"When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the Lord,
she came to test Solomon with hard questions.”
1 Kings, 10:1
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I grew up in a somewhat conservative Christian household. We attended church every Sunday, church programs throughout the week, pretty much all of my friends came from my church, and I have a lot of happy memories involving the church. Things took a turn as I aged. I realized I was gay, and was outed to my church, and asked to leave. Despite that, I still count myself as a very spiritual person. I was never fond of organized religion, I've always found it to be corrupt, but belief and spirituality is still a very important part of my life. Growing up in the church you learn about the various Bible stories of the Old Testament, and the tales of Jesus and the writings of Paul from the New, but this short little chapter in Kings, where the Queen of Sheba travels to Solomon’s court always intrigued me. That intrigue was furthered over the years as I studied art and came across various depictions of the two royals' meeting. So when I saw this book on a sale rack in Chapters, I thought I’d give it a try.
I’m not sure what I expected from The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen. I’d never read any of author Tosca Lee’s other work, but thought my interest in the character of Sheba would be enough to pique my interest. I was both right and wrong. I’ll start with the positives. Lee’s writing is exceptional. Her prose is whimsical and poetic, every line seems like it was written with such care and delicacy to paint a highly stylized and metaphorical picture. And I found her writing was easy to read, because it all flowed together so organically and beautifully. She tells the story from Sheba’s perspective, it’s first person, and it works really well. The character of Sheba is strong, feminine, vulnerable and yet incredibly headstrong and powerful. And while this first person perspective worked wonders for the character of Sheba, it limited the development of other characters in the story. Other characters like Solomon, Maqar (her first lover), Yafush (her eunuch boyguard), and Shara (her maid), who were central to the story, fell incredibly flat and one-dimensional. Even Solomon, who plays a large part throughout the novel, was lessened to a whiney, pushy royal brat without much depth or development. I understand that the story is about Sheba, she’s the central character, the novel is about her development and her rule as Queen of this incredibly influential foreign power, but I never found myself caring about anyone else. And while Lee’s writing is phenomenally picturesque and poetic, I think it also dwarfed any character development that could have been extrapolated on. On multiple occasions, Sheba speaks fondly about her councilmen, her priest Asm, her maidservants, but we never see enough interactions among the characters to understand why she is so fond of them, and that was a little frustrating.
One of the things I did like about this novel, however, is how Lee took Sabean (now Ethiopian) folklore into consideration. The Sabean’s believed that Sheba and Solomon conceived a son who returned to Sheba to rule. And that when the Queen of Sheba returned, she brought with her the Arc of the Covenant, which to this day, supposedly remains in the possession of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, one of the largest Oriental Orthodox Churches. The importance of sacred arcs (and the counterfeiting of them) is a recurring theme throughout the novel that often relates to the precarious and sometimes shallow position of ruling a nation, and I liked that Lee spent time developing the subplots revolving the arcs of both Solomon and Sheba.
However I did not like the rushed ending. The denouncement came to a very quick close. Without giving away any spoilers, Sheba is rushed from Jerusalem, and quickly sent home, and the novel end. There’s very little (or adequate) closure to Sheba and Solomon’s relationship, nor Sheba’s time spent in Jerusalem and the impact it had on her own rule and life. And I found that a little disappointing. But overall, The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen was a beautifully written novel, thanks to Lee’s poetic prose, if not a little light and fluffy at times.
