Fiction Analysis - 'Noah' by Ellen Gunderson Traylor
Antediluvian adventure in Atlantis
Author’s note: With women’s history month behind us, it’s finally time for me to post this analysis. It’s the first for a work written by a woman. Also, the first written by a non-Catholic. I’m really checking off these diversity boxes!
But in all seriousness, I did enjoy this book. And so, enjoy this review. I mean analysis.
Warning: As always, there will be spoilers. Though I’ll do my best to keep them minimal. It’s also about Noah’s flood, so there’s nothing I can do to avoid that spoilers.
Introduction
Ellen Gunderson Traylor is known as “America’s foremost Biblical novelist”. But as someone who likes ‘Christian fiction’, I didn’t know she existed until about last year. I was reading through Creation wiki about Noah’s flood when one of the articles mentioned this book. Being interested in the antediluvian world myself, I decided to give it a read.
Noah was a blast for me to read through. This is a book that doesn’t fit neatly into any single genre. The book’s Amazon page listed it as a ‘Christian Historical Fiction’, but this book also has elements of science fiction and fantasy.
There’s a lot to like with this book and with Mrs. Traylor as an author. I can see why she’s a bestselling author. The one thing I like the most in this book is how much research went into it. It’s as if someone had taken the things written in Answers in Genesis about Noah’s flood, mixed it with the most imaginative interpretation of what the Nephilim from Genesis 6 were, and then wrote a novel with it.
And I love it!
As always, I will analyze this book from three angles: setting, characters, and story.
Setting and Worldbuilding
I want to cover the setting first because it’s easily my favorite part of the book. The book took place prior to the events of Noah’s flood. That would be at a ballpark of around 3000 BC, based on the Septuagint timeline. Though I know that some people favors the Masoretic timeline. Still others believe in a ‘gap theory’ which puts the timeline further than the Septuagint timeline. This is what Mrs. Traylor holds to, or at least uses for the writing of this book.
In any case, this book takes place a long time ago. But despite that, the society of that time period is more technologically advanced than ours. Why? Because the book took place in Atlantis, as I have implied in the blurb. Though it’s called Adlandia in the book, which basically means ‘Adam’s land’.
Throughout the book, the readers are shown various places in Adlandia. The two most prominent ones are the coastal metropolis Sun City and the isolated mountain village Lamechtown. But there are also other places that were shown and mentioned.
The worldbuilding is this book is great. The author did a splendid job in showing the debauchery that exists in the Sun City and mainstream society. But the people of isolated Lamechtown are not saints either. There’s a reason why only eight people ended up getting into the Ark, after all.
There are also quick mentions of Adlandian politics in the background. Enough to incite wonder within the audience, but not too much that it drags the story.
Then there are the animals. There’s a supersized insect shown early in the book. Later on, there are mentions of genetic engineering; we even saw a mermaid. And yet the author didn’t make full use of Adlandian flora and fauna. I think it was a missed opportunity for Mrs. Traylor not to show a dinosaur or two in the book.
But other than that, the setting in Noah is great. In fact, it made me want to write my own antediluvian story.
Characters
Our hero for this story is the titular Noah, the Biblical figure known for his Ark. From the Bible, we didn’t really know all that much about him. We know that he’s a man of God, and of an incident that I will get into later.
But we can only imagine how it felt for Noah as he was building the Ark and then left behind the world that he had known for centuries as it was flooded. This is where Mrs. Traylor put in her interpretation of Noah’s character.
How was it? Did the author put in a convincing portrayal of Noah?
To be honest, I have serious reservations about it. Though I’ll admit that this was because of theological difference. Traylor is a Protestant, while I’m a Catholic.
In the book, Noah is portrayed as a street preacher, the kind that you might see in America when you’re waiting for the bus. Given that ‘the wickedness of men upon the Earth was great’, people didn’t take kindly to his message.
This book is an interesting study of how Christians might see Noah. As a Catholic, I see him as a proto-Pope. He would most likely had the charism that allowed him to carry the traditions that had been passed down from Adam through Enoch, and so on. Meanwhile, Traylor the Protestant see Noah as somewhat of a religious reformer. The book even brought up the sola fide issue which is an anachronism; I get that the author is trying to set up a reason for why Noah’s own people ended up turning against him, but it could have been done better.
As for Noah’s personality, I am more approving. Early in the book, he was shown to be an adventurous man. This was what set him on a journey with his friend Obad to the Sun City in order to rescue his sister from the clutches of Poseidon (I’ll get to him). And once he became a prophet, he was shown to be someone who wanted to save as many people as he could.
