Tamar Yellin

This book was a joy to read. The language, rich and warm, particularly when describing the mythic history of the Shepher family going back to the 19th century. It is a tapestry of emotion, longing and want. The threads of family histories are woven into the story of love, of aging and missed opportunity. Yellin is particularly masterful in showing us the passage of time.

Shulamit Shepher, the narrator, enters the genizah, the storeroom of the past where every yellowing packet of letters and show more photographs, documents and receipts is weighted with significance for no one but the hovering spirits and the lonely seeker. Though she is a scholar searching out the truth of the ancient Codex found in her family home, this is primarily a story of relationships.

All families are flawed, have their strengths and weaknesses hidden in attics and closets that are perhaps better left undisturbed. You cannot go back on the road not taken to see where it actually led. show less

I really enjoyed this book - a rambling, witty tale of a no-longer-young Biblical scholar, Shulamith, and her crazy, argumentative family - the present-day stories interleaved with the lives of her grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Superficially, the modern-day story is about the family dispute over what to do with an ancient Codex, but in fact the whole thing is more about the nature of stories themselves, and the way they can be created and re-created out of almost nothing. The various show more histories - personal, family, political - are as disputed as the variant Biblical texts which Shulamith studies. And the Jewish myth that the Torah was created from a heap of letters - which could have formed into any number of alternative combinations - is echoed in the way that people redefine their own lives.

The book does lose its way a little towards the end, but it's a great read, and I'd always rather read a book which is ambitious, even if it fails, than one which sets out with limited aims, however much it succeeds. show less

Genizah, a Hebrew word, is defined as a storeroom or attic, usually in a synagogue, for worn or unusable prayerbooks or bibles, which, since they contain the name of God, cannot be thrown away but must rather be buried according to Jewish ritual. That was the first question I had when I picked up The Genizah at the House of Shepher, and attics and storerooms and worn old books are at the crux of this slow, literary and very moving story about a woman, a book, and a mystery.

Shulamit Shepher show more is a researcher and scholar in the field of the Hebrew Bible; she lives in England and travels to Jerusalem to unravel a family controversy that threatens to boil over. Years ago, her great-grandfather, Shalom Shepher, had undertaken to find the ten lost tribes of Israel, and when he returned he brought with him a codex of the Hebrew Bible, found somewhere on his journeys. The book remains hidden for years; when it's discovered in the attic of the family home, the family decides to give it, albeit temporarily and for purposes of further study, to a research institute. Shulamit comes to Israel to see the codex, and to try to use her professional skills to unravel this family mystery. When she arrives she finds herself in the middle of family rivalries and secrets, and meets an intriguing stranger also interested in the codex.

The narrative alternates between Shulamit in the present tense and the story of her family in the past tense, starting with her great-grandfather's first marriage, leading right through her father's failed love affair and her brother's defection from the family. Author Tamar Yellin tells the story slowly, and ponderously; midrashic stories about Moses are interwoven as allegories about knowledge and learning, about what should be, and should not be, gleaned from books. This codex could be a very special book, an early- or perhaps even original- version of the Hebrew Bible, of which there are so many variants and versions, and as such has the potential to be of cataclysmic importance both spiritually, historically, academically and even commercially. Therefore the family is fraught with tension, anger and anticipation over its fate, which brings to the surface all kinds of lingering, competing motives and intentions.

The Genizah at the House of Shepher bears a passing resemblance to another book recently published about a female scholar and the fate of a precious Jewish book- Geraldine Brooks's People of the Book (which I reviewed earlier this year), but The Genizah is quite different. People of the Book was a page-turner- action-packed and busy with movement and twists and turns. The Genizah is altogether a slower book, more thoughtful, and more literary in style. I also found Shulamit to be a more likable character than Brooks's prickly heroine Hanna. People of the Book I can see being made into a movie; The Genizah I can see becoming a classic, and as the winner of last year's Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, given by the Jewish Book Council, it's off to a good start.

I loved reading The Genizah at the House of Shepher. I thought Yellin hit all the right notes in terms of pacing, character and outcome. The tentative romance between Shulamit and the mysterious Gideon was handled beautifully and the story of her family, and especially her father, was fascinating and bittersweet. I could have finished the book days before I did, but I slowed down for the concluding few chapters, because I wanted to make it last. I may pick it up again soon.

See my review at my blog as well; http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2008/06/review-genizah-at-house-of-shepher.html show less

Shulamit Shepher is a middle-aged unmarried female scholar who narrates this story about her great-grandfather, Shalom Shepher. At a young age, he disappeared for a couple of years in search of the Ten Lost Tribes. He returned with a Codex, or manuscript, of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). (A codex is a book with pages that turn as opposed to scrolls that unroll; this was an intermediate step between scrolls and the invention of the printing press.) Shulamit’s Uncle show more Cobby found the old codex in the attic, or “Genizah” (in the Hebrew sense of repository of old sacred documents). Fighting ensues among the relatives and others over its provenance, value, and future.

Underlying the plot is the complementary theme that we all make choices guided by memories stored in our own personal “genizahs.”

My reaction to the book was that it had sophomoric prose, a confused plot, and in no way approached the status of "thriller in the Da Vinci code tradition" as promised by the jacket. The author's website promotes the book as "a large canvas novel of exile and belonging, displacement and the struggle for identity." I guess I buy that writ small. But none of these philosophical issues were resolved in a coherent way. This author is not in the same league as Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Isaac B. Singer, Henry Roth, etc. - I wouldn't even put her in the same room, much less the same league. As for the other blurbs: "gripping" "a page-turner" "impossible to put down" - I think they were put on the wrong book jacket by mistake. I was very disappointed.

(JAF) show less