Customer Reviews

World to Come, The

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In the Yiddish folk tales that are woven through this magnificent book, the World to Come is a heaven occupied both by those that have passed on and those that have yet to be born. So Dara Horn writes about families and generations: elders who have passed on (or in some cases been eliminated), adults facing tragedy, finding new love, or conceiving new life, and children trying to figure out what it all means. One folk tale tells of a town where nobody ever dies, because nobody has really truly lived; throughout the book, Horn is concerned with the quality of living, with risk-taking, faith, and trust, and with authenticity in life or in art. This may sound abstract, but Horn's writing is far from it; her greatest gift is to plunge the reader into the souls of her characters, sharing their experience through their eyes, ears, and skin.

In some ways, this novel reminded me of THE HISTORY OF LOVE by Nicole Krauss, another recent novel spanning several generations of Jewish families in Europe and America. Just as that was tied together by the fate of a manuscript whose history spans much of the twentieth century, so this also revolves around an artwork, or rather two of them: a small Chagall painting that is stolen from a New York museum at the start of the book, and some stories by the Yiddish writer Der Nister (the Hidden One), who ultimately met the same fate as numerous other Jewish intellectuals in Soviet Russia. Both art forms -- painting and folk tales -- offer ways of looking at the world that are instinctive rather than logical, childlike in their immediacy, and closer to religion than to fact. Both deal with other worlds. Many of the characters in the book are involved with the visual arts, but since this is a novel it is the stories that provide the connective tissue, offering a different way of seeing to stand against the many tragedies of the past century. As Horn acknowledges in the appendix, most of the stories are adapted from earlier writers, but her skill is to weave them into a narrative that links divers times and places in a web of feelings and perceptions rather than as points on the railroad of chronological logic. This wondrous novel seems to be at once totally original and to have existed for ever.

I have to admit that my attitudes to the book went through some changes. I was put off reading it for several months because of the excessive cuteness of the original cover [I see it has now changed]. It was not until I got into it that I realized that this was an adult story, childlike at its best moments, certainly, but never childish. Once I had come to trust Dara Horn as a storyteller, I felt she could take me anywhere: to modern life in New York, the privations of an orphanage in Soviet Russia, the horrors of Vietnam, or the imagined world of folk tales going back centuries. I found myself telling everybody I met that this was something on the level of Paul Auster's ORACLE NIGHT, Myla Goldberg's BEE SEASON, the Krauss HISTORY OF LOVE, or (in a non-Jewish context) Ann Patchett's BEL CANTO -- writers that one can trust completely, knowing that danger would be answered by joy, intrigue by the bright clarity of truth. But all these adventurous writers face the problem of bringing their many strands of feeling and event together into a satisfying conclusion. Horn's solution is to end with a folk tale of her own creation. I have to say that this is less effective than most of the adapted tales she had included earlier, taking the reader on an extended excursion to the other world when he is aching to know what happens in this one. But the emotional conclusion that lies behind this little parable is absolutely right, and brings this treasure-house of a book back to something simple and true.

In the World to Come, Dara Horn manages to weave family history with myths of birth and paradise to create a beautiful tale. She begins with Ben Ziskind, who steals a Chagall painting from a museum when no one is looking. Ben is going through a bit of a personal crisis at the time, so it's unclear whether he is correct that this painting once belonged to his family or he is simply becoming delusional. We soon come to understand Ben, his motives, and his fears.

Horn's real talent is the ability to switch between scenes, timelines and perspectives all while keeping the interest of the reader. In many novels I find myself slogging through certain parts, biding my time to return to the characters I truly care about. All of Horn's characters are interesting, and I relished all of them equally.

Death is a common theme in the World to Come, and it is to Horn's great credit that her novel is nevertheless optimistic. The denouement may leave some readers craving for more details about exactly what happened next. That is Horn's plan, and she executes it with brilliance.

After reading "In the Image", Dara Horn's impressive debut novel, I could not wait to read her next creation. "The World to Come" exceeded my expectations!

