Last update - 00:00 24/01/2008
A conversation with Geraldine Brooks
By David B. Green
On her new historical novel about the strange saga of the Sarajevo Haggadah
In the mid-1990s, Geraldine Brooks published "Nine Parts of Desire," about the life of women in the Muslim world, which was based in part on her years as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in the Middle East.
The book, which was critical of the subjugation of women in so many Muslim countries even as it acknowledged the progressive attitudes of early Islam, became an international bestseller, establishing Brooks for her perceptive reporter's eye and knowledgeable approach.
More recently, Brooks, who grew up Australia but now spends most of the year in Massachusetts (where she lives with her journalist husband Tony Horwitz and their son), has turned to writing historical fiction. First, in 2004, came "Year of Wonders," in which the author imagined the journal of a woman in a small town in Derbyshire, England, in the 1660s, as its residents contend with a devastating epidemic of bubonic plague. Two years later came "March," which centered on the U.S. Civil War experiences of Bronson Alcott, the real-life father of Louisa May Alcott(and on whom the 19th-century writer based the character of the missing father, March, in "Little Women"). That novel earned its author a Pulitzer Prize.
This month, Brooks publishes the fictional "People of the Book" (Viking, 372 pages, $25.95), which focuses on the peregrinations of a medieval Jewish codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. The Haggadah is real, and today can be found in the National Museum in the Bosnian capital. But since its creation, in 14th-century Spain, with its illustrations illuminated with gold and silver leaf, and pigments of lapis lazuli, malakite and azurite, its fortunes have been like those of the Jewish people, and its exile has taken it to Venice and Vienna, as well as its current home. And with the help of several courageous individuals, includinig two Muslim curators at the National Museum, it has been saved from destruction more than once.
The book begins with the diary of Hannah Heath, a thick-skinned Australian book conservator who is called to Sarajevo shortly after the end of the Serbian siege in 1996, to inspect and do any necessary repair work on the Haggadah. Brooks fictionalizes the stories of the 20th-century rescues of the Haggadah - from a rapcious Nazi regime and from Serbian shelling - as she intersperses Hannah's story with chapters, going back in time to the 14th century, that take the few facts known about the manuscript's history and create characters and scenarios that explain its turbulent travels across Europe and through time.
Haaretz spoke with Geraldine Brooks via e-mail, from her home in Martha's Vineyard.
All the worst qualities of humanity - as well as some of the best - seem to be on display in the novel. There is torture, rape, religious persecution, parental abuse of children, and a lot of hypocrisy. Would you say that you have a fundamentally pessimistic view of humanity?
On the contrary: I actually am an optimist, despite the vile times in which we find ourselves. I suppose what defines an optimist is a certain illogical wish to believe that the best, or at least, better, always remains within reach.
You wrote recently in The New Yorker about the real history of the Sarajevo Haggadah. Did you consider writing a non-fiction book on the subject, or have you just decided that historical fiction is the way to tell the stories you want to tell?
There is actually very little known for sure about the Haggadah. I had to really scramble to cobble together the facts of what befell the book in the past century − and despite my efforts, journeys and many interviews, there are still gaps in that record. Everything else − all four or five hundred years of it − is completely shrouded in uncertainty. We know nothing for sure about the artist, the scribe, the circumstances of the book's creation; how it got out of Spain, why it was submitted to the Catholic censor in Venice, and on and on. Imagination was the only way to fill the void. Right now I'm enjoying mining these kinds of fictional seams and am inclined to keep doing so for as long as I can get away with it.
Have you been thinking about this book since your time as a reporter in Sarajevo, or where did the idea come from, and how long did the reporting and research take?
Yes, the story took root in my imagination back in the mid 1990s, long before I knew I was destined to become a novelist. I started working on it in 2001, then set it aside for a couple of years because I was getting gnarled up in the more contemporary parts of the narrative. The research was driven by the story, so when I returned to it, in 2005 after finishing "March," I worked on the writing and the delving simultaneously.
Do you have a favorite character in the novel, aside, say, from the contemporary narrator?
