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buddhafish's review against another edition
3.0
127th book of 2021. All pictures in the review are from Vol.co.
Firstly, I gotta say I'm a big Tokarczuk fan and respect her as much (or more) after reading this beast. This beast is too long and I've got my problems with it, but what a novel to have written. Spanning the 18th century, and beyond, and the historical figure Jacob Frank, a man believed to be the Messiah. Though the novel is certainly centred around him, Jacob floats in and out of the narrative (in fact, he doesn't actually appear in the narrative for the first 200 or so pages) and instead we get a sweeping 'panorama of an almost neglected chapter in European history', as said by the Nobel Committee. The novel crosses several borderlines and characters, including the most interesting character, Yente, Tokarczuk's 'fourth-person narrator', the woman who cannot die and instead flies about the novel's events as an omnipresent 'eye'.
There are pictures interspersed through the novel as her Flights was, there are letters, and diaries too. It is a sometimes overwhelming experience reading the novel, being physically larger than paperback size and big-enough-to-wrestle in length. Its most overwhelming feature is down to its first flaw. The Books of Jacob is readable enough, Tokarczuk doesn't bog it down with historical exposition or long religious ideas, but she does tell the novel in a very detached and unemotional way. For mostly 900-odd pages the tone of the novel stays the same, there's no rise or fall, nothing: it is like one very long road which is oftentimes interesting and oftentimes simply exhausting. Did it need to be so long? I'd say No. If it were shorter it would probably be a better novel. There are so many characters, so many plots, we hear about what they are doing, thinking, moving around, marrying, it is a constant barrage of stuff, fictional or not. And when it comes to wondering what is historical truth in the novel and what isn't, Tokarczuk answers that herself in a way. When a character asks another character to write a novel about the Frankists and how it was, he asks, ''But how were things? Is there anybody still around who could tell me?'' and the friend answers, ''You're a writer, just make up whatever's missing.''
Tokarczuk certainly does that with the depth of the novel and the characters like Yente. For those daunted by the size, it is wonderfully readable, almost simple in prose. There are moments of beauty but I would say it is almost entirely character-driven. This is ironic as Jacob Frank is unlikeable at almost every point. Fans of Tokarczuk should read it simply because it is hailed as her magnum opus and maybe it is. It's ambitious and ambitious writing always gains my respect whether I like it or not. It is a portrait into an interesting part of the world for me, an interesting time period, and focused on men accused of being Jews, but then becoming Muslims, but then being taken into the Catholic faith. If you like big books on history and religion then really look no further. Otherwise, it depends how much time you have and how much you like Olga. I'll add more thoughts when they are better organised but for now I can say it was a good experience but I'm glad it's over and back on the bookcase smiling the 'I've been read'-smile.
Firstly, I gotta say I'm a big Tokarczuk fan and respect her as much (or more) after reading this beast. This beast is too long and I've got my problems with it, but what a novel to have written. Spanning the 18th century, and beyond, and the historical figure Jacob Frank, a man believed to be the Messiah. Though the novel is certainly centred around him, Jacob floats in and out of the narrative (in fact, he doesn't actually appear in the narrative for the first 200 or so pages) and instead we get a sweeping 'panorama of an almost neglected chapter in European history', as said by the Nobel Committee. The novel crosses several borderlines and characters, including the most interesting character, Yente, Tokarczuk's 'fourth-person narrator', the woman who cannot die and instead flies about the novel's events as an omnipresent 'eye'.