This beautifully written, multidimensional novel will have broad appeal to lovers of historical fiction, symbolic literature, mystery, romance and much, much more. The novel is deep and philosophical, but also is just plain fun to read with colorful characters and a suspenseful plot that smoothly carries the reader between different time periods and places. A lot of research obviously went into this work, and readers learn interesting, little-known facts about Marc Chagall's art, Yiddish literature, and Russian and American history by osmosis.

What makes art famous and what does it mean to own it? How does our family shape our destiny? When do we encounter "the world to come"? The book touches upon these questions and leaves you with even more. I guarantee you will be thinking it over after you have turned the last page. That is the sign of a great novel, and this book definitely deserves your consideration.

The most pressing question for me is ... when does Dara Horn's third novel come out?

The World To Come is a literary gem. It is a wonderful family saga with characters who are so universally human. There are portions of the book which are achingly real that touch the heart so poignantly...the child, Sara, building a tomb for her deceased father,or trying to understand the reality of father's missing limb due to a war injury..........the son Benjamin trapped in a brace to correct his scoliosis........Etc., Etc, Etc. Some passages brought me to tears and wrought such an emotionnal whallop from the humanity they conveyed.But the family story is only part of the wonder of this book. There is a mystery too.Who stole the Chagall painting and why.? The intricacies of this story line follow three generations of the Ziskind family and in a clever way we follow the mystery of the stolen painting to a satisfying conclusion. The most unique aspect of the book is the portrayal of The World To Come ........ .a place where prenatal beings are coached by their deceased mortal ancestors. The final chapter of the book is a creative masterpiece. There are threads of history running throughout that add another wonderful dimension to the story.One of the most interesting parts of the book is the story of Der Nister , a Yiddish storyteller,who because of the Stalin purges was killed and never received the acclaim of his friend Chagall. Dara Horn weaves into her story a number of wonderful stories from other Yiddish writers whose words were also silenced at the hands of the Stalin regime. If you wish to have a truly unique and wonderful reading experience,run .......do not walk to your library or bookstore and take this exceptional book home with you. You will think about this story...... its many lessons and its lovely humanity for many years to come.

This is certainly one of the best books that I have read this year. The emotional impact of the book on me was similar to the one I got when I read "100 years of solitude "at the first time. When Marquez used Latin American folklore as the source for his imagination, Dara Horn turns to Yiddish literature - with astonishing results. I would not be surprised if after reading this book, some people would re-read (or read at the first time) Shalom Aleichem and other Yiddish masters. I personally went to browse through my art albums, to look at Chagal's paintings - and try to see them from the new perspective. Of course, the mix of magic and reality in "The world to come" is very different from the one the readers enter in "100 years of solitude". In Horn's "world to come" the reader is smoothly transferred from one point in history to another - from the realities of life of Jews in Stalinist Russia to the war in Vietnam, back to modern America and then to the mystic world of unborn people... And all those events, as well as the stealing of the Chagal's painting from the museum are only short stops on the eternal journey, when the traveler is seeking for the answer "What do we mean?"

... I appreciate that the author did answer this question.

Very good book, highly recommended.

"The World to Come" is a deeply satisfying journey into a world that looks ordinary from the outside, but reveals deep secrets, hopes and dreams on the inside. I couldn't put this book down! As the characters' lives intersect from chapter-to-chapter, the reader is given a brilliant mosaic of how people are bound together by both love and tragedy over time and geography. It's nearly impossible to finish one chapter without wanting to go on to see the next piece of the puzzle fall into place. Plus, author Horn's knowledge of art, Yiddish literature and even the Vietnam War is like a gripping lesson in history that you'll never forget. I have recommended this book to all my friends, am giving it as gifts to my friends who are avid readers, and find myself celebrating it with librarians who were jaded by too much junky literature until they got their hands on it. Almost all have said, "This is the best book I've ever read!" I can't wait until her next book comes out!