I'm very fond of Judah Aryeh, who is based on Rabbi Leon Modena, who lived in Venice in the 17th century. Brilliant and flawed - my kind of guy.
Was there a particular inspiration for the relationship between Hanna Heath and her mother, the super-ambitious and super-accomplished neurosurgeon Dr. Sarah Heath? And do you have any regrets about making Sarah so unsympathetic?
I wanted to explore a relationship very different - in fact, the polar opposite - of my own. My mother has always been my best friend. So I wanted to imagine what it would be like if that were not the case. I think there is blame on both sides - mother's and daughter's - for the sourness of their relationship. Sarah's bad, but not all bad.
Ostensibly, you've written three novels about three different subjects. But am I right in thinking there are certain themes - perhaps the way people behave when they are subjected to the most difficult conditions and pressures - that particularly interest you and make their way into all your writing?
Yes, that's true. I am drawn to the question: Who are we in catastrophe? Who is destined to become his best self, who her worst?
If there's any group abused and mistreated more than Jews in "People of the Book," it's women. More than a decade after you wrote "Nine Parts of Desire," do you discern a change in the status of women in the Muslim world, and in which direction?
For the worse, alas. In Saudi Arabia there was a tremendous backlash after the enforced opening to the world of the first Gulf War. The very small windows through which women negotiated their lives slammed shut. And because the Saudis were exporting their airless vision of Islam throughout the world, those attitudes - that women have no role in public life - penetrated places where women had been vibrant members of their society. You only have to look as far as Gaza, actually; a small thing, like the beautiful traditional, embroidered Palestinian dress with fine white headscarf has been deemed insufficiently "Islamic," and is rarely seen on the streets there any more.
Have you had much evidence of that book making it into the hands of readers in the Arab world? Did anyone translate it?
The Iranians translated sections of it into Farsi, published it in the newspaper and had quite a lively public debate about it. I don't know of any Arabic translations, but it doesn't really contain anything that would be news to Arab women. I meant it for a Western audience - people like myself who are curious but who didn't have the opportunities I had to get to know so many fascinating women leading such different lives.
You are understandably moved by several periods, or at least instances, when Jews and Muslims cooperated and even helped one another, not just during the Convivencia period in Spain, but also in more recent times. Overall, though, with all of the various hats you have worn, do you see reason for believing that there will be any reconciliation in the future, in our little corner of the Middle East, or more generally?
I always promised myself I wouldn't comment on the Middle East if I wasn't living there, smelling the air, pounding the pavement. I hate the Washington blowhards who do that - talk about Iran, for instance, when they haven't set foot on Persian soil in 20 years. But when I was spending a lot of time in Israel, it always seemed to me that Israelis and Palestinians had more in common than most people on either side ever wanted to acknowledge. The future will be better than the past if moderate voices can rise above the angry clamor of the extremists. Easier said than done, I know ...
When do you think you might write that Australian novel you've thought so much about?
I'm not sure. I'm kind of pinned down in the U.S. now, because my son has just entered junior high, so we can't oscillate between here and Australia the way we did during his elementary school years. So maybe when he goes off to college I'll be able to get back there and get stuck into something.
It's well-known that you are a convert to Judaism. Can you tell me something about the circumstances of your conversion, and - though I wouldn't want to get you in trouble with the beit din that converted you - with the way you practice your Judaism today? Do you think you could have written "People of the Book" if you hadn't been through the process?
My dad served in Palestine in World War II and, as a committed socialist, got swept up in the romance of the young kibbutz movement. He was a passionate lefty Zionist all his life. So from an early age, I caught his fascination and had two Israeli penpals for many years - one Arab, one Jewish. When I fell in love with a Jew, I didn't want to be the end of the line for his heritage. I wanted to be able to pass it on to our kids. I am very lucky to belong to a terrific Reconstructionist community with a learned rabbi, Caryn Broitman, who inspires me.
Still, Judaism to me is more about history than faith, and I have been fascinated by the whipsaw of Jewish history since I was in junior high. So I think I would have been attracted to this story even if I'd never met a man named Tony Horwitz.