by Geraldine Brooks, 2008
Fictional tale of the true “Sarajevo Haggadah,” an ancient (1350) Jewish prayer book beautifully illustrated — “Illuminations.” It is now in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, valued at $700 million in 1991 – most valuable book in the world.
She goes back in time from Hanna Heath, and Australian book preserver, to 1: 1940 Sarajevo where Jewish girl, Lola, escapes Sarajevo with the help of a Muslim couple to the mountains with the book (where an insect’s wing gets into the book). 2. Backwards to Vienna, 1894, where a very ill Florien Mittl is given the book to rebind and he steals the silver clasps and gives them to his doctor to try and cure him of his V.D. – silver clasps missing. 3. Backwards to Venice 1609 where a Jewish man (gifted Rabbi) with a gambling problem loses the book to drunk friend priest, Father Vistorini – who signs his name to it that he clears it and it’s not burned. Wine stains on the book. 4. Backwards to Tarragona, Spain, 1492, where a Jewish man buys beautiful Illuminations from a beggar in the market and adds scripts as a wedding gift for his niece or nephew but he ends up dead by Spanish Inquisition. His daughter escapes with the book, and her newborn nephew – who she baptizes in the sea (that’s how saltwater got on some pages). 5. Backwards to Seville, Spain, 1480, where a young Muslim girl learns how to paint beautiful illustrations and she paints some beautiful Illuminations of the emira and to save her, the emira gives her to a Jewish doctor who has a deaf-mute son. She paints pictures of the Passover so he can understand the Passover.
Very difficult to get into-backwards, made-up history. Not really all that good. Interesting in each historical section but over too quick and on to the next, while switching back to Hanna in modern times.