Dawn kicked off the People of the Book discussion to I'm moving the Forum to a new post:I'll go ahead and start the forum on "People of the Book". I did not care very much for Hanna, the protagonist. I had some sympathy for her with her rocky relationship with her mother, but other than that, I couldn't empathize with the character. I much preferred the historical aspect with the various "people of the book". I liked Lola's and Ruti's stories the best, although going through history such as the Spanish Inquistion was interesting. After each reading of history, I didn't want to go back to reading of Hanna's plight. Aside from the Jewish/Muslim/Christian relationships, this book appears to be focused on each of the character's self-discovery of finding themselves through their beliefs and values of their religion and making their own marks through the Haggadah. I was interested to see that the author wrote a Pulitzer Prize novel named "March", which supposedly is related to the March family of "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott? If I'm wrong about that, let me know, for the "Little Women" series is one of my all time favorites.
Overall, a pretty decent book; but I would have liked more historical stories and less of Hanna... :) Dawn
Sharon, I laughed when I saw your email adding the link for our book club. Thank you. I kept meaning to see if I still had the link in your email from last month's book club, but busy me seemed to not find the time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the recap here. I'm always amazed how you remember who said what about a particular book or topic. You must take notes.
Yup, I really like this book. I'm considering using the Hindu religion's myriad small gods in the sermon I'm writing. If I don't use it in this sermon, I will use it in a play or poem or sermon or something. When I think of this book, the same question arises: How can their "helpless hopelessness" ever change as long as they rest any chance for hopes and dreams on small gods, such as Velutha, who are even smaller/more fragile/more hopeless than they are?