March Books

As you know, the Hungry Book Club was reading Geraldine Brooks's Pulitizer Prize-winning March, a creative exploration of the father in Little Women-as-Bronson-Alcott-inspired-New-England-radical-turned-Civil-War-chaplain this month.  I was very excited about this (my choice) for two reasons:  I liked Brooks's nonfiction Nine Parts Desire and I love Little Women.  And I was disappointed.  But after discussing my disappointments with Gommie (a guest member of the club this month) and Mama, I realized I might have read more (or less) into the story than intended.  I just felt so let down by March's complete ideological breakdown at the end of the story, when he cannot bear the consequences of, among other things, his pacifist notions.  And then, in flies Marmee's first-person account of March's breakdown, which completely interrupted the strong first-person narrative by March for me, especially because it only seemed to exist to demonstrate their fragile relationship built on so much miscommunication.  But, in fairness, it was all well-written and evocative.  I suppose I just didn't like witnessing the weaknesses of these two characters so strongly.  But perhaps that is in fact the sign of a very powerful book.

And I loved, and could not put down, Brooks's People of the Book.  It reminded me of some of my favorite academic novels (for lack of a better term--books about books or other academic research/endeavors), such as Name of the Rose and Posession (I guess you could count DaVinci Code but the awful art history in that drove me bonkers), and whatever you would call the epic historical expanses of Michener's Source or Rutherford's Sarum (the latter are often "twinkies," the former often much more literary).  I guess as a Ph.D. with years of research and study behind me, I like it went research and knowledge--the joys, and more often, frustrations of the work--as well as the art, literature, architecture, or history itself are the focal point.  People of the Book fictionalizes the amazing history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, c. 1350, a rare illustrated Jewish manuscript used for Passover Seders.  The Australian conservator studying the book uncovers her own origins while tracing those of the book back from its rescue during the war in Bosnia by a Muslim librarian, through another rescue from Nazis, again by a Muslim librarian, all the way back through Venice in the 17th century to Spain in the 15th century.  Besides the numerous mini-history lessons, I greatly appreciated the exploration of previous multi-ethnic, mulitcultural societies such as pre-expulsion Spain, Venice before the Inquisition, pre-War World I Vienna, and then Sarajevo before the civil war--as one character notes, book burnings always preceeded other burnings, and then the mass graves.   If I ever wrote a novel, I hope it would be like this (but about Victorian art . . . surely I can construct an academic mystery around some PRB paintings, right?)

I think I'll be reading her other novel, Year of Wonders, next.  And I think she's at work on one about 17th-century Cape Cod now.  Can't wait!