Geraldine Brooks. People of the Book. Viking, 2008.

People of the Book has two meanings in this novel. Readers probably recognize the term. It is the Islamic term referring to the monotheists, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, since all three have scriptures they consider inspired by God. But in this novel it also refers to a group of people involved in a specific religious book, the Sarajevo Haggadah.

The gorgeous Sarajevo Haggadah actually does exist and has an interesting story behind it. However, this is a novel and is made up. Still, it does tell stories where the three faiths come together, as they did historically in Sarajevo. We also read about Spain before the Expulsion in 1492 and Venice in the early 1600s.

Nearly half the story takes place in 1996, where Australian manuscript restorer Hanna Heath has been summoned to Sarajevo to repair as authentically as possible this rare illuminated book.

A Haggadah is a book that outlines a liturgy for the Passover Seder, the ritual family meal that accompanies the Passover celebration (see Exodus 12:14-18). Not only is this Haggadah old, probably from the fifteenth century, but it is illuminated. It uses inks typical of Medieval Christian manuscripts and has pictures of the episodes from Exodus that the holiday celebrates and illustrations of a family or families observing the Seder.

That makes this book extraordinary. Jews traditionally took the Second Commandment about making idols very literally. Until the late nineteenth century, Jews did not participate in the arts other than design and calligraphy. But here is something from the Middle Ages that depicts people and historical figures.

The book’s survival is also something of a miracle. First, we read about the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1940. Sarajevo notably had a Mosque, Synagogue, and Orthodox Church side by side in the same central square. Not only did the Germans round up most of the Jews and destroy the synagogue, but they specifically looked into libraries and museums for Jewish writings and other works by Jews. The Haggadah did manage to survive. Brooks shares a scenario that could have happened.

There we meet the Muslim curator of the museum. Though fictional, he is based on a real person who did help conceal the Haggadah and help some Jews escape. We also meet Lola, a Jewish teenager who manages to escape the Nazis and join a group of partisans in the mountains. Sadly, or ironically, the curator would be accused of being a collaborator by the Communists when they take over Yugoslavia. (When the truth comes out years later, he and his wife will be recognized as righteous Gentiles by Yad Veshem.)

We also meet a Father Vistorini in 1609 Venice. He is a linguist and is often asked by the Inquisition to determine whether certain books should be placed on the Index. He allows the Haggadah to pass muster. While the story is completely fictional, it is based on the fact that the real Haggadah had a note by a Father Vistorini that the Haggadah had been accepted to have nothing heretical in it. “Nihil obstat” as the imprimatur would say.

This also may be historically significant because Venice was where the original Geto was. Jews were tolerated in Venice as long as they lived in the part of the city that used to be an ironworks, or geto in Italian.

The Sarajevo Haggadah also says something about Seville. We know that before 1492 Jews, Catholics, and Muslims lived together somewhat harmoniously in Spain. When the Moors were driven out in 1492, both Muslims and Jews were forced to either convert to Catholicism or leave the country. We meet a Jewish calligrapher in Spain who does the Hebrew lettering for the illustrated pages he has received from a wealthy relative. No sooner is the job done than the order for expulsion comes. His daughter ends up fleeing the land with the manuscript and her baby nephew.

We also meet the Moorish teen girl who is captured and enslaved in the early 1400s and taken to Spain where she becomes the attendant of an Andalusian queen. Andalusia was Moorish as was its king, but the king favored his Christian wife out of all the wives he had. Zarah, the slave girl, has a talent for art which makes her favored. She paints pictures of the queen, which the king admires. This is somewhat scandalous to the stricter Muslims there in Spain at the time, not only because the king favors an infidel wife but because he tolerates making images of living people. Jews and Muslims traditionally have had similar proscriptions about making images.

We also meet a somewhat destitute binder in Vienna in the late nineteenth century. He is commissioned to rebind the Haggadah, but he takes some shortcuts, and his wealthy patron helps himself to the silver clasp that had been on the book. The Jewish patron has that converted to some earrings for his mistress.

Hanna, our Australian restorer, appears throughout the book as chapters go back and forth between 1996 and the past episodes. Besides the various challenges she has in restoring the book and trying to publish a piece on its history, she has a family problem to resolve. She was raised by a high-powered neurosurgeon single mother. She has no idea who her father is, and even though Hanna has an international reputation, her mother is disappointed in her. That conflict comes to a somewhat surprising climax.

There are also some interesting clues to the provenance of the Haggadah. The manuscript has tucked in it a hair, an insect’s wing, some wine spots, and some salt grains. Hanna consults various experts who can help her analyze these things and perhaps put together a story line about this unique piece.

Hanna’s mother is a feminist, so Hanna is raised that way. We would say she is “liberated.” Several of the males are Muslim. The Vienna patron is completely secular. There is a lot of sexual contact in story. I am happy to say this does not extend to the wartime museum curator, the rabbi, or the priest, but the novel is a product of its time.

The novel ends with a couple of short chapters set in 2002. These act as a kind of epilogue, but also as a resolution. There are some surprises.

One recurring theme is the same as the theme of Fiddler on the Roof. Living as a Jew is like being a fiddler on a roof. You try to keep your balance, but you never know what will happen. Persecution of the Jews is a recurring theme. If nothing else, it makes the reader understand why having a homeland in Israel is so important to many Jews today.

I had to laugh about one thing in this book. We had just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In the narrator’s ramblings on mathematics, he presents a proof of the so-called Monty Hall Problem. If your prize is behind one of three doors. You choose one door. Another door is opened to reveal that the prize is not behind that door. Do you keep the door you chose or choose the other door that remains?

Parade Magazine had a proof that the odds were better by choosing the other door. Many people wrote in to complain that the odds were fifty-fifty. Christopher in The Curious Incident tries to prove that the odds are better by changing your choice. In People of the Book a gambler is given a similar choice, but explains why the odds are still fifty-fifty! (186) Can this problem be resolved? Also, I have to say, what a coincidence that two books I read in sequence would have the same math problem but present the two different solutions. What are the odds of that?