It overburdens her tale in ways that make it more admirable than gripping.Īlthough nobility is one of this work’s most conspicuous attributes, “People of the Book” is also schematic and histrionic, piling serial tales of suffering onto the Sarajevo Haggadah and those who determined its fate. What librarian could resist a novel that has the word book in its title, is centered on an intrepid book conservator, exults in book-preservation exotica (“I know the flesh and fabrics of pages, the bright earths and lethal toxins of ancient pigments”) and has a plot about a rare book with a long, fraught and serpentine history?īut the intense bibliographic appeal of “People of the Book” turns out to be a mixed blessing. “For the librarians,” says the dedication page of Geraldine Brooks’s new novel, “People of the Book.” That’s an understatement.
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