There are pictures interspersed through the novel as her Flights was, there are letters, and diaries too. It is a sometimes overwhelming experience reading the novel, being physically larger than paperback size and big-enough-to-wrestle in length. Its most overwhelming feature is down to its first flaw. The Books of Jacob is readable enough, Tokarczuk doesn't bog it down with historical exposition or long religious ideas, but she does tell the novel in a very detached and unemotional way. For mostly 900-odd pages the tone of the novel stays the same, there's no rise or fall, nothing: it is like one very long road which is oftentimes interesting and oftentimes simply exhausting. Did it need to be so long? I'd say No. If it were shorter it would probably be a better novel. There are so many characters, so many plots, we hear about what they are doing, thinking, moving around, marrying, it is a constant barrage of stuff, fictional or not. And when it comes to wondering what is historical truth in the novel and what isn't, Tokarczuk answers that herself in a way. When a character asks another character to write a novel about the Frankists and how it was, he asks, ''But how were things? Is there anybody still around who could tell me?'' and the friend answers, ''You're a writer, just make up whatever's missing.''
Tokarczuk certainly does that with the depth of the novel and the characters like Yente. For those daunted by the size, it is wonderfully readable, almost simple in prose. There are moments of beauty but I would say it is almost entirely character-driven. This is ironic as Jacob Frank is unlikeable at almost every point. Fans of Tokarczuk should read it simply because it is hailed as her magnum opus and maybe it is. It's ambitious and ambitious writing always gains my respect whether I like it or not. It is a portrait into an interesting part of the world for me, an interesting time period, and focused on men accused of being Jews, but then becoming Muslims, but then being taken into the Catholic faith. If you like big books on history and religion then really look no further. Otherwise, it depends how much time you have and how much you like Olga. I'll add more thoughts when they are better organised but for now I can say it was a good experience but I'm glad it's over and back on the bookcase smiling the 'I've been read'-smile.
laval's review against another edition
idk if it's me but i find the translation very brutal to read...
att2detail's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the first 1/3 of this book. I endured the next 1/3 and wanted to poke out my eyes for the remainder of the book. It's a long, rambling and boring read. Many characters aren't even likeable. I wanted to stop reading, but I had invested over 20 hours so I persevered and read for another 15+ hours.
aranthe02's review against another edition
4.0
The start and for most of the end, “The Books of Jacob” is truly amazing. The writing flows in and out and the layers of meaning give way to gentle, and not so gentle, lifts.
The middle though, does not have the same flow. It’s equally layered as it tells the story of a messiah, a cult, and how leaders breaking every morality, law and taboo can still be seen as holy. She shows how power corrupts. Mostly she shows humanity’s search for meaning.
The middle though, does not have the same flow. It’s equally layered as it tells the story of a messiah, a cult, and how leaders breaking every morality, law and taboo can still be seen as holy. She shows how power corrupts. Mostly she shows humanity’s search for meaning.
oneeasyreader's review against another edition
4.0
The Polish language lacks the words for such questions. It has little experience with them, and knows little of theology. This is why every heresy in Poland has been unleavened and bland. In fact, no real heresy could ever come about in Polish. By its nature, the Polish language is obedient to every orthodoxy.
Would you be surprised to read that some Poles aren’t the biggest fans of Tokarczuk?
The Books of Jacob is, even to professional reviewers, testing novel. Yet, it is a classic, perhaps mainly for the scope rather than the characters. However, I would like to mount a defence, of sorts, of their portrayals (since they barely speak for themselves in the book).
Making the best of a bad situation
Shorr thinks that it is bad to be a Jew, that Jews have it hard in life, but that being a peasant is harder. There really is no fate worse than theirs. In that respect, Jews and peasants are equals, in the sense that they share the lowest rung in the hierarchy of creation. Only vermin might be ranked beneath them. Even cows and horses, and especially dogs, get better care.
The Books of Jacob is a character driven novel where the characters drive very little. That is an overstatement, considering the titular character led a Jewish heretical sect who’s adherents wended their way throughout Europe and beyond, counting Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis as a descendant. But the simplification helps me understand the book. The characters (particularly women, who feature heavily) are put in situations where they have limited control, and the plot revolves around how they endure that. Not just emote, but also interact with what is a cruel world, with sexual assault, accusations of blood libel and false conversion, general anti-Semitism, plague, war, and imprisonment. The Books of Jacob acknowledges that your choices matter, but so do those of millions of others. Accordingly, when you’re a persecuted minority, don’t expect to things to play out your way. I see a parallel between the characters’ experiences with the fate of Poland as described in the book – patchily ruled by a distant Saxon king, then partitioned up by three greater powers.
