Voluntary Review: (Ways to) Lucena by Mois Benarroch
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Marika Tabone
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- Latest Review: (Ways to) Lucena by Mois Benarroch
Review by Marika Tabone -- (Ways to) Lucena
[Following is a volunteer review of "(Ways to) Lucena" by Mois Benarroch.]
2 out of 4 stars
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This book is the second of a trilogy. However, it tells a unique story that is not a continuation from the first book. It is of the sci-fi and historical fiction genre. ' Lucena' has an element of time travelling with deep religious and cultural influence.
The author moves us through a number of flashbacks and flash forwards along a time period of one thousand years. The story is related by Lucena and old man that lived for a millennium. Throughout his many lives he has travelled from Lucena, his birthplace, Tetuan, Brazil, Jerusalem and back to Spain. Knowing that he is reaching the end of his days he decides to pass on his legacy to one of his descendants, a youngster called Samuel.
Samuel has many conflicts with his parents, particularly with his father that does not accept that his son wants to be a writer. Lucena relates his incredible story to Samuel over a period of seven days. Samuel is unsure whether to believe Lucena and despite he had been warned not to speak to anyone about his existence, decides to tell his grandmother. His grandmother tells him to ask Lucena about things that only his ancestor would have known, in order to test him. In the book we also find short stories about Samuel and his lives after accepting his legacy. Through the eyes of Lucena, Samuel and the other characters we experience religious conflicts not only among Jews, Muslims and Christians but also among people with the same religious credo, for example, Jews that had supposedly converted to avoid persecution, Marranos, and the surviving Jews. Also there is reference to the conflict between the Sephardic and the Ashkenazic which are both Jews but of different origins. The former ones have Spanish and Middle-Eastern descendants like the author whereas the latter have German and east European origins.
It is interesting how the author attempted to illustrate the religious and cultural conflicts by bringing them to life through the short stories of the many characters mentioned in the novel. I was slightly disappointed with the time travelling though. I thought the story would have developed differently in this sense. Although there is mention of different time periods I feel that the time travelling is more on a physiological level rather than physical.
The story is rich in dialogue and poetry making it literary complex and interesting. However, I found many grammatical mistakes for example capital letters were used inappropriately and full stops sometimes used instead of comas. The language used was very basic and vocabulary very poor. For example, using phrases as ‘that ache in the chest’ and ‘happy as a kid’. Also there was confusion at times in the name of the protagonists and the scenes are not clearly described making it difficult to immerse in the story. I feel that this might be due to the fact that the text has been translated into English from the original language. However, I lost a lot of my reading experience due to these errors. For this reason I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars.
Although, I rated this book only 2 stars on the whole it is still a good read to those that are fascinated by historical religious stories. It gives a very detailed account of the lives of Jews since one thousand years ago including the time of the Inquisition, persecution and many exiles they endured. It also maps out the countries which they went to as they moved to avoid being killed or forced to convert. I had very limited knowledge of Judaism before I read this book and I did not mind getting to know more.
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(Ways to) Lucena
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2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
This book is the second of a trilogy. However, it tells a unique story that is not a continuation from the first book. It is of the sci-fi and historical fiction genre. ' Lucena' has an element of time travelling with deep religious and cultural influence.
The author moves us through a number of flashbacks and flash forwards along a time period of one thousand years. The story is related by Lucena and old man that lived for a millennium. Throughout his many lives he has travelled from Lucena, his birthplace, Tetuan, Brazil, Jerusalem and back to Spain. Knowing that he is reaching the end of his days he decides to pass on his legacy to one of his descendants, a youngster called Samuel.
Samuel has many conflicts with his parents, particularly with his father that does not accept that his son wants to be a writer. Lucena relates his incredible story to Samuel over a period of seven days. Samuel is unsure whether to believe Lucena and despite he had been warned not to speak to anyone about his existence, decides to tell his grandmother. His grandmother tells him to ask Lucena about things that only his ancestor would have known, in order to test him. In the book we also find short stories about Samuel and his lives after accepting his legacy. Through the eyes of Lucena, Samuel and the other characters we experience religious conflicts not only among Jews, Muslims and Christians but also among people with the same religious credo, for example, Jews that had supposedly converted to avoid persecution, Marranos, and the surviving Jews. Also there is reference to the conflict between the Sephardic and the Ashkenazic which are both Jews but of different origins. The former ones have Spanish and Middle-Eastern descendants like the author whereas the latter have German and east European origins.
It is interesting how the author attempted to illustrate the religious and cultural conflicts by bringing them to life through the short stories of the many characters mentioned in the novel. I was slightly disappointed with the time travelling though. I thought the story would have developed differently in this sense. Although there is mention of different time periods I feel that the time travelling is more on a physiological level rather than physical.
The story is rich in dialogue and poetry making it literary complex and interesting. However, I found many grammatical mistakes for example capital letters were used inappropriately and full stops sometimes used instead of comas. The language used was very basic and vocabulary very poor. For example, using phrases as ‘that ache in the chest’ and ‘happy as a kid’. Also there was confusion at times in the name of the protagonists and the scenes are not clearly described making it difficult to immerse in the story. I feel that this might be due to the fact that the text has been translated into English from the original language. However, I lost a lot of my reading experience due to these errors. For this reason I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars.
Although, I rated this book only 2 stars on the whole it is still a good read to those that are fascinated by historical religious stories. It gives a very detailed account of the lives of Jews since one thousand years ago including the time of the Inquisition, persecution and many exiles they endured. It also maps out the countries which they went to as they moved to avoid being killed or forced to convert. I had very limited knowledge of Judaism before I read this book and I did not mind getting to know more.
******
(Ways to) Lucena
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
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Latest Review: (Ways to) Lucena by Mois Benarroch
