“. . . with the fresh eye of a master storyteller to lend them … a fitting goal: an ancient tale which privileges the narrative mysteries of its first utterances.”

Wolkstein’s reconfiguring/retelling of the original tale of Inanna is compelling and accessible, told closely enough to the translations from cuneiform but with the fresh eye of a master storyteller to lend them what I would describe as a fitting goal: an ancient tale which privileges the narrative mysteries of its first utterances.

This is no small task, and along with the telling comes Wolkstein’s essays and notes, at once personal and academic, about her love and passion for working alongside the archivists and for breaking the myth open to probe about its inner workings: what must have been understood by the Sumerians, how symbols or signifiers worked differently in their time, what archetypes are in operation that surround and overshadow the text, etc. All of these are critical reads alongside the text itself, so for someone seeking more than a simple telling, Wolkstein delivers. 

And this myth, unsurprisingly, as fragmentary and obscure as it might be for us archaeologically, is not a simple story, despite its seeming barrenness of critical detail. We see in it early conceptions of magic–these powers of the living gods–of suffering and despair, of the mysteries of death and the underearth, of ritual and justice. For a story which had lasted centuries or millennia in its prime, finding it restored this way reveals for us some primary story in ourselves.