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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2008, 384 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2009, 672 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Lisa A. Goldstein
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From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war.
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March, the
journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile
and war
In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the
job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo
Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the
Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the
earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When
Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a
series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing
fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to
unlock the book’s mysteries. The reader is ushered into an
exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s
journey from its salvation back to its creation.
In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it
from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna,
the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city’s rising
anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it
from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text
sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in
Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary
illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna’s investigation
unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and
ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in
herself and the man she has come to love.
Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a
novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional
intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and
beloved author.
(Pages 257-258)
When the sun had set and darkness sheltered her from the eyes of the
curious, Ruth Ben Shoushan walked into the sea, the nameless infant tight
against her breast, until she stood waist deep. She unwrapped him, throwing the
swaddling cloth over her head. His brown eyes blinked at her, and his small
fists, free of constriction, punched at the air. "Sorry, my little one," she
said gently, and then thrust him under the dark surface.
The water closed around him, touching every inch of his flesh. She had a firm
grip around his upper arm. She let go. The water had to take him.
She looked down at the small, struggling form, her face determined, even as she
sobbed. The swell rose and slapped against her. The tug of the receding wave was
about to pull the infant away. Ruti reached out and grasped him firmly in her
two hands. As she lifted him from the sea, water sluiced off his bare, shining
skin in a shower of brightness. She held him up ...
The title encapsulates it all: it's about the people of the book, because if not for them, the Haggadah would not have survived. Brooks' larger message, one that's particularly apt today, could ultimately be about how diverse cultures influence and enrich one another...continued
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(Reviewed by Lisa A. Goldstein).
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