Cain

Author: Jose Saramago
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher, 2012
Pages: 176
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Saramago's tale runs from the Garden of Eden, when God realizes he has forgotten to give Adam and Eve the gift of speech, to the moment when Noah's Ark lands on the dry peak of Ararat. Cain, the despised murderer, is Saramago's protagonist.

Condemned to wander forever after he kills his brother Abel, Cain makes his way through the  world in the company of a personable donkey. He is witness to and participant in the stories of Isaac and Abraham, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf, the trials of Job. The rapacious Queen Lilith takes him as her lover. An old man with two sheep on a rope crosses his path. And again and again, Cain encounters a God whose actions seems callous, cruel, and unjust. He confronts Him, he argues with Him.

Review: I am always up for reimagined or retelling of well-known stories, and actually found this book entertaining in parts. However, I also found my mind drifting while as was reading. If this was a longer book, I may have set it aside unfinished.