"Noah", a graphic novel by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel, and published by Image Comics, is not about the Biblical Noah that you learned about in Sunday School. The blurb at Net Galley sums it up pretty well; this is a re-invention of the Flood story intermixed with fantasy and sci-fi overtones. I can't help but compare it with the narrative that I'm familiar with, which is from the book of Genesis itself, and there are so many differences between the two versions.
I hold fairly conservative Christian beliefs and I'm fairly certain that there are going to be some Christians that are going to be offended by some, or maybe perhaps by all of the content of this graphic novel. I'm trying to look within to see what my own feelings are about this book, and to be honest, anger was not what I felt while reading it. Instead, I was curious to see what differences would appear. Now that I've read it, I find myself worried about what a person who is not acquainted with the Biblical account would think about God, about sin, and about Noah himself, because the man described in this book was not someone who I could admire, especially by the end of the story.
In this story, Noah is described as a righteous man, demonstrating his respect for life, especially for the care of wildlife and of the earth. He speaks more about the evils that humans do against the environment, the earth, the ground, rivers, seas and beasts of the earth, rather than about the Christian concept of sin against God. He builds an ark so that he can rescue the wildlife of the earth; at certain points in the story, he seems to care more about the animals than his own children. This Noah is also a bit of a gloomy guy; he believes that he is burdened with the decision of whether or not to allow the human race to survive post-flood when he wonders whether he should get wives for his sons, Ham and Japheth. By the time he has decided that humankind doesn't deserve to re-establish itself after the flood, he had turned into a character that is so close-minded and set in his determination to make mankind extinct. He sounds so hard hearted and callous that it is difficult to reconcile this version of Noah with the man in the Bible who spent years pleading with people to repent and turn away from their sins so that they could be saved from the judgment of the flood.
The book is illustrated by Niko Henrichon, who depicts an apocalyptic world that reminded me of the movie sets for Conan the Barbarian. The artwork shows the violence and horrors that humans inflict upon each other, although I can't really recall if there was a lot of blood. There was a lot of brown and grey settings and unwashed warriors. There were tattooed men. There were giant six-armed troll-like creatures. These were supposed to be the Nephilim, except they were referenced in this story as the Watchers. According to this story, they were fallen angels who lost their wings because they left heaven to help humankind on earth after man was evicted from the Garden of Eden. Noah's wife is depicted as being one very hot chick. Yes, I wrote that. And yes...there is a little bit of hanky panky in a couple of the frames between Shem (another son of Noah) and his woman.
As a fantasy story, the best that I can say is that it was an interesting fictional take on the Flood. It's just that this is based on a very special story for me, and I felt very uncomfortable with the changes that were made to it.
Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of "Noah" from Net Galley in exchange for a review. All opinons stated in this review are mine.
