Novels Now

“Well from what you’ve told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You’ve got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything’s humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize ‘the other’ - it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists…same old, same old. It seems to me the book, at this point, bears witness to all that.” -From People of the Book, page 195-

Of course, a book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand. -From People of the Book, page 19-

Pulitzer prize-winning author, Geraldine Brooks, has written another stunning and impeccably researched book. People of the Book begins in 1996 when rare book expert (and conservator) Hanna Heath is summoned to post-war Bosnia to examine an ancient manuscript.

The Sarajevo Haggadah, created in medieval Spain, was a famous rarity, a lavishly illuminated Hebrew manuscript made at a time when Jewish belief was firmly against illustrations of any kind. 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. When the book came to light in Sarajevo in 1894, its pages of painted miniatures had turned this idea on its head and caused art history text to be rewritten. -From People of the Book, page 8-

Between the pages of this incredible book, Hanna discovers clues to its history: a fragile insect’s wing, a missing clasp, a small wine stain, a drip of salt water and a single white hair. In alternating chapters, the clues reveal themselves and uncover the people whose hands the manuscript passes through…and remarkably the author and illustrator of the Haggadah. The reader visits Sarajevo in 1904, Vienna in 1894, Venice in 1609, Tarragona in 1492, and Seville in 1480. At the same time, Hanna’s story is also gradually revealed as she moves forward from 1996 to 2002.

People of the Book is inspired by the true story of the of the Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. Brooks novel, however, is richly imagined - borrowing certain facts and then creating multi-layered characters and situations which immerse the reader in a fictional world of intrigue, emotion and wonder. Brooks did her homework - and People of the Book includes fascinating facts about early art history and the skill of book conservation, as well as the history of the Jewish people.

I turned a page. More dazzle. The illuminations were beautiful, but I didn’t allow myself to look at them as art. Not yet. First i had to understand them as chemicals. There was yellow, made of saffron. That beautiful autumn flower, Crocus sativus Linnaeus, each with just three tiny precious stigmas, had been a prized luxury then and remained one, still. Even if we now know that the rich color comes from a carotene, crocin, with a molecular structure of 44 carbon, 64 hydrogen, and 24 oxygen, we still haven’t synthesized a substitute as complex and as beautiful. There was malachite green, and red; the intense red known as worm scarlet - tola’at shani in Hebrew - extracted from tree-dwelling insects, crushed up and boiled in lye. Later, when alchemists learned how to make a similar red from sulfur and mercury, they still named the color “little worm” - vermiculum. Some things don’t change: we call it vermilion even today. -From People of the Book, page 15-

I found this novel immensely satisfying and one which I highly recommend for readers who enjoy world literature and have a fascination for books and art history, as well as for those who enjoy unraveling mysteries.

People of the Book is a fitting title for Geraldine Brooks’s latest novel. This book explored the many people who touched an ancient Hebrew codex that traveled through Europe for 500 years. Though a work of fiction, the book is based on a true story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish manuscript that was rescued by Muslim librarians twice – once during World War II and most recently during the nationalist wars in Yugoslavia. The irony that Muslim men rescued a Hebrew text during times of cultural strife provided Brooks with her framework. But it’s Brooks’s fictional illumination of what else happened to the haggadah during its long life that further advanced the message of People of the Book - how people can do the right thing, despite religious differences and political rules of the time.

In this book, Dr. Hanna Heath, an Australian expert in book conservation, was called to Sarajevo at the beginning of the cease-fire to inspect the haggadah and unravel its mysterious origins. As she inspected the book, Hanna extracted several clues to its past: an insect’s wing, sliver clasps, red stains on the page, a morsel of salt and a white hair. As she investigated each clue, Brooks took the reader back in time to how each item found its place in the haggadah. The “flashbacks” are all fictional, but they provided a narrative on the treatment of Jews through the years, from the Spanish Inquisition to World War II – and how one book survived it, thanks to the love and care of the people who were entrusted to protect it.

Admittedly, I found some of the historical narratives a little drawn out, but each fact had its place in the large context of the story. Hanna’s personal life also entered into the story, which in my opinion did not add to the story of the haggadah but explained why she became so interested in the conservation of books.

All in all, I enjoyed People of the Book because of what it represents: “It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox.” The real Sarajevo Haggadah is testament to this feeling, and thank God there are people out there who remember that humanity should transcend everything else.

If you like religious historical fiction, I highly recommend People of the Book to you. (4.5/5)

I have read one other book by Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders, which I liked, so I had high expectations for this book.

When I first started reading People of the Book I was sure it was on track to be one of my top reads of the year. There were places where I stopped to make notes of things that I wanted to remember:

“Of course, a book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand. The gold beaters, the stone grinders, the scribes, the binders, those are the people I feel most comfortable with. Sometimes, in the quiet, these people speak to me. They let me see what their intentions were, and it helps me do my work.” - People of the Book, pg 19

“All of you, from the safe world, with your air bags and your tamper-proof packaging and your fat-free diets. You are the superstitious ones. You convince yourself you can cheat death, and you are absolutely offended when you learn that you can’t. You sat in your nice little flat all through our war and watched us, bleeding all over the TV news. And you though, ‘How Awful!’ and then you got up and made yourself another cup of gourmet coffee.”-People of the Book, pg 37

However, somewhere in the middle the story just started to lose momentum for me and I started to have trouble keeping the different storylines straight.

I love the concept of a story told about an ancient text and I felt like I got a good snapshot of what was going on in each time period I visited. For that reason alone, I am glad I read this book. I love history. However, I found that the characters in some instances were not what I was hoping they would be and I was disappointed.

Maybe my expectations were too high but this was just okay to me. (3/5)