Recently divorced, former TV child quiz show star and child prodigy Ben Ziskind is convinced to attend a singles mixer at the Museum of Hebraic Art, where he spies a small picture on the wall that used to hang in his boyhood living room. As the singles leave the exhibit area to listen to dance music, Ben steals the drawing, a Marc Chagall sketch, and starts an amazing collection of interwoven plots in this wonderful story. The plot lines jump back and forth to a 1920's-era Jewish boys camp in Russia, to Ben and twin sister Sara's childhood in suburban New Jersey, to Ben and Sara's father's tour of duty in the Viet Nam war.

In an ironic twist, it turns out that Erica Frank, the beautiful museum employee who is put in charge of trying to find the stolen Chagall, is a huge fan of the children's books written and illustrated by Ben and Sara's mother, Rosalie Ziskind. Because of ther interest in the children's picture books, Erica makes the connection that Ben is the likely thief of the painting. The main plot dealing with the stolen painting is an excellent story, and the characters in this book are well-developed.

As the story unfolds, author Horn includes various excerpts from letters written by the young Ben to his Russian "Bar Mitzvah twin", stories from the children's books, and other stories from the Yiddish author known as the Hidden One. (Benjamin's "Bar Mitzvah twin" turns out to play a significant role later in the story, another wonderful twist in the carefully interwoven plot.) In the end, all the various stories build upon each other and add up to a wonderfully written novel. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to reading Dara Horn's debut novel.

I had read positive reviews of World to Come, and planned to read it. The premise -- guy steals a Chagall he is convinced belongs to his family -- was intriguing and piqued my interest. Along the way, I came across "In the Image" (Horn's previous novel) and decided to read that first, being a linear kind of guy. Wasn't crazy about the book, but decided to give Horn a second chance and bought World.

I have to admit I was enthusiastically recommending the novel to friends and family by the time I was three quarters of the way through the book. Horn writes beautifully and the plot made it hard to put the book down despite the back and forth leaps between Chagall's time and Ben's. Actually, I thought that part worked well.

But boy, was I disappointed by the time I got to the end of the book. I don't care how creative a writer is, but they have to know that a good story needs a beginning, a middle and an end, and that two out of three doesn't cut it. What a cheat to leave the reader guessing about the fate of the protagonists after following their adventures for well over 280 pages. Who gives a crap, certainly not me, about Ben's not-yet-born nephew? I might if you left me with an inkling about Ben's fate, but that is left solely to one's imagination, a cutesy literary device that left me cold. Sorry Dara, I'm going back to Roth and Chabon.

I was very impressed with this multi-layered novel. Dara Horn does an amazing job weaving together stories which take place in different time periods and locations - Ben and his twin sister Sara in the contemporary US; Ben and Sara in the 1980s; Daniel in the 1960s; and another Benjamin in the early Soviet era - along with the historically based characters of Chagall and Der Nister. Imagery, family, and folklore are the binding forces of these stories which become this story.

Wonderful! Now I need to buy Ms. Horn's first book

Other reviews give the plot line etc, so I won't bother. Other reviewers also do a good job of describing why this book is so good, and it is a very good book.

However there were some repeated themes that seemed almost sloppy writing in their repetion, for example too many of the marriages in the book start in adolesence and are uncomplicated and adoring and absolute and totally fulfilling. It has compelling ideas about who and what shape us as individuals and the role of our own behavior in spirituality. But the charactures seem to change dramatically on the turn of dime rather than through the long process of small choices leading you in one direction or another. The latter being how, the author suggests often in the book, we shape our own destinies.

That said I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was also mostly really really well written. I loved reading the Yiddish folk tales and admire the author's commitment to her faith and community which shines through every sincere line.

There are also some paragraph gems describing what its like when you first discover that you are pregnant- rarely have I read such an elegant and true depicture of the fear that accompanies that dawning consciouness. American culture loves to romanticize pregnancy and motherhood and this author clearly has had a baby and paid attention to the deeper experience.

All in all I would absolutely recommend reading this book and trust that the author will keep growing as a writer- she obviously thinks about things in a unique and beautiful way. I eagerly await her next book.