★★★★
When I saw this book on the shelf of the Edisto Island
Bookstore this summer, I was instantly interested in reading this.
I should admit up front that part of the appeal of this book
was that it was fictionalized Jewish history. I love books about Jewish
people. When I said that to Patrick, he
looked at me like I was crazy. It does sound exoticizing*, but I feel this way
because books about Jews make Jews less exotic, not more. Growing up in South Carolina, I knew one
Jewish person, and I had no idea what it meant to be Jewish. I certainly never got any history lessons or
world culture lessons about Jews. I did
not understand, for instance, that they are a vast and diverse culture spread
across the whole planet that is made of many different groups with their own
individual cultures. Even more
interesting is that I was raised in a Baptist church and grew up with the
stories of the Old Testament, but no one
ever told me all those people were Jewish.
I’m not sure that my Sunday school teachers actually know that. So when I grew up, and read about Jewish
history and culture, and met actual Jewish people who practiced their faith, it
was the opening of a new and fascinating view on the world. This is also why I love books written by
people who are not American – they write about places I’ve never been and
cultures I’ve never experienced, and that is absolutely fascinating. Right now I’m reading The House of Blue
Mangoes, written and set in India. I
love that I know what a lungi is now.
The reader’s guide at the end of The Dovekeepers details the
artifacts and museum exhibits that Hoffman used as inspiration and framework for
the book. I find that ability
intriguing – to see a collection of artifacts, to learn a history of a place
and event, and then let one’s imagination run wild, conjuring up a story that
results in what we know. It also
humanizes history because when we look at history as a collection of events,
facts, and dates; we can forget that the players were human just like us,
driven by the same kinds of passions, motivations, and flaws that guide us
today.
If I was drawn in by the setting and plot of the novel, then
I was securely hooked by Hoffman's writing style and the characters she
creates. Each of the four female
narrators is believable and complex. At
times they tend toward being a bit too archetypal for me, and there are times
when I think Hoffman could have made more interesting choices in how the
characters responded to certain things. But these flaws are easily overlooked
as you get drawn into the motivations and actions of each woman, and swept
along in their tales. The weaving
together of the women’s stories creates an overlapping narrative that
nevertheless manages to convey their unique viewpoints.
I enjoyed this book a great deal, and my only regret is not
being able to read it on the beach where I bought it. If you enjoy historical fiction and would
appreciate the opportunity to read some imagined in a setting you don’t often
see in the genre, then I think you’ll like this too.
* I’d like to say a little more about exoticizing. To me, this means being unable to see the
Self in the Other because you imagine that they are so incredibly different
than you. You imbue them with
characteristics simply because they are Other.
This is the root of the magical native, the spirit guide, the noble
savage; and it’s absolute crap. Reading
books about Jews or Indians and thinking, “Oh, how funnily they have behaved
because they are X, Y, or Z” is exoticizing.
Reading with open curiosity about something you don’t know much about,
be it content or culture, seems the best way to remove the “exotic” label
from almost any topic.
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