The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
A young Jew from an unidentified country comes to a Polish town in the middle of the eighteenth century, as new ideas—and unrest—start to spread across the Continent. Jacob Frank soon assumed a new name and character after experiencing what appear to be blissful experiences. He now commands a charismatic following that grows over time.
Frank will travel the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires in the ensuing decade with hordes of followers under his control as he repeatedly reinvents himself, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is derided as a heretic and adored as the Messiah, and wrecks havoc on the established order, both Jewish and Christian, with scandalous rumours of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. The life of Frank, a real-life historical character surrounded by mystery and debate even today, provides Olga Tokarczuk with the ideal canvas on which to display her brilliance and unmatched scope. from the viewpoints of his contemporaries, including those who like him, those who despise him, a friend who betrays him, and a lone lady who recognizes him for what he is.
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
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Tokarczuk relates the tale of a Jewish sect that clashed with Catholic and Rabbinic authority in seventeenth-century Poland in comparatively succinct and straightforward prose. She leverages her background as a Jungian psychologist to thoroughly flesh out the characters and bring them to life in the reader’s world. Similar plausibility can be found in the surrounding cast of lords and ladies, innkeepers and madams, bishops and priests. Viscerally, the group expresses the agony it endures as it loses its Jewish identity and is shunned by rabbinically headed communities.
Furthermore, the breadth of the historical research is astounding. From rural Poland to the Ottoman Empire’s frontiers to an enlightened Austrian conclusion, one may trace the sect’s history. Tokarczuk describes and makes observations about the cultures and people they encounter throughout this story.
But the book is more than just historical fiction. Because of the Holocaust, Poland today is a nation with a single ethnicity and religion. Tokarczuk, on the other hand, creates a vision of a cosmopolitan society in which Orthodox, Jews, and Catholics coexist in Poland alongside Ruthenians, Poles, and Armenians.
Tokarczuk offers her interpretation of Jungian theory by asserting that religious dogma, legislation, and hierarchy are important causes of human suffering. Tokarczuk believes that each of us has a unique perspective on the world. We can only break through the gloom by spreading this light. The only way we can create a shared universe is through writing.
A superb example of historical fiction is The Books of Jacob. While following all the flips and turns in the growth of Jacob Frank’s cult, the reader gets a sense of the texture of each setting and time, as well as each social position. By the time I reached the end, I felt as though I had experienced the sorrow of both the people who sacrificed their lives for Frank’s movement as well as the Christians and conventional Jews who watched it from afar.
