ELEAZAR, EXODUS TO THE WEST

The eponymous protagonist of this 1996 novella by the eminent French author of The Ogre (1970) and The Four Wise Men (1980) resembles these and other Tournier works in its deft reworking of biblical source material. The ordeal of the prophet Moses in the Sinai Desert influences the peregrinations of Eleazar O’Braid, an Irish Protestant minister (and former shepherd) who emigrates with his family, during the mid-19th century Potato Famine, to Virginia and thence through the American Southwest toward the “promised land” of California. His adventures comprise both an allegory of the strength and persistence of religious faith and a crisp gloss on Joseph Campbell’s well-known ruminations about the myth of the hero’s journey toward enlightenment. One of Tournier’s most accessible and attractive books.