Review: People of the Book

In People of the Book author Geraldine Brooks provides a compelling historical novel around the very real Sarajevo Haggadah. While there are some aspects of her story I could quibble with, I found it largely to be a pleasure to read listen to. After nearly 14 hours of audio, my first thought when the playback ended was: wow, that was a lot.

Spoilers Below

First off, I give full credit to Brooks for creating a clever story that brings the 650-year lifespan of the haggadah to life. I was expecting we'd be jumping back in time as the main character, Dr. Hanna Heath, worked on restoring the text. Which we did, but Brooks found interesting ways to pull this off that exceeded my expectations.

I was also not expecting a modern connection to the book. And while a bit silly at times (there's a heist!) this brought yet another dimension to the story, which I appreciated.

One message of the Haggadah's story, which one of the characters in the book directly voices, is the never-ending battle between acceptance and rejection of minorities. Brooks brings the reader face to face with moments throughout history when Jews go from feeling safe and included to being tormented and decimated. Even with my knowledge of Jewish events, I found Brooks' storytelling to reveal new aspects of our tragic and miraculous history.

The section on the Inquisition, for example, was so vivid and heartbreaking that I wanted to abandon the book altogether. Though, I knew this was exactly the wrong thing to do, and I'm glad I persevered.

At times, the book did test my ability to suspend disbelief. Take the Ruti storyline. Am I really supposed to believe that a young lady on the run from the Inquisition, with no resources, can bring a traumatically born baby to a new life in a new country? And yet, the moment that Ruti converts the infant to be a Jew is a powerful one, and so sure, I guess I'm onboard with this storyline.

Or how about the moment in the vault where the improvised red light reveals the name of the book's illustrator? I mean, really?

I suppose this is a fundamental challenge in historical fiction: the author can conjure up any story they wish and it's up to readers to buy it or not. I guess I'm more of a romantic than I'd like to admit.

The other potentially troubling aspect of the text is how nearly every character in the text is packing a heap of flaws. In the Venetian scenes, Father Vistorini is an alcoholic and Rabbi Aryeh has a gambling problem. Nearly all the characters are having sex with people they shouldn't be. And then there's the main character, Hanna, who's carrying around her own baggage.

Are these faults simply there to move the story along? Are they designed to humanize the characters and make the story better fit reality? In this case, I fear it's me, not Brooks that has the problem. I suppose I want a simpler story, where the bad people behave badly and the good people are model citizens.

I'm still not entirely sure what to make of Hanna and her mother's story. Other than to say that Hanna's behavior strikes me as logically following her upbringing. She's acting like a person with insecure attachment, and which makes sense, as her mother crafted a daughter with insecure attachment. So I may not love all of Dr. Heath's actions, but they fit within the world Brooks has established. And that world, like ours, is filled with people who carry the scars of trauma with them.

My only true criticism of the audiobook is that it does not include the afterword that the print version appears to offer. I'm guessing that the afterword sheds some light on what was truth and what was fiction in the story, which would have been highly appreciated. I'm guessing this is the publisher's, not author's sin.

As I've let this story gel for the last few days, I've found that I've enjoyed it more and more. Does Brooks get a bit dramatic in her telling? Sure, but a 600-year-old text that by all accounts should not exist is worth getting dramatic over.

A Bissle Torah

I would be remiss if I didn't tack on this story that occurred while I was listening to People of the Book. For context, I've been leigning at shul on a regular basis. This means that I've been chanting parts of the Torah at services and doing so from a traditional scroll that lacks vowels, punctuation and musical notation. It's tricky business, to say the least.

My strategy for success has been to focus on understanding the text in as much depth as possible. With understanding, the words and tune are much more predictable.

In the sofer's storyline, Brooks spends time explaining to the reader the different ways David Ben Shoushan's children relate to the Torah. For Shoushan's son, Reuben, the connection is technical. He's training as a scribe, so it's all about getting the letter forms and spacing correct. For his daughter, Ruti, it's a connection based on meaning, so her emphasis is on exploration and insight.

To elucidate Ruti's perspective, Brooks offers a specific example. Out of the entire Torah, she selects Exodus 25:8 as her prooftext. In English, the verse reads as follows:

And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

Pause here and imagine me listening to this section of the book. Not only am I vibing with Ruti on the value of appreciating every word and every letter, but the example that Brooks selected is one that I chanted just a few days earlier. What are the odds that I'd be poring over this same text?

But wait, it gets better.

Brooks' point is best appreciated by looking at the Hebrew of this verse, which is:

ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם

The insight Brooks offers is all about the last letter in the verse. Hebrew is read from right to left, so the letter we're looking at is that squarish final mem: ם.

Because the last word is בתוכם it means "in them." Had the last letter been a ו, the verse would have been translated as "in it."

The Torah is telling us that the newly minted Jewish people were commanded to build a holy space so that G-d could dwell in them, the people. Not, as one might expect, so G-d could dwell in it, the building. The former being a far more sophisticated approach to holy spaces than the latter. What a profound distinction, and all powered by a single letter.

I'd totally missed the elegance of this one letter distinction until Brooks brought it to my attention.

Perhaps I need to cut Brooks some slack in the believability department. After all, who would believe that out of a Torah full of interesting verses, she would both select one that I'd studied days before and teach me a valuable insight that I'd missed.