Then the dogs are released on them, and there is a terrible tumult: the wolves attack the elk, the bears the boar, the dogs the bears, all in front of the king, who is shooting at them.
There is an element of frustration with the powerlessness of the characters. Jacob does not face a proper accounting for his sins other than in a brief conversation with Moliwda, who does call Jacob out on his s*** but never really pursues it. Another example of injustice is how gambler Bishop Soltyk brutally manipulates the law to get his collateral back without a second thought.
However, I am inclined to see the lack of justice as a form of maturity in storytelling rather than a flaw. It does make it harder to “enjoy” the book, which settles into a chronicle of events rather than a set plot moving to a resolution, but The Books of Jacob stands up better on reflection afterwards. It makes you think more about what life is about, and maybe even a guide if you’re planning to set up a religious splinter group.
The many layered tapestry
The Books of Jacob is also complicated in other ways. There is the classic unreliable narrator aspect, such as with the contrasting views of Jacob’s hippy-like commune at Ivanie, the honesty of his nephew Thomas or the mystery of whether Moliwda ever was a king of an Aegean island. However, Tokarczuk does not fully lean into the trope, using the omnipresent Yente to power through particular scenes with an accurate retelling of events.
Only Yente is unchanging, only Yente can repeat and can keep going back to the same place. She can be trusted.
It appears that Tokarczuk considers it more important that the reader knows that those events are “true” than imply any ambiguity if it was retold through the eyes of a “false prophet”. I am not personally hot on Tokarczuk trying to imbue Yente with some mystical elements when really she is just a device of an all seeing narrator, but it is a quibble. More important is that the book switches between viewpoints and their reliability according to the points Tokarczuk wants to make, an inconsistency that is unexpectedly interesting to me.
While I did not dawdle with The Books of Jacob, it is not an easy read. This is not a swipe at the writing or the translation, the flow is easy and uncomplicated – at least as to the words themselves. Rather, The Books of Jacob covers a broad spectrum of spiritual and geo-political matters and themes that I did not fully follow. I am sure there are more that I did not even notice. However, it is a credit to the book that it matters less than in, say, Gravity’s Rainbow, which confronts you with your inadequacies by rendering large parts of the plot incomprehensible if you are unable to unravel the deeper meanings.
The Books of Jacob is a “readable” classic, but your brain will itch afterwards with thoughts about what key points in it that you missed.
Would you be surprised to read that some Poles aren’t the biggest fans of Tokarczuk?
The Books of Jacob is, even to professional reviewers, testing novel. Yet, it is a classic, perhaps mainly for the scope rather than the characters. However, I would like to mount a defence, of sorts, of their portrayals (since they barely speak for themselves in the book).
Making the best of a bad situation
Shorr thinks that it is bad to be a Jew, that Jews have it hard in life, but that being a peasant is harder. There really is no fate worse than theirs. In that respect, Jews and peasants are equals, in the sense that they share the lowest rung in the hierarchy of creation. Only vermin might be ranked beneath them. Even cows and horses, and especially dogs, get better care.
The Books of Jacob is a character driven novel where the characters drive very little. That is an overstatement, considering the titular character led a Jewish heretical sect who’s adherents wended their way throughout Europe and beyond, counting Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis as a descendant. But the simplification helps me understand the book. The characters (particularly women, who feature heavily) are put in situations where they have limited control, and the plot revolves around how they endure that. Not just emote, but also interact with what is a cruel world, with sexual assault, accusations of blood libel and false conversion, general anti-Semitism, plague, war, and imprisonment. The Books of Jacob acknowledges that your choices matter, but so do those of millions of others. Accordingly, when you’re a persecuted minority, don’t expect to things to play out your way. I see a parallel between the characters’ experiences with the fate of Poland as described in the book – patchily ruled by a distant Saxon king, then partitioned up by three greater powers.
