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People of the Book

Geraldine Brooks

Start date: January 1, 2020

Finish date: January 30, 2020

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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

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Jul 11, 2019 Jeanne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, read-2019, read-around-the-world, read-women, religion-and-mindfulness, middle-east

The Sarajevo Haggadah, a Hebrew manuscript created in medieval Spain, was rare and unusual due to its lavish illuminations when Jews believed that illustrations were verboten: It was thought that the commandment in Exodus “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness of any thing” had suppressed figurative art by medieval Jews (pp. 8-9). The Haggadah's discovery in Sarajevo in 1894 turned this idea on its head and rewrote our views of Jews and Jewish art.

People of the Book is histo The Sarajevo Haggadah, a Hebrew manuscript created in medieval Spain, was rare and unusual due to its lavish illuminations when Jews believed that illustrations were verboten: It was thought that the commandment in Exodus “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness of any thing” had suppressed figurative art by medieval Jews (pp. 8-9). The Haggadah's discovery in Sarajevo in 1894 turned this idea on its head and rewrote our views of Jews and Jewish art.

People of the Book is historical fiction, but the Sarajevo Haggadah is a real text. Geraldine Brooks' description of the science and art of an art historian and conservator's work was, itself, fascinating. Like her narrator, Hanna, Brooks "wanted to give a sense of the people of the book, the different hands that had made it, used it, protected it" (pp. 264-265). In her search to understand the Haggadah, Hanna saw the same story repeat: Jews, Christians, Muslims at war, but also saving, influencing, and supporting each other.

"So why had an illuminator working in Spain, for a Jewish client, in the manner of a European Christian, have used an Iranian paintbrush?" (p. 321).

Hanna visited entomologists and forensic detectives, used spectrometers, and researched what makes wine and salt kosher: By linking research and imagination, sometimes I can think myself into the heads of the people who made the book. I can figure out who they were, or how they worked. That’s how I add my few grains to the sandbox of human knowledge. It’s what I love best about what I do (p. 11).

I love nerdy characters, people who love food and books and good conversation, yet will give all of this up when an engaging intellectual task gets the best of them.

This book's title refers not only to the characters peopling the Haggadah's lifespan, but also the three groups of monotheists – Jews, Christians, and Muslims, who intermarried, worked with, and persecuted the others.

“Years ago, we watched Lebanon fall apart and said, ‘That’s the Middle East, they’re primitive over there.’ Then we saw Dubrovnik in flames, and we said, ‘We’re different in Sarajevo.’ That’s what we all thought. How could you possibly have an ethnic war here, in this city, when every second person is the product of a mixed marriage? How to have a religious war in a city where no one ever goes to church? For me, the mosque, it’s like a museum, quaint thing to do with grandparents. Picturesque, you know. Once a year, maybe, we’d go and see the zikr, when the dervishes dance, and it was like theater—like, what do you call it? A pantomime. My best friend, Danilo, he’s a Jew, and he’s not even circumcised." (p. 28)

One of the pleasant surprises in People of the Book is Hanna's own story, which does not neatly mirror or encapsulate the Haggadah's own story. Her story is not always pretty nor does it attempt to tie up all sorts of loose ends in tidy bows, but it, like the Haggadah, is a story of the passionate mind. Similarly, the artists, conservators, researchers, and zealots in the Haggadah's story were smart and capable, but often flawed.

I'm afraid that I've now read through Geraldine Brooks' fiction. (I hope I'm wrong.) She cannot write quickly enough for me. ...more

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Sep 04, 2013 Alana rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, foreign-culture

This was a fascinating look into not one, but several cultures of historical Europe. Yes, the individual accounts of events are fictionalized, but what imagination into the stories! Often when a book is a collection of several stories woven together, the seams between them are jarring and it's hard to get into the new "voice" of the new character. Not so here. The imagined journeys of the Sarajevo Haggada to its present location were captivating and enlightening as to their cultures. In fact, th ...more

1 like · Like · see review