But Noah is not a perfect man, he has his personal struggles. One we can see early in the book was his racism. My dissident right-winger readers may cringe, but it is important to remember that this book was published in 1985. Anyways, Noah is a Sethite, a descendant of Seth. Because of this, he saw himself as a member of the ‘godly’ people in contrast to the Cainites, those who had descended from Cain.
This racism theme was made even more apparent as the Cainites were depicted as dark-skinned people. On the nose? Perhaps. In Mrs. Traylor’s defense, I think this was meant to be a refutation of the popular idea that the Nephilim were products of intermarriages between the sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain.
Moving on, this was resolved when Noah ended up marrying a Cainite woman named Naamah. This brings me to Noah’s family members.
As a whole, Noah’s family was done pretty well. Noah’s immediate family members like his father, brother, and sister were well written. However, the meat of the supporting cast is his wife and children. Naamah is written as a supportive wife to Noah. I think their romance is believable and handled well.
As for the children, much of the focus was given to Ham. As it turned out, Ham turned out to be quite the rascal. Meanwhile, Shem was the model son. Astute readers will see a Cain and Abel contrast between the two. Unfortunately, poor Japheth was the third wheel. Out of Noah’s three children, he had the least screen time.
Sorry, Europeans.
In terms of a villain, we have Poseidon. Yes, that Poseidon. The ruler of Sun City and the most powerful political leader in Adlandia, Poseidon’s seduction and kidnapping of Noah’s sister Adala was what set the stage for the plot. He was the antagonist for the book’s early parts. Later on, he became more of a background character. We see him every now and then, but he wasn’t taken care of until the flood itself.
I think it’s cool to have a literal pagan god as the villain of the book. It really showed the danger and how out of depth Noah actually was; and why he needed God.
Story
Now we move on to the story. It’s at this point where I have to make a pointed criticism about this book. It hurts me to do this, but this was the only way I can put this book to my series in good conscience.
I’m referring to the first chapter of the book. It’s uncomfortably sensual. At first, I thought it might just me, but I also saw similar criticisms of this book and other works by the author. It’s not pornographic, but it’s an uncomfortably read. I honestly haven’t revisited that chapter and I don’t intend to do so.
If you read this book, I suggest you skip the first chapter. The point of that chapter was that Noah’s sister got seduced by Poseidon. Just keep that in mind and start with the second Chapter.
(To be fair, I think the author intended to portray Poseidon’s lust in that chapter. And by extension, how the Nephilim could have come into being in the first place. Even so, I think she went too far.)
That aside, the story was well done. The first half of the book covers Noah’s adventures in the cities. Around the middle part of the story, Noah received instructions from God to build the Ark. And the second half of the book covers Noah’s efforts at building the Ark and the Great Flood itself.
Both parts of the story were done well. The first half showed why the flood was necessary to cleanse the Earth. It’s also a good use of the Atlantis myth, an advanced civilization said to be flooded because of their decadence.
The second half of the book was really heartbreaking. At this point, it is important to keep in mind that it took Noah about 120 years to build the Ark. When Noah first went about building the Ark, things seem optimistic as he had many people helping him. But as time goes, his allies either died out or turned against him.
By the time the flood came, it made sense why only Noah, his wife, his sons, and his daughters-in-law were the only human beings to made it out.
Afterwards, there was a denouement in which Noah and his family settled into the post-flood world. Ham’s issues with his father truly reared its ugly head when Noah got drunk after drinking wine. Traylor’s portrayal of the incident and what Noah said to Ham was a novel one, but it fits with how Noah had been characterized in the book.
Conclusion
Readers who read my previous analyses may notice that this was the first book that I criticized in depth. That’s because there’s a lot in the book that I disagree with. But in spite of it, I still think that it’s a worthwhile read. It’s a good example of a Christian work of fiction that’s imaginative while at the same time (mostly) stays true to the Faith.
The setting and the worldbuilding are where the book really shines. I take is as a given that a good speculative fiction is one that inspires wonder within the audience, and Mrs. Traylor did that splendidly in Noah.
As for the characters and the story, they’re pretty good too. The book made a believable attempt at portraying Noah, his family, his friends, and even his enemies. As for the story, it kept me engaged right until the very end.
Thus, readers, were the days of Noah.
-Michael P. Marpaung