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Loading... The World to Come (2006)by Dara Horn
 ljhliesl | May 21, 2013 |  It starts pretty well with an interesting mix of historical characters, sad stories and some humour. Sadly the main plot becomes boring and predictable and everything finishes in a childish simile between food and art. On the positive side, it has some good side stories and introduced me to some jew artists I didn't know before. (  ) ivan.frade | Mar 4, 2012 | On the whole, a well-written and thought-provoking novel. Yet, some parts of it seemed redundant and overly-accentuated. (  ) Clara53 | Dec 26, 2010 | This book should have been a novella. There were places when it was a terrific read. But there was lots of extraneous material added which was unnecessary and often boring. Unlike others, I had no problem with the end of the book. I get it, but by then I didn't care. If the reason this was novel length was the idea of the publisher, they did the reader no favors. I'm hoping her next book is much better. ( ) whymaggiemay | Oct 3, 2010 | The World to Come was a really interesting novel about a man who suddenly steals a Chagall painting from a museum and the background and history of the family that led him to believe that the painting belonged to his family. I really enjoyed the development of the family story, particularly Ben and Sara (twins) as they came to be involved in this spontaneous crime. The family history part was also interesting but tended to stray off into dream sequences and metaphorical/allegory at unexpected times to introduce the reader to the "world to come". The book was really picking up speed and had my full attention until it came to an unexpected halt with no apparently conclusion, to lapse back into a relatively unrelated "world to come" metaphor sequence, leaving the reader completely at a loss to the ending. This infuriated me and I felt ripped off. I was prepared to give this book a higher rating and recommend it to others, but now I feel that I can't. I also would be reluctant to read another Dana Horn book because I would be afraid she might do this again. Great story if you can handle someone stealing the last chapter at the climax and supplementing it with something else... ( ) voracious | May 23, 2010 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0393329062, Paperback)Following in the footsteps of her breakout debut In the Image, Dara Horn's second novel, The World to Come, is an intoxicating combination of mystery, spirituality, redemption, piety, and passion. Using a real-life art heist as her starting point, Horn traces the life and times of several characters, including Russian-born artist Marc Chagall, the New Jersey-based Ziskind family, and the "already-weres" and "not-yets" who roam an eternal world that exists outside the boundaries of life on earth.At the center of the story is Benjamin Ziskind, a former child prodigy who now spends his days writing questions for a television trivia show. After Ben's twin sister Sara forces him to attend a singles cocktail party at a Jewish museum, Ben spots Over Vitebsk, a Chagall sketch that once hung in the twins' childhood home. Convinced the painting was wrongfully taken from his family, Ben steals the work of art and enlists his twin to create a forgery to replace the stolen Chagall. What follows is a series of interwoven stories that trace the life and times of the famous painting, and the fate of those who come into contact with it. From a Jewish orphanage in 1920s Soviet Russia to a junior high school in Newark, New Jersey, with a stop in the jungles of Da Nang, Vietnam, Horn takes readers on an amazing journey through the sacred and the profane elements of the human condition. It is this expertly rendered juxtaposition of the spiritual with the secular that makes The World to Come so profound, and so compelling to readers. As we learn near the end of the beautiful tale, "The real world to come is down below--the world, in the future, as you create it." --Gisele Toueg (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 03 Jan 2013 22:53:09 -0500) "A million-dollar painting by Marc Chagall is stolen from a museum during a singles' cocktail hour. The unlikely thief is Benjamin Ziskind, a lonely former child prodigy who writes questions for quiz shows and who is sure the painting used to hang on the wall of his parents' living room. As Ben tries to evade the police, he and his twin sister, Sara, seek out the truth of how the painting got to the museum, whether the "original" is actually a forgery, and whether Sara, an artist, can create a convincing forgery to take its place." "Eighty years prior, in the 1920s in Soviet Russia, Marc Chagall taught art to orphaned Jewish boys. There Chagall befriended the great Yiddish novelist known by the pseudonym "Der Nister," the Hidden One. And there, with the lives of these real artists, the story of the painting begins, carrying with it not only a hidden fable by the Hidden One but also the story of the Ziskind family - from Russia to New Jersey and Vietnam."--BOOK JACKET.… (more) |
LibraryThing AuthorDara Horn is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
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 Audible.comTwo editions of this book were published by Audible.com.
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Perhaps I can wax articulate after bookclub on 3 March 2008, but for now, love. (