Then the dogs are released on them, and there is a terrible tumult: the wolves attack the elk, the bears the boar, the dogs the bears, all in front of the king, who is shooting at them.
There is an element of frustration with the powerlessness of the characters. Jacob does not face a proper accounting for his sins other than in a brief conversation with Moliwda, who does call Jacob out on his s*** but never really pursues it. Another example of injustice is how gambler Bishop Soltyk brutally manipulates the law to get his collateral back without a second thought.
However, I am inclined to see the lack of justice as a form of maturity in storytelling rather than a flaw. It does make it harder to “enjoy” the book, which settles into a chronicle of events rather than a set plot moving to a resolution, but The Books of Jacob stands up better on reflection afterwards. It makes you think more about what life is about, and maybe even a guide if you’re planning to set up a religious splinter group.
The many layered tapestry
The Books of Jacob is also complicated in other ways. There is the classic unreliable narrator aspect, such as with the contrasting views of Jacob’s hippy-like commune at Ivanie, the honesty of his nephew Thomas or the mystery of whether Moliwda ever was a king of an Aegean island. However, Tokarczuk does not fully lean into the trope, using the omnipresent Yente to power through particular scenes with an accurate retelling of events.
Only Yente is unchanging, only Yente can repeat and can keep going back to the same place. She can be trusted.
It appears that Tokarczuk considers it more important that the reader knows that those events are “true” than imply any ambiguity if it was retold through the eyes of a “false prophet”. I am not personally hot on Tokarczuk trying to imbue Yente with some mystical elements when really she is just a device of an all seeing narrator, but it is a quibble. More important is that the book switches between viewpoints and their reliability according to the points Tokarczuk wants to make, an inconsistency that is unexpectedly interesting to me.
While I did not dawdle with The Books of Jacob, it is not an easy read. This is not a swipe at the writing or the translation, the flow is easy and uncomplicated – at least as to the words themselves. Rather, The Books of Jacob covers a broad spectrum of spiritual and geo-political matters and themes that I did not fully follow. I am sure there are more that I did not even notice. However, it is a credit to the book that it matters less than in, say, Gravity’s Rainbow, which confronts you with your inadequacies by rendering large parts of the plot incomprehensible if you are unable to unravel the deeper meanings.
The Books of Jacob is a “readable” classic, but your brain will itch afterwards with thoughts about what key points in it that you missed.
jennyyates's review against another edition
3.0
This very long historical novel, set in 18th century Europe, is sometimes fascinating, sometimes tedious. There are some really wonderful stories within its pages. And when a reader finally wends her way to the end, it pulls itself together really beautifully. But the middle – oy vey. So much detail. Crowds of people, and most of them you never get to know very well.
The story begins and ends with a beautiful mystical character – Yente, the woman who cannot die. She is prevented from dying because she swallowed an amulet given to her by one of her relatives. The amulet was placed around her neck and was meant to delay her dying so that the family could celebrate a wedding. But since she swallowed it, her body is preserved forever, while her soul wanders around and sees everything that happens to others. She watches the rise and fall of her grandson, Jacob Frank, who starts a new religion, and who is the subject of this novel.
Jacob Frank was a historical character, and so were the followers that the author describes in this novel. He dubbed himself the Messiah, at a time when the Jewish people were very oppressed and really needed a savior. To this end, he took his hundreds of followers through a lot of changes, including speaking out against the Talmud, incurring the wrath of other Jews, converting to Christianity (but with many conditions), and still being treated with suspicion by the Christians. They ended up as a sort of hybrid, a new religion with bits and pieces from all the older ones.
