David

Allan Boone's Wargon

Description

A biographical novel of the biblical King David. It follows the Bible very closely, but imagines the motivations the Bible only hints at.

Few stories have had such an effect on the world. The lonely shepherd boy, singing his songs in the wilderness to his one intimate friend, God, said what no one before had even dared to contemplate: "I" . In using the first person in "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," he formed a personal relationship with God. From that moment on the world was changed.

David composed psalms, or songs, had wives and loves, led his army in mighty battles, dispensed justice, and was politically cunning. He saw the development of democracy and the ideal of decency and forged a kingdom of lasting influence. He was followed as king by his son Solomon, and generations later, it is said, by Jesus, the Christ.

The young shepherd boy's, then the king's, thoughts and actions continue to reverberate now, 3000 years later. The story's issues are immediate and current.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Historical
• Lettres et linguistique
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780986567148
• Langue: English

Extrait

DAVID
 


 
 
ALSO BY ALLAN WARGON
I Am Come Into My Garden, My Sister, My Bride
A poetic novel in appreciation of the Song of Songs
Nia
A love story
Showbiz, and More
A novella, sonnets and three stories
 


 
 
DAVID

ALLAN
WARGON
 
 

PIED PIPER
BOOKS
 


 
 
Copyright © 2012 Allan Wargon
Excerpts from this publication may be reproduced under licence from Access Copyright, or with the express permission of Pied Piper Books, or as permitted by law. A reviewer may quote brief passages in a review. Otherwise all rights are reserved and no part or all of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, except as specifically authorized.
Copyright is registered with the Library of Congress and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
Quotes from Duff Cooper are with the kind permission of his literary executor, John Julius Norwich, The Viscount Norwich. Robert Alter is named with his gracious consent.
The excerpt from The Gifts Of The Jews by Tom Cahill, © 1998 by Tom Cahill, is used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
The remark of Izak Freilich, of blessed memory, was made to the author in person.
This biography, which closely follows the biblical story, is nonetheless a work of fiction, as it contains scenes that are not in the Bible and omits some that are. It also provides motivations that are only hinted at in the Bible. It is the author’s imaginative understanding of the life of King David. As such, any resemblance to other persons, living or dead, is of course entirely coincidental.
David / Allan Wargon.
ISBN-13 978-0-9865-6714-8
David (King of Israel) — Fiction.
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
Typeset by Gordon Robertson Design, Toronto, Canada.
Cover: Part of ‘Bathsheba bathing’ by Rembrandt Van Rijn
Cover design by Sholom Wargon
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Published in eBook format by Pied Piper Books
825941 Mel-Nott TL, R R 2, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S6 Canada
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 


 
 
History has no other instance
of a man who has fought the wars,
made the laws, and written the songs of his people.
 
 
DUFF COOPER
 


 
 
TRIBUTE
 
During the Second World War, Duff Cooper was a member of Winston Churchill’s wartime cabinet. He was in charge of secret work, and to relax from the rigours of the job and anxieties of the war he wrote on weekends a book called David . It’s a brilliant little book. He brought to the biblical story not only a profound understanding of people, but a knowledge of government and the perspective of a man engaged in the affairs of an empire. It moved me to write the present work, and once I even used his very words, because I could think of no better way of putting it.
 
 
ALLAN WARGON, 2012
 
 
I would also like to reprint Duff Cooper’s dedication to that book, and make it my own:
 
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE
TO WHOM THE WORLD OWES
THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENTS
AND MUCH ELSE
IN THE REALMS OF BEAUTY AND KNOWLEDGE
A DEBT
THAT HAS BEEN ILL REPAID
 


 
 
AND FROM THOMAS CAHILL:
 
 
The Jews started it all—and by “it” I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and gentile, believer and atheist, tick. Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings. And not only would our sensorium, the screen through which we receive the world, be different: we would think with a different mind, interpret all our experience differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives.
By “we” I mean the usual “we” of late-twentieth-century writing: the people of the Western world, whose peculiar but vital mentality has come to infect every culture on earth, so that, in a startlingly precise sense, all humanity is now willy-nilly caught up in this “we”. For better or worse the role of the West in humanity’s history is singular. Because of this, the role of the Jews, the inventors of Western culture, is also singular: there is simply no one else remotely like them; theirs is a unique vocation. Indeed, as we shall see, the very idea of vocation, of a personal destiny, is a Jewish idea.
Our history is replete with examples of those who have refused to see what the Jews are really about, who —through intellectual blindness, racial chauvinism, xenophobia, or just plain evil — have been unable to give this oddball tribe, this raggle-taggle band, this race of wanderers who are the progenitors of the Western world, their due. Indeed, at the end of this bloodiest of centuries, we can all too easily look back on scenes of unthinkable horror perpetrated by those who would do anything rather than give the Jews their due.
 
 
from the Introduction to The Gifts of the Jews
by THOMAS CAHILL, 1998
 


 
 
Allan, if all religious Jews had to believe in God, there wouldn’t be very many.
 
