More Curious Than Worried

Book Review: People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks

Since I can’t make it to my book club meeting this month, I’m posting my thoughts of this book online. I never thought I would write a book report for the fun of it.

I think I’ve found a current author that I like to read with Geraldine Brooks. I read one of her other books, March, for my other book club and I liked it a lot. It’s the story of the father from Little Women and it’s a good read. Brooks’s is very good at illustrating a scene without stopping the story and I really like the way she paints the world through the eyes of her main characters.

People of the Book does a great job at showing off the things I like about Brooks’s writing. The main story is about Hanna, an Austrailian book conservator, who is studying a rare medeival haggadah from Sarajevo in 1996. Brooks uses items that Hanna finds in the book to outline the history of the haggadah. Every other chapter occurs in a completely different setting in a completely different time with a completely different main character. You see the world through a young Jewish girl in Sarajevo in 1940 as Nazis and their influence spread into Bosnia; A Jewish doctor who treats venerial deseases of the elite in Vienna in 1894; A drunken priest and a respected rabbi with a secret in Venice in 1609; A sofer and his family in Tarragona, Spain in 1492 as Torquemada’s Spanish Inquisition took over; and as a slave girl with talent in 1480 Seville.

The story that gripped me the most was the story of Lola in 1940 Sarajevo.  The image of Isak purposefully falling into the frozen lake while holding his young sister just added sadness on top of an already sad story of Jewish youths struggling to survive and attempt to fight back at the Nazis.

One thing this book pointed out to me was that they way you feel about yourself reflects greatly on how you look at other people. It’s shown by Father Vistorini in Venice who feels judgement in everyone’s look. It’s shown by Mittl in Vienna who’s shame at himself and hatred of Jews clouds his already bad judgement.

This book also made me wonder why it is that the Jewish people have been beat up on so much in history. Is it because some Christians and Muslims are insulted and scared because Judaism still exists? If the Christian story is true, then there shouldn’t be any Jews, right? If the Muslim story is true, there shouldn’t be any Christians or Jews, right? But yet it seems to me that, out of the 3 big monotheistic religions, Jews are the most comfortable with their faith. I don’t hear of evangelical Jews trying to gain more followers to increase their influence in the world. I don’t hear the hatred of other religions from Jews that I hear from some Christians and Muslims. I just think that Jews are more comfortable with their religion and that scares some Christians and Muslims.