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A review by shelleyanderson4127
The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The new reading year has begun with bang with this astonishing work of literary fiction. The book opens in Sarajevo, 1914: the Jewish Rafael Pinto is daydreaming, mixing herbs and medicines in his father's apothecary shop. He dreams of love, of being a medical student again in Vienna, arguing philosophy in cafes and bedding handsome fellow students.
Pinto follows a handsome soldier out of the shop, and becomes a witness to history: blocks away Archduke Franz Ferdinand will be assassinated. This bloody deed will kickstart World War 1 and Pinto's decades-long trek across continents. We see him next as a doctor in the Austrian-Hungarian Army, where he meets the love of his life--the orphan raconteur Osman Karisik, a Bosnian Muslim. We see both Pinto and Osman in a POW camp, then dodging Bolsheviks in Tashkent. Osman may or may not be dead, but Pinto has found a reason to live: Osman has left behind an infant daughter named Rahela. With other refugees Pinto makes his way to Shanghai, only to become a refugee again during the World War II. Rahela becomes a headstrong young woman, determined to make her own mistakes for love. The story ends half a century later and on another continent, in Jerusalem, on the eve of another act of violence, September 11, 2001.
In beautiful, immersive prose, the reader is taken on this tumultuous journey, encountering persecution, loss, friendship, regret, and always--always--love. The reader will smell lavender and opium, know the stink of fear and heady erotic pleasure.
This is a fascinating novel. It's a deeply Jewish story of displacement and of longing for home; a story of war and 20th century history through the eyes of fascinating individuals; a profoundly human story of what makes us persist in living, and of finding meaning in love. There are few books I've read that I can say changed me. The World and All That It Holds may be one of them.
Pinto follows a handsome soldier out of the shop, and becomes a witness to history: blocks away Archduke Franz Ferdinand will be assassinated. This bloody deed will kickstart World War 1 and Pinto's decades-long trek across continents. We see him next as a doctor in the Austrian-Hungarian Army, where he meets the love of his life--the orphan raconteur Osman Karisik, a Bosnian Muslim. We see both Pinto and Osman in a POW camp, then dodging Bolsheviks in Tashkent. Osman may or may not be dead, but Pinto has found a reason to live: Osman has left behind an infant daughter named Rahela. With other refugees Pinto makes his way to Shanghai, only to become a refugee again during the World War II. Rahela becomes a headstrong young woman, determined to make her own mistakes for love. The story ends half a century later and on another continent, in Jerusalem, on the eve of another act of violence, September 11, 2001.
In beautiful, immersive prose, the reader is taken on this tumultuous journey, encountering persecution, loss, friendship, regret, and always--always--love. The reader will smell lavender and opium, know the stink of fear and heady erotic pleasure.
This is a fascinating novel. It's a deeply Jewish story of displacement and of longing for home; a story of war and 20th century history through the eyes of fascinating individuals; a profoundly human story of what makes us persist in living, and of finding meaning in love. There are few books I've read that I can say changed me. The World and All That It Holds may be one of them.