On 900 pages of it we get one of the most fantastic mixture of fiction and history of XVIII century Poland and Eastern Europe.
The book tells the story of Jacob Frank, a Jewish mystic, who created almost impossible, new messianic sect in XVIII Judaism - the sect that broke with traditional Judaism, adopted some tenants of Sabbatai Zevi, had a short affair with Ottoman Turkey Islam, and then ...converted to Catholicism! Frank and his family and followers got into plays with Austrian Emperor, had a kind of small kingdom in Brno, were imprisoned in Czestochowa and ended its glory in a noble castle in Offenbach, Germany !
Absolutely amazing book; from the perspective of care paid to facts and play between imagination and history - I could compare it only to Umberto Eco’s “Prague Cemetery” …
The book ends beautifully:
“It has been written though that a man who labours himself with the works of Messiahs', even the unsuccessful ones, will earn respect as the one who studies the eternal mysteries of the Light, just by telling these stories.”
No comments:
Post a Comment