Frank traveled from place to place – Poland, Turkey, Austria, Germany - as his fortunes rose and fell. He had to navigate among the political and religious institutions of the day, looking for patronage where he could get it. At times he was rich and celebrated, and at other times, he was in prison. His flock worshipped him as a god, indulging his slightest whim, accepting new rules about marriage, agreeing to communal ownership of property. At times, he orchestrated ritualistic sexual practices.
For sure, Jacob Frank was an interesting character. Tokarczuk mostly writes him from the outside, however, so our picture of him remains somewhat superficial. And maybe the author was wary of making him too ordinary or accessible. Most of the commentary comes from his friend and follower, Nahman, and the book is full of scraps of Nahman’s writing about everything that happens to the group. The research that went into this book is clearly impeccable. And much of the writing is beautiful, but there's also quite a bit that's dry and bloodless.
Let me share some of the writing I really loved. Here are some quotes.
< Wind is the vision of the dead as they gaze upon the world from where they are. Haven’t you ever noticed the fields of grass, she wants to say to Hayah, how the blades bow down and are parted. That has to be because there is a dead person watching. Because if you counted all the dead you’d find that there are many more of them than there are of the living. Their souls have been cleansed already over their meanderings through lots of lives, and now they await the messiah, who will come to finish the task. And they look upon everything. That’s why the wind blows on earth. Wind is their watchful gaze. >
< He’s told Nahman that he feels best in new places, because it as if the world begins afresh every time. To be foreign is to be free. To have a great expanse stretch out before you - the desert, the steppe. To have the shape of the moon behind you like a cradle, the deafening symphony of the cicadas, the air’s fragrance of melon peel, the rustle of the scarab beetle when, come evening, the sky turns red, and it ventures out onto the sand to hunt. To have your own history, not for everyone, just your own history written in the tracks you leave behind. >
< The dusty little windows always let in too little light, so all day they burn wicks submerged in oil inside a clay shell, hence the stench of soot and burnt fat. Both rooms are crammed with furniture, and there’s a scuttling sound, a rustling from somewhere that never lets up. Since it’s winter, the mice have sought shelter from the frosts beneath the roof; they are creating vertical cities in the walls and horizontal ones under the floors, cities more complex that Lwów and Lublin combined. >
< Moliwda used to wonder whether Jacob could feal fear. Eventually he decided that Jacob would not recognize the feeling, as though he’d simply been born without it. This gives Jacob strength: people can sense the absence of fear, and that absence of fear in turn becomes contagious. And because the Jews are always afraid – whether it’s of a Polish lord, or of a Cossack, or injustice or hunger or cold – they live in a state of extreme uncertainty, from which Jacob is a kind of salvation. >
< Jacob lights his long Turkish pipe. A warm, soft light flits from it into his eyes and disappears under his lowered eyelids. >
< The Messiah is something more than a figure and a person – it is something that flows in your blood, resides in your breath, it is the dearest and most precious human thought: that salvation exists. And that’s why you have to cultivate it like the most delicate plant, blow on it, water it with tears, put it in the sun during the day, move it into a warm room in the nighttime. >
The story begins and ends with a beautiful mystical character – Yente, the woman who cannot die. She is prevented from dying because she swallowed an amulet given to her by one of her relatives. The amulet was placed around her neck and was meant to delay her dying so that the family could celebrate a wedding. But since she swallowed it, her body is preserved forever, while her soul wanders around and sees everything that happens to others. She watches the rise and fall of her grandson, Jacob Frank, who starts a new religion, and who is the subject of this novel.
Jacob Frank was a historical character, and so were the followers that the author describes in this novel. He dubbed himself the Messiah, at a time when the Jewish people were very oppressed and really needed a savior. To this end, he took his hundreds of followers through a lot of changes, including speaking out against the Talmud, incurring the wrath of other Jews, converting to Christianity (but with many conditions), and still being treated with suspicion by the Christians. They ended up as a sort of hybrid, a new religion with bits and pieces from all the older ones.
