養鴿女

Title: The Dovekeepers
Author: Alice Hoffman (1952 - )
Center Point large print ed.
Thorndike, Me. : Center Point Pub., 2011
735 p. (large print) ; 23 cm
Read by: 11/14/2012, borrowed from WBPL
Genre: Fiction

When I read short and poetic sentences by Alice, carrying the momentum I obtained from Ondaatje, I was joyful. The 735 pages did not intimidate me. Okay for a large print, if it is a good read. Over time the light dimmed. The details about Jewish culture showed that the author did her diligent homework, I always appreciate that. The writing was lovely. It did not shine through its thick cloak however, a cloak that is called “magical realism”. New to me, it is by Wikipedia, “a genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the ‘real’ and the ‘fantastic’ in the same stream of thought”. This magical-as-if-real-occurrence approach worked like a switch, turned me off progressively. Each of the four characters Yael, Revka, Aziza and Shirah – The Assassin’s Daughter, the Baker’s Wife, the Warrior’s Beloved, the Witch of Moab had far-fetching capability or event, such as the invisible cloak, instant loss of voice and sudden recovery, being a soldier in the place of the brother (like the ancient Chinese legendary heroine Mulan), calling rain in the execution, setting a lion free. It is clever to write about historical events in this way in order to fill the gaps. However, it appeared to me a convenient way to get the characters out of tight fixes. This book is not a fantasy novel, like The Blue Bear and Its 13 1/2 Lives, where the author let his imagination run wild and fantastically. Alice meant her 23rd book to be historical. But her style is appealing to young adults as most of her other prolific writings were. I read somewhere that this book took Alice Hoffman 10 years, I bet it was part time. In the same year this book was published, she got another book printed. Within the ten years before this book, she pushed out 11 other novels! Like Daniel Steel, she is a writing factory. In my honest opinion, she didn't take time to polish her works. Read below a few quotes: 1) Shirah handed me the basket. I wondered if it has been woven with palm leaves from Ein Gedi, if some woman has set down the crossing leaves pattern on the morning of her own death. It was eloquent, but I didn’t see the need of relating the basket with death. So it is a noise in my ears, I filtered out. 2) My daughter’s name meant beautiful morning, and she truly was brighter than anything in this world, her skin golden, her hair like wheat, her countenance made even more lovely because her black eyes were a reminder of night before morning broke through, a time when the world was a mystery and shadows were all we had. The description of her daughter’s beauty is very unorthodox. It is hard for me to vision the black eye with the dark night before morning break. 3) There were bands of bloody scars where he had cut directly into his flesh with a knife, a row of injuries set above his dark blue veins. The self-inflicted marks were the blue of the hyssop when it bloomed, my daughter’s favorite flower. Around them arose bruises that were the gorged color of plum, her favorite fruit. Relating pains with fruits and flower, another quite unorthodox style of writing and difficult for the readers. 4) He snorted. I thought of the blindfolded horses of the king, set upon a path they could not see. Some must have protested; they must have reared up, furious to be sightless in the brutal grasp of the serpent that led up the mountainside. The rest can be cut save the first sentence with two words only. A big part of the book can be treated this way. It amused me to read a review, “What this book needed was a good editor who is not intimidated by Hoffman's status as a best-selling author. Preferably an editor with a big pair of scissors who would cut out at least 100 pages. And maybe an editor who would have the courage to point out that a story cannot be told in the first person by a dead character”. I almost could not bear to notice when the narrator of the third story started out talking to her sister and address her as “you”, and then all of sudden changed to “her” right in front of my eyes. I went back and forth, thought my eyes cheated me. Such flaws were tolerated by editors, but not readers. 3/4 readers gave a good rating, I am in those ¼ picky readers