An ingenious look at the nature of love in light of Lutheran theology.
A historical novel offers a litany of complex romantic entanglements set against the backdrop of the Protestant Reformation’s genesis.
After the death of his father in the early 16th century, Heinrich Ritter moves to Wittenberg to pursue a doctorate in law. He takes up residence with the Diefenbachs, a family to whom his father had been close. Heinrich receives an alarming letter from his sister, Brigita, that’s she’s suddenly left the Alschers, the family she’s been staying with, and is headed for an unspecified convent, a potentially dangerous trip for an unaccompanied 17-year-old girl. She began a romantic relationship with Nikolaus Alscher, but he cruelly rejected her, though not before he got her pregnant. But once Nikolaus discovers her inheritance is more impressive than he had previously believed, he sets out to track Brigita down and make her his wife. Meanwhile, Heinrich wrestles with his own romantic feelings for Marlein Diefenbach, but a marriage to her seems thwarted by circumstances—her mother is gravely ill, and Marlein not only takes care of her, but the entire family as well. In this thoughtfully imagined novel by Baughman (Penelope’s Hope, 2015), Heinrich’s professor and confidant is none other than Martin Luther, the iconoclastic theologian who, at the start of the tale, had just composed his transformative critique of the Roman Catholic Church. As Heinrich struggles to understand not only his obligations to his sister and his love for Marlein, but also the simmering debate over the church’s sale of indulgences in exchange for salvation, he turns to the gently avuncular advice Luther offers. The author pulls off, without a sliver of pretension, an implausibly delightful combination: theological and romantic drama. The essential principles of Lutheran doctrine are distilled with graceful lucidity and made concrete through their application to Heinrich’s life. But Baughman is almost too inventive for her own good and bogs the plot down in an unnecessary detour involving alleged witchcraft. Nevertheless, the story proceeds briskly and grippingly toward multiple denouements: Heinrich’s love of Marlein, Brigita’s unenviable predicament, and Luther’s public defense of his theological innovations in Heidelberg.
An ingenious look at the nature of love in light of Lutheran theology.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7586-6003-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Concordia Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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