2 out of 4 stars
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Andalusian In Jerusalem by Mois Benarroch is written as a first-person chronicle of the principal character, a Jewish writer living in Paris, France. However, the main story is Jerusalem itself. The rest is his visit and the story of various residence that presently or previously lived in the city. The principal character has no name and it’s not really that important to the story.
While visiting Jerusalem to meet with a couple of his best friends: Charly and Nora. He recounts his time there and has meetings with his best friends to get their opinion of his new manuscript. Charly also has a manuscript that he is hoping to publish and as he follows the principal character’s unpublished book, he is inspired by what he reads. Between speaking with his friends, the principal character also documents his time spent in Jerusalem and times where he encounters people that seem to be reincarnations of his relatives that believe he is related to them. The narration goes back in time to explore the life of other characters that represent Jerusalem's violent, racist past.
Bennarroch has done his research. The historical fiction element of the novel details centuries of persecution of the Jews in Jerusalem by the Christians and the Spanish and throughout, love letters and poems between characters inserted throughout represent the city itself, its immortal, majestic nature while most of the novel is an excerpt of the main character’s book. The story also alternates between the contents of the author’s manuscript, Charly’s manuscript and then back to present reality with which the main character engages a dialog with one of his best friends that are reading his manuscript.
I carefully considered this historical novel to be introspective. The unique characters are like Jesus reincarnated, his guiding spirit flowing naturally through the bloodline of the various character's illustrious ancestry. The formatting style is difficult to carefully follow because it’s translated from fluent Spanish to modern English. The entire novel has grammatical errors throughout like run-on sentences.
I enjoyed the cultural symbolism and metaphoric references to Christianity. For a short novel under 200 pages in length, most of this fascinating novel has insightful, deep and meaningful oftentimes eloquent writing style. I strongly suggest during your read take frequent breaks because reading the novel becomes tiresome.
I've rated this sentimental novel a solid 2 out of 4 stars only because of the grammatical mistakes and the incoherent writing style.
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Andalusian in Jerusalem
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I read this book as well and I agree that the book is a heavy read so that it can be tiresome. It's definitely not for a casual reader!
