible version too much though, or you might be offended by the liberties the book takes.
However, if you get past that, it’s really an interesting story with a critical element in the form of satire on contemporary reality of modern Israeli politics. I also liked that element, how the history part of the book tied in with the contemporary, which proves that we keep on making the same mistakes as we did in the past (we as the entire human race) and that maybe we haven’t learned as much as we thought we had in the past two millennia.
I really enjoyed the story and would recommend it to fans of historical fiction with a thick skin who don’t mind the author having taking certain liberties with this biblical character.
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