April 2010: People of the Book (Brooks)

Post date: Apr 22, 2010 5:23:1 PM

Quite a large circle gathered on April 20 at Betsey's to discuss Geraldine Brook's People of the Book. It was nice to welcome several long-absent friends, and also to admire Aimee's adorable 13-week old son, who came along to continue our tradition of getting an early introduction to book club.

Before moving into a discussion of the book, we started off by asking Jennie to talk to us about her involvement with Women's Initiative, recently featured in the Smith Alumnae Quarterly. She became involved because of her friendship with Karuna Jaggar '95, the Executive Director for the East Bay Region. Jennie is enthusiastic about this organization for many reasons, but the high rate of return to the community for each dollar spent, and the incredibly strong alumnae network (just like Smith!) are two things she finds particularly appealing.

We also discussed the possibility of scheduling a faculty-lead book club, since Carol Christ's visit did not actually turn out to be that, and agreed that if it were possible to do it in June, we should go for it. Susan will follow up and see if she can make it work.

When we eventually got to it, general reaction to People of the Book was positive, with everybody finding its central device (using the Sarajevo Haggadah as an anchor to delve back into history) very effective, and enjoying the historical vignettes. The modern-day story was less well received, with some finding Hanna, our protagonist, not very compelling, and several of us also struggling to make sense of her relationship with her mother, and questioning whether her reactions and choices were believable. Some also found the plot twists too contrived and theatrical. On the positive side, we felt that Brooks did a remarkable job of drawing us in to many different lives in the various historical vignettes, and that her ability to bring scenes to life in different eras was especially strong. More than one of us declared something like "well yes, some things were somewhat contrived, but we just went with the flow and enjoyed it." Reactions to the book, both positive and negative, were also in some cases influenced by the reader's connection to Judaism. Several lauded it as an effective introduction to the repeated displacement and prejudice suffered by Jews, wrapped up in an entertaining page turner. (P.S. We did not come to any conclusion on the question of sisterly affection vs. sizzling sex in the harem.)