Teaching the Fall

I'm about to teach David Maine's Fallen. It's an excellent retelling of the Fall, but in reverse. We begin on page 3 with chapter 40, featuring Cain as an old man, and we end with chapter 1 on the last page of the book, with Adam and Eve still in the garden. Additionally, each of the novel's four books takes up the narrative from a new character's perspective, but without disrupting the reverse plot trajectory. Really, it's a remarkable novelistic feat. In terms of biblical rewrites, Nino Ricci's Testament similarly attempts to divvy up the narrative into Rashominic segments, but it's less successful, in my view, than Maine's work. Maine seems to be making a career of biblical rewrites, having also written a book about the Flood (The Preservationist) and another called Samson. See his blog for more info.

This term I've also taught Paradise Lost and Byron's wonderful little verse drama, Cain: A Mystery, in which Lucifer (the Romantic enlightener) takes Cain on a cosmic journey to the "pre-Adamite" worlds, and to the realm of death. Almost immediately after his return to earth our hero has a rather unfortunate spat with his brother. However, because Cain is now a Romantic rebel, his biblical verses are spoken by his wife/sister Adah - which has the effect of making Cain seem radically indifferent to his punishment. He has already embraced his essential alienation and thus is already (figuratively if not yet actually) a fugitive and a wanderer in this earthly life.