Frank traveled from place to place – Poland, Turkey, Austria, Germany - as his fortunes rose and fell. He had to navigate among the political and religious institutions of the day, looking for patronage where he could get it. At times he was rich and celebrated, and at other times, he was in prison. His flock worshipped him as a god, indulging his slightest whim, accepting new rules about marriage, agreeing to communal ownership of property. At times, he orchestrated ritualistic sexual practices.
For sure, Jacob Frank was an interesting character. Tokarczuk mostly writes him from the outside, however, so our picture of him remains somewhat superficial. And maybe the author was wary of making him too ordinary or accessible. Most of the commentary comes from his friend and follower, Nahman, and the book is full of scraps of Nahman’s writing about everything that happens to the group. The research that went into this book is clearly impeccable. And much of the writing is beautiful, but there's also quite a bit that's dry and bloodless.
Let me share some of the writing I really loved. Here are some quotes.
< Wind is the vision of the dead as they gaze upon the world from where they are. Haven’t you ever noticed the fields of grass, she wants to say to Hayah, how the blades bow down and are parted. That has to be because there is a dead person watching. Because if you counted all the dead you’d find that there are many more of them than there are of the living. Their souls have been cleansed already over their meanderings through lots of lives, and now they await the messiah, who will come to finish the task. And they look upon everything. That’s why the wind blows on earth. Wind is their watchful gaze. >
< He’s told Nahman that he feels best in new places, because it as if the world begins afresh every time. To be foreign is to be free. To have a great expanse stretch out before you - the desert, the steppe. To have the shape of the moon behind you like a cradle, the deafening symphony of the cicadas, the air’s fragrance of melon peel, the rustle of the scarab beetle when, come evening, the sky turns red, and it ventures out onto the sand to hunt. To have your own history, not for everyone, just your own history written in the tracks you leave behind. >
< The dusty little windows always let in too little light, so all day they burn wicks submerged in oil inside a clay shell, hence the stench of soot and burnt fat. Both rooms are crammed with furniture, and there’s a scuttling sound, a rustling from somewhere that never lets up. Since it’s winter, the mice have sought shelter from the frosts beneath the roof; they are creating vertical cities in the walls and horizontal ones under the floors, cities more complex that Lwów and Lublin combined. >
< Moliwda used to wonder whether Jacob could feal fear. Eventually he decided that Jacob would not recognize the feeling, as though he’d simply been born without it. This gives Jacob strength: people can sense the absence of fear, and that absence of fear in turn becomes contagious. And because the Jews are always afraid – whether it’s of a Polish lord, or of a Cossack, or injustice or hunger or cold – they live in a state of extreme uncertainty, from which Jacob is a kind of salvation. >
< Jacob lights his long Turkish pipe. A warm, soft light flits from it into his eyes and disappears under his lowered eyelids. >
< The Messiah is something more than a figure and a person – it is something that flows in your blood, resides in your breath, it is the dearest and most precious human thought: that salvation exists. And that’s why you have to cultivate it like the most delicate plant, blow on it, water it with tears, put it in the sun during the day, move it into a warm room in the nighttime. >
amberface's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
nolanh's review against another edition
4.5
A favorite trope of mine is the sprawling geneological novel, painting a picture of a culture and its transformation over time through the story of a particular family throughout several generations - it is a trope I don’t have many examples of, possibly just [b:One Hundred Years of Solitude|320|One Hundred Years of Solitude|Gabriel García Márquez|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327881361l/320._SX50_.jpg|3295655] and [b:Pachinko|34051011|Pachinko|Min Jin Lee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529845599l/34051011._SY75_.jpg|50384116], but I think it is a wonderful style of art. The Books of Jacob is not that. But it does come close? Maybe it is a sprawling geneological novel on its side, painting the picture of dozens of characters in a pseudo-familial structure at the intersection of many cultural forces over a very short amount of time. It is an intriguing story of a cult, a culture, a people, a place and time of which I know little, way too many names and everyone has multiple of them.
maitane0823's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5