People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks

People of the Book by Pulitzer Prize author Geraldine Brooks is an incredible novel. Although it is fiction, the content is filled with historical information and fact. People of the Book is based on the Jewish Religious book the Sarajevo Haggadah, and its survival through the centuries.

The Sarajevo Haggadah is a factual manuscript/volume, and was illuminated with images, and it is one of the earliest known Jewish religious books to have vibrant illuminations inside it. People of all faiths risked their own lives and their family’s lives in order to save it from destruction, as it went from family to family, hand to hand, through wars and turmoil. The volume was so revered and treasured, that those of all faiths strived to save the Sarajevo Haggadah, no matter the consequence.

The protagonist is Hanna Heath, a rare-book expert and restorer, hired in 1996 to restore the Sarajevo Haggadah. It was saved in 1996 by a Muslim, who was the head of the library at the National Museum in Sarajevo, during the time of the Sarajevo sieges, uprisings and wars. It was then hidden in a bank vault.

People of the Book is written in alternating chapters between Heath’s current life, her manuscript findings, and the time periods of the illuminated volume. The manuscript chapters work bacwards in time (1996, 1940 Sarajevo, 1894 Vienna, all the way back to 1840 Seville). We see the individuals responsible for having had contact with the Sarajevo Haggadah, through Heath’s scrutiny of the volume’s pages and her finding of items within the pages. As she looks through the illuminated pages, she finds part of an insect wing, an unusual color, a vivid illulmination that makes her wonder who the person was, a piece of silver rose, wine stains, salt crystals a hair, etc. Those individual items all hold the secrets that tell their own story. Each of the time periods in the novel, is a chapter in itself.

“My work has to do with objects, not people. I like matter, fiber, the nature of the varied stuffs that go to make a book. I know the flesh and fabrics of pages, the bright earths and lethal toxins of ancient pigments. Wheat paste — I can bore the pants off anyone about wheat paste. . . . 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.”

People of the Book, in my opinion, is a metaphor for the diversity of our backgrounds, and the prejudices and lack of appreciation for not only cultures other than our own, but a metaphor for rare and treasured objects of antiquity. Brooks weaves a tapestry of what we will do to save those valued objects and protect them, over what we as individuals and ethnic backgrounds will endeavor to do in order to destroy human life. Life seems to hold no value in the scheme of things. There is more than one illumination in People of the Book, and Brooks weaves through the centuries to reinforce how the horrors of the past come full circle through the centuries, repeating cycles of religious and ethnic hatred, genocide, war, intolerance, etc., with each generation.

Brooks’ vivid imagery is strong, and People of the Book is entertaining. She writes with insight and gentleness, and her articulation is filled with clarity. Time and place are essential elements in the novel, and we are taken on a backwards journey through history and through the centuries. Brooks gives us much to ponder in People of the Book.

I could write more about the story line, but that would reveal too much about the content in People of the Book. Read it for yourself.