![]() ![]() ![]() The turbulent multicultural nature of this world - so like our own - is apparent from the book’s opening: On a foggy morning in Rohatyn, a backwater market town in Lesser Poland, a priest arrives seeking new books, offering in exchange his own, the encyclopedia “New Athens.” Nearby, a carriage carrying two Catholic women breaks down, all while the Jewish community, roiling from a controversy over a previous supposed messiah, prepares for a wedding. At least, that’s the lesson of Jacob Frank, a charismatic 18th-century Polish Jewish mystic, whose real-life rise and fall - along with its dozens of twists along the way - form the heart of Olga Tokarczuk’s massive “ The Books of Jacob.” Basing her nearly 1,000-page masterwork on Jacob’s travels, teachings, loves, and political intrigues, the Nobel laureate uses the historical figure as a lens through which to view a world in flux.įunny, tragic, comprehensive, and at times hilariously graphic, “The Books of Jacob,” spans Eastern Europe, from the Kingdom of Prussia to the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, during the tumultuous second half of the century. For a self-proclaimed messiah, any twist of fortune can be interpreted as preordained. ![]()
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