oh no no, Delilah

First of all, I’ve got to say this: as an author I feel bad reviewing books written in the last few decades; what if the author finds the blog and reads it? What if I hurt their feelings? However – this is my honest opinion. And I stand by it. I’m reviewing the book, not the author.

Aaaaannnddd with that said …

I’m going to say it. Biblical fiction takes work to work and honestly with some very few exceptions (Ben-Hur, I enjoyed Ben-Hur) as a whole it doesn’t work.

That’s it, that’s my take.

I read Delilah in one afternoon and I have regrets. It’s my fault. I knew when I bought this book that it would probably be a miss. But I haven’t taken a gander on a biblical fiction novel for an age and you know, spice is the variety of life.

If you’re not familiar with the story of Samson and Delilah, you’ll know the jig: Delilah is paid to seduce Samson, Samson eventually succumbs and admits that his super-duper strength is because he doesn’t cut his hair. Delilah cuts Samson’s hair. Samson is captured and Delilah disappears from the narrative (with her money).

(Samson gets his eyes gouged out but DO NOT WORRY his hair grows back and then he brings death down – literally – on his enemies.)

Delilah by Eleanor de Jong tries to redeem the seductress and cast the character of Samson as a … romance hero?

(With romance hero descriptions.)

Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.

I have other quibbles. For example, I was having a reading day with friends and one of them commented on my reaction; I had reared back from the page. For your peace of mind, I won’t quote. (You’re welcome). But I’d like to say I’d prefer it if Delilah hadn’t been written as a highly sexualised teenager. It was hideously awkward.

She has this strange ability to just … go wherever she pleases, at any time without anyone of her family saying: uh Delilah, you’re behaving very 21st century would you mind coming back into the ancient past?

Samson is, at first, depicted a rage monster and then he transforms into some sort of Robin Hood crossed with a romance hero from the 90s. (Strong side eye. What a take.)

Hilariously, instead of cutting his hair as part of her scheme to turn him over to her employers, Delilah falls in love with him, and in an effort to help him escape her erstwhile employers, drugs him, cuts his hair to disguise him (?) and then tries to take this giant ox of a man in a cart.

Delilah stood up. ‘Let’s use a fishing net to drag him.’

‘He’s the leader of our people and you would haul him like a bucket of dead fish?’

p. 331

Spoilers: She is discovered. Also, she’s pregnant with his baby.

It’s wild, it’s unhinged, and I just wish that De Jong had let Delilah follow the original narrative. It could have been a game of wits. It could have been the story of a woman bringing down a powerful superhero. Instead it was an incredibly horny book that made me want to retreat into my skin like a turtle.

I will say though, to the book’s credit, there wasn’t the usual didactic salvation scene that is a dubious hallmark of Christian fiction (one that I used myself when I was just a young, youthfull writer). Though I must say it’s very entertaining when authors attempt to fit New Testament doctrine into Old Testament worlds; you can’t John 3:16 it up when we’re still working our way through Jesus’s mother’s great great great grandparents ferociously begetting, if you know what I mean.