 
ISAK FREILICH
a very religious Jew
1922–2002
 


 
 
NAMES
 
The names used in the King James version of the Bible are but a crude translation from the original Hebrew. Daavid, Yoav, Avigail and Avner would be closer. But there are sounds in Hebrew for which there are no English equivalents, making a close translation impossible. Rather than torture the English to attempt near exactness, the spellings of the King James, which are so well known, have been adopted.
 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 
For almost three thousand years, countless scholars have pored over this story. Their comments and insights constitute a mountain of information about the motives, religion, culture, climate, geography, fauna, flora and the ordinary lives of the people of that time. This work is built on their efforts. It would be impractical to credit them individually, for that in itself would make up a book. One contemporary will have to stand for them all: Robert Alter. His translations and commentaries have been invaluable.
 


 
 
for Etti
 
DAVID the BOY
 


1
Suddenly a new name. Never heard of before. Even the Bible has no previous record of it.
David emerged into a land that was like a kaleidoscope. A range of mountains, snowy peaks, craggy boulders, heat, palm trees, swamps, desert, rivers, and the lowest body of water on earth, landlocked and salt encrusted. And here and there, between rock outcroppings, patches of grass.
Such was the territory of the Israelites. It was penetrated and surrounded by enemies. From Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, the land fancifully reckoned to be Israelite was less than one hundred and fifty miles. At its widest it stretched, unevenly, from thirty to fifty miles.
Yet among the mountains every valley and partly level place was cultivated, and wherever possible the hillsides were terraced. The olive and the vine grew well in that gritty soil; grains, vegetables and various fruit trees were grown. And after the winter rains the arid earth would briefly blossom in a profusion of wildflowers, and it would truly seem a blessed and beautiful land.
But scattered throughout there were still many unconquered Canaanite villages, and not far from Bethlehem, where David was born, stood high and untouched the fortified city of the Jebusites, later known as Jerusalem.
*
David was the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons. He was a child of old age, conceived after his mother was thought to be past bearing. Where Jesse got the name no one knew. He wanted something special for this unexpected babe, and fondly derived the name from a term for ‘darling’.
It was immediately resented by David’s brothers, who were older by six years and more. They were all broad and dark, like their father had been, but David was slim and fair. He had a pale complexion, reddish hair and an adorable face. This blue-eyed, blondish strain was unusual among Israelites, but not unknown; his mother’s brother had been like that. And from that uncle, who had played drums and castanets, David seemed to have inherited a feeling for music, for he quickly learnt popular folksongs. At the age of three he began strumming a small lute.
He was also clever, and could soon recognize the family signs, or brand marks, and those with which neighbours identified their belongings. Jesse talked with the little one so much that the boy quickly developed a rare fluency and grace with language. Whenever visitors came the child was stood up to play, sing or recite for their pleasure. Outwardly he responded to the attention, but soon grew tired of being used. He was aware of his talents, and didn’t like having constantly to display them. Or having his cheeks pinched. Or sometimes being given a jubilant pat on the behind. But he always returned such regard with a dimpled smile. He was already learning to disguise his feelings. Most people thought him delightful.
His brothers, however, out of jealousy and a penchant for bullying, scorned him. They called him derisive names and never included him in their boisterous councils. He was like a seeming dove among contentious geese. There were also two sisters, both married and with homes of their own. The firstborn, Zeruiah, had two sons and was pregnant again. Her oldest was almost the age of David.
Despite Jesse’s mildness, he was a good manager and one of the more prosperous and influential elders in the village. He was also unusually clean, washing himself every morning. It was considered a personal quirk. From early on David remembered his father’s smell: a rather comforting mixture of male body odour, dust and the warm scent of his beard and robe, usually faintly permeated with wood smoke.
Although Jesse had the formal authority that came with paternity, he was in truth afraid of his older sons. He d