This book surprised me. People of the Book is the fictionalized account of the Sarajevo Haggadah. The Haggadah is hundreds of years old, and a very real, very rare and treasured book, which is why I wanted to read about it. But when I first started this novel I was rather unimpressed. The main character seemed to have a prickly attitude from the start, which normally wouldn’t put me off, but the first chapter or so consisted of reading about her examining the bin dings of the book. Interesting work in real life I’m sure, with interesting discoveries, but not so much fun to read about. But I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did.

Brooks gives the story of the Haggadah in an interesting fashion. Interspersed with the protaganist’s point of view in 1996 are the flashback stories of all those who have played a role in the history of the book. But backwards. So we proceed to Hanna in 1996 to Lola in 1940 back to Hanna to Mittl and Herschfeldt in 1894 and back to Hanna, then to Aryeh and Vistorini in 1609 and so on and so forth. So as you’re reading you’re given hints and pieces of the puzzle as each character exposits on how the Haggadah came to them. Often I found myself missing these bits and not connecting them right away. For instance, I didn’t immediately realize that Reyna de Serena’s “elderly man servant” was the infant immersed in the water by Ruti. Once I suspected, I had to flip back to confirm.

This is a brilliant way to tease the readers. In order to truly understand the beginnings of this magnificent Haggadah, you must finish the book. By the time I got to the Venice portion in 1609 I was hooked.

There were a few plot points I didn’t like (and man, does this book have a lot of plot. You don’t even realize it until you finish and then all you can think is ‘Wow Brooks squeezed a lot of stories into this novel’).

For one — what was the point of Hanna stealing Alia’s brain scans? In the end the boy dies and it just makes her seem like a jerk, going against Ozren’s wished.

And of *course* she ended up being half-jewish. I get it, it’s a book about Jews and the Haggadah, but it’s also about the Haggadah and the gentiles who saved it and played a part in its history. Did she really have to be jewish, and not only that, but have that be a surprise and discovery to the character as well? It seemed weak and cheap.

And then there are the questions that I have. You don’t get to hear every part of the story, and I want to know it all. Mostly:

What happened that Benjamin and Zahra ended up peddling her paintings in the maket? What happened to Pedro? Are we supposed to assume that Vistorini reclaimed his jewish faith and was the patriarch of the Kohen (Cohain) jews in Sarajevo?

All in all, a slow start, with a few clunky bits that were unnecessary, but a fascinating bit of historical fiction.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.