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I would recommend this novel to the stout-hearted reader who is interested in the critical role books can play in the history of a people and in the darker side of European history. What I enjoyed most about "People of the Book" is its clever duel narrative structure: the framing story relates how the novel’s protagonist, a book conservator, attempts to piece together the history of a famous Jewish manuscript called the Sarajevo Haggadah, as well as telling her own story of the personal and professional crises that plague her as she works on the book’s conservation; meanwhile, a second set of chapters moves backward in time from the recovery in 1996 of the haggadah through it’s endurance over five centuries of religious strife to it’s unlikely inception as illuminations of the Passover story. It is this second narrative that really makes the work haunting because author Geraldine Brooks’ invented history for the manuscript is absolutely heartbreaking. The people who create and care for the book face imprisonment, torture, exile and ignominious death to insure its survival, taking the reader with them into the Nazi annexation of the Austrian Empire, the African diaspora and the Inquisitions of early modern Venice and Spain. Her descriptions of medieval waterboarding are particularly shocking and poignant today. The novelist’s point in guiding the reader on this grueling tour of European atrocities is to demonstrate that this unique illuminated haggadah was the product of moments in history that ever-so-briefly permitted the cultural coexistence of Jews, Muslims and Christians, periods which inexorably give way to repeated repressive regimes. As a student of early modern European history, I found this work gritty, thorough-going and challenging. If I have a complaint of this novel, it is that the author only hints at rather than depicts the craft of bookmaking in the various periods of history she explores. Overall I cannot say I loved this novel as much as I felt drawn into the narrator’s sometimes disturbing literary pursuits. The well-plotted tale of the haggadah becomes enthralling as the reader plunges further into its murky past, while the heroine’s story likewise becomes more compelling as the novel progresses and she must confront not just the challenges of an extraordinary book restoration, but must also come to terms with flaws in her own carefully-crafted identity as a conservator and an individual.
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Bonnie Palmer, May 2, 2008
I would recommend this novel to the stout-hearted reader who is interested in the critical role books can play in the history of a people and in the darker side of European history. What I enjoyed most about "People of the Book" is its clever duel narrative structure: the framing story relates how the novel’s protagonist, a book conservator, attempts to piece together the history of a famous Jewish manuscript called the Sarajevo Haggadah, as well as telling her own story of the personal and professional crises that plague her as she works on the book’s conservation; meanwhile, a second set of chapters moves backward in time from the recovery in 1996 of the haggadah through it’s endurance over five centuries of religious strife to it’s unlikely inception as illuminations of the Passover story. It is this second narrative that really makes the work haunting because author Geraldine Brooks’ invented history for the manuscript is absolutely heartbreaking. The people who create and care for the book face imprisonment, torture, exile and ignominious death to insure its survival, taking the reader with them into the Nazi annexation of the Austrian Empire, the African diaspora and the Inquisitions of early modern Venice and Spain. Her descriptions of medieval waterboarding are particularly shocking and poignant today. The novelist’s point in guiding the reader on this grueling tour of European atrocities is to demonstrate that this unique illuminated haggadah was the product of moments in history that ever-so-briefly permitted the cultural coexistence of Jews, Muslims and Christians, periods which inexorably give way to repeated repressive regimes. As a student of early modern European history, I found this work gritty, thorough-going and challenging. If I have a complaint of this novel, it is that the author only hints at rather than depicts the craft of bookmaking in the various periods of history she explores. Overall I cannot say I loved this novel as much as I felt drawn into the narrator’s sometimes disturbing literary pursuits. The well-plotted tale of the haggadah becomes enthralling as the reader plunges further into its murky past, while the heroine’s story likewise becomes more compelling as the novel progresses and she must confront not just the challenges of an extraordinary book restoration, but must also come to terms with flaws in her own carefully-crafted identity as a conservator and an individual.Terms and Conditions
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By posting your comments you are granting the good people of Powells.com the right (but not the obligation) to make your comments available to others over the Internet, and to copy and distribute your comments via other media, in each case on a royalty free basis. These terms govern the rights and obligations of the person posting comments and Powells.com; there are no intended third party beneficiaries of these terms. Posted comments are subject to monitoring, editing, and removal at any time. Please see our Terms of Use for our complete terms and conditions.Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
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