FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)I love Alice Hoffman. When I heard about her new book, a fictionalized account of the events at Masada when 900 Jews held out for months against the Romans in 70 C.E., I was eager to read her treatment.
“The Dovekeepers” is a historical novel based on the writings of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who later became a Roman citizen. Here, Hoffman traces the lives of four fictional Jewish women who travel to Masada from different parts of the region in the wake of the second destruction of the Temple. They join the Zealots in what was once King Herod’s palace.
Each woman narrates a separate section; as things progress, the lives of these four, all of whom become “dovekeepers” on Masada, become intertwined.
Yael, daughter of an expert assassin whose mother died in childbirth, has never been forginven by her father. Revka, a village baker’s wife, loses her husband and daughter at the hands of the Romans. Aziza is raised as a boy warrier while living with her mother and siblings among the tribesman of the Moab. Shirah, born in Alexandria, Egypt, wise in the ways of magic and medicine, is also the mother of Aziza.
Hoffman is at her best describing the brutal environment of the Judean desert, the sense of doom as food becomes scarce and the Romans move closer.
Unfortunately, what’s lacking is the emotional component in the stories of the women. Each narrator seems to spend a lot of time retelling the stories, but there is a lack of passion that made it difficult for me to connect to these women. When I was finished, and the 900 perished, I didn’t really care which of the two women and children survived the siege.