The World to Come: A Novel

Dara Horn, the author of the book, The World to Come, has her feet firmly planted in the World Gone By. She is a student of Yiddish literature and frequently lectures at colleges and universities. Yiddish, as she puts it, is a language spoken mostly by dead people. Being an expert on Yiddish literature is less lucrative than being an expert on ancient Etruscan literature. No wonder she turns to writing novels as a way to make ends meet; and lucky for us she did, if she will continue to produce books like The World to Come.The origin of the Yiddish language, once spoken by Jews throughout Central Europe, goes back 1,200 years and shares that origin with the collection of dialects known today as modern German.Before World War II the world of Yiddish literature was vibrant, inventive and varied. It was full of wonder and excitement. Inanimate objects could talk, a woman might call her deceased husband back from the dead, and a boy might build a bridge from earth to the heavens out of paper.World War II silenced many of those literary voices. What is less well known is the fate of the Russian Jewish writers who survived the war and elected to continue living and working in the Jewish culture and communities of Soviet Russia. One by one Stalin's agents sought them out. By 1952 he managed to destroy almost all that remained. Those artistic minds would have created fabulous new worlds of imagination. The Worlds that Never Were.The book was inspired by an actual event. In June of 2001 a small 8x10 painting by Mark Chagall entitled, Study for Over Vitebsk, was stolen during a `singles night' event at the small Jewish Museum in New York. A ransom note soon arrived. The thieves demanded "...peace between the Israelis and Palestinians..." as the price for returning the painting. It was eventually recovered at a post office in Topeka, Kansas.Intrigued by this bizarre heist, Dara Horn asked herself, "What kind of a person would steal a painting in this manner?"To seek an answer to this question, Horn begins in the most logical place, with Chagall himself. In the 1920's Chagall taught for a short time at an orphanage in Russia. Around him were many of the important names in Yiddish literature. Chagall's star was on the rise, he was already being commissioned to do paintings in Berlin and his fame outside of Russia was growing. He would soon go to Paris and eventually the US. Most of his writer friends would stay behind in Europe and face the World to Come.Dara Horn imbues her narrative with fantastic and mystical elements just like the Yiddish writers of the World Gone By. If nothing else, doing so assures that you will not be predicting what is going to happen on the next page. The narrative makes leaps back and forth in time. First, we meet the modern-day characters of the book; then we go back in time to see their forebearers interact with the luminaries of Yiddish literature or we see the events of their lives that informed the character of their modern-day descendents.In Horn's book just as in the books of the Yiddish masters, there is the world we see and also mystical unseen world that seethes just below the surface, the one that supports and drives the seen world. For example, time itself is created or destroyed by our actions in the `real' world."Days and hours and years are not time, but merely vessels for it, and too often they are empty. The world stands still, timeless and empty, until an act of generosity changes it in an instant and sends it soaring through arcs of rich seasons, moment after spinning moment of racing beauty. And then, with a single unkind deed, a single withheld hand, time ceases to exist." [...]"She stopped singing. He ducked, but it was too late: she had seen him. He waited for her to run into the house, but to his surprise, she smiled - and time was created."There is a legend that explains the human philtrum, the vertical depression above your upper lip:"Before being born...babies go to school. ...where all the teachers are angels. The angels teach each baby the entire Torah, along with all of the secrets of the universe. Then, just before each baby is born, an angel puts its finger right below the baby's nose - and whispers to the child: Shh--don't tell. And then the baby forgets."Horn's characters, and by extension we readers, then go through life trying to remember the secrets and the truths that we already know in our hearts.With luck we can get some guidance from the great Yiddish masters, all of whom seemed to have had a direct line to the `jener welt' the other-world. The writer who best known today is probably Sholem Aleichem who gave us the character of Tevye the Milkman and all the stories that became "Fiddler on the Roof." There were other great names that, to our great loss, are virtually unknown to us today, like I.L. Peretz, Mendele Moykher Sforim and Der Nister. Another great writer was I.J.Singer who many say was a better writer than his younger brother I.B. Singer. Nevertheless, it was the younger Issac Bashevis Singer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978.The brilliant imaginations of these great writers can help jolt us out of our daily humdrum, and with great effort on our part, perhaps we can remember some of the secrets of the universe that we have forgotten. If not, then we will simply have to wait to remember them again in the World to Come.

This is not my usual reading and I must admit I first picked up the book, drawn by the cover art work. How shallow is that? But, I have to confess, I loved it. A rumination on birth, death, loss, God and Heaven, the book has passages that made me cry and others that I am still pondering a month after having read them. The story is simple-a recently divorced man, also coping with the loss of his mother, attends a museum function and finds a picture by the Russian artist, Marc Chagall which he remembers hanging in his family house. On an impulse, he takes the picture.On this slender hook, author Dara Horn has wound stories about living through the worst times (Stalinist Russia), losing those you love, welcoming new life and new people into your own story. The family in the story is Jewish and the references to Stalinist Russia also included the real life author known as Der Nister. I found his part of the story so touching that I purchased one of his books, which is now patiently waiting its turn in the reading pile.Philosophers will tell you that religion is simply wish fulfillment. We can’t accept death, of ourselves or our loved ones, so we create a Heaven where we know that we will see them again. While I don’t subscribe to this, intellectually it does sense. Religion is based on faith which is so personal and sacred, it can be difficult to describe in words. This book does that. There is a brief passage in the middle of the book that really resonated with me. Imagine a baby in the womb-the only life it knows. Now imagine the baby is a twin, in the womb with another being. Again, the only life the two infants have ever been aware of. Suddenly, one twin is snatched away, screaming and crying. The other twin is left along for a few minutes, mourning the loss of the departed twin. But then the final twin is born and is reunited with their sibling, outside the womb in the arms of their mother. What a perfect description of death. I have mentioned this analogy to several friends who can’t refute the logic of the story. We only know what we are aware of-none of us alive have actually experienced a final death (I am not counting back from the dead, did you see the light stories).The book has two endings-one of which has frustrated many readers who don’t feel closure with the story. For those, I simply say Shrodinger’s Cat. No spoilers, but keep that in mind when you are reading. The other ending is incredibly moving and so well written it will stay with you long after you finish the book. Yes, religion might simply be wish fulfillment but I prefer to have faith in something I can’t prove but simply feel is true.

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.

Intriguing meditation on art, life, loss and redemption. It is the finely drawn characters and their inner life and interactions that I loved most. Highly recommended.

Wow! A bit of everything, the meaning of life, paradise, a 20th century Jewish tale, pogroms, engaging characters all jumbled together in a Chagall painting in its pages. An amazing collection of Yiddish tales on death and life. The last chapter is beautifully poetic and captures the essence of the book. I can't wait to discuss this with my book club.

Big potential story, but too confused and disappointing

wonderful, delightful, enchantingprofound and humorous, sad and optimist at the same timea litle bit of everything; history, art, thriller, romance, culture, realism and magical fiction blended in one novel...very promising young authorhard to believe this is her first novel

This is a beautifully written, rich and imaginative novel with intertwining narrative strands dealing with several generations of Russian Jews in Europe and the United States.I was delighted with the first half of the book which despite the different settings, time frames and characters felt coherent.Unfortunately, it lost some of its magic in the second half, mainly because of :- the discordant chapter set in Vietnam which is far too long and not in tune with the mood of the rest of the novel,- the extremely sentimental scene in the museum office at night with overblown sentences like „… in darkness, her hair poured across his palms like molten music between his fingers“.After that, the story captivated me again and apart from the last chapter being a bit too drawn-out I enjoyed it very much.