(no subject)
Incantation, by Alice Hoffman. Little, Brown & Co., 2006
This young adult novel is small but the subject matter really packs a punch. It took me only two hours to read, but I suspect it will stay with me a good while.
Estrella, is 16 years old in the year 1500. This is the year that the Spanish Inquisition comes to the town she lives in. Estrella knows little about the Jews in her town, other than that they live in their own area and wear red circles sewn on their clothing. She and her family attend one of the Catholic churches in the town, the one further from their house. They light candles on Friday nights, and make the sign of the cross a little differently from most of the people in town, but Estrella never gives this a thought. She and her best friend, Catalina from next door, have planned to stay close for their whole lives, living close together and raising their children together.
But that isn’t to be. Catalina has an understanding with her cousin Andres; they will marry when the time comes, although she treats him somewhat disdainfully. Although they fight it, Andres and Estrella fall in love- and Catalina sets out to destroy Estrella and her family. It’s an easy thing for Catalina to do, because- although Estrella doesn’t know it- they are Jews just pretending to be Catholic, which makes them even worse in the eyes of the Inquisition. Worse, Estrella’s mother is a healer, her father a scholar and a surgeon, all things that mark them as witches.
Told in the first person, we get the full force of Estrella’s horror as she watches her family destroyed. She learns that not only is Catalina not who Estrella thought she was, but Estrella herself is not who she thought she was. It’s a jolting enlightenment and a brutal coming of age that she goes through.
The story is told beautifully; there is not one wasted word in the book. It reads like it could be set to music. Love, fear, prejudice, stupidity, jealousy, ignorance; it has all the ingredients for an opera. I think this is a valuable book for teens; the Inquisition isn’t something that’s mentioned much in school and it needs to be remembered.
This young adult novel is small but the subject matter really packs a punch. It took me only two hours to read, but I suspect it will stay with me a good while.
Estrella, is 16 years old in the year 1500. This is the year that the Spanish Inquisition comes to the town she lives in. Estrella knows little about the Jews in her town, other than that they live in their own area and wear red circles sewn on their clothing. She and her family attend one of the Catholic churches in the town, the one further from their house. They light candles on Friday nights, and make the sign of the cross a little differently from most of the people in town, but Estrella never gives this a thought. She and her best friend, Catalina from next door, have planned to stay close for their whole lives, living close together and raising their children together.
But that isn’t to be. Catalina has an understanding with her cousin Andres; they will marry when the time comes, although she treats him somewhat disdainfully. Although they fight it, Andres and Estrella fall in love- and Catalina sets out to destroy Estrella and her family. It’s an easy thing for Catalina to do, because- although Estrella doesn’t know it- they are Jews just pretending to be Catholic, which makes them even worse in the eyes of the Inquisition. Worse, Estrella’s mother is a healer, her father a scholar and a surgeon, all things that mark them as witches.
Told in the first person, we get the full force of Estrella’s horror as she watches her family destroyed. She learns that not only is Catalina not who Estrella thought she was, but Estrella herself is not who she thought she was. It’s a jolting enlightenment and a brutal coming of age that she goes through.
The story is told beautifully; there is not one wasted word in the book. It reads like it could be set to music. Love, fear, prejudice, stupidity, jealousy, ignorance; it has all the ingredients for an opera. I think this is a valuable book for teens; the Inquisition isn’t something that’s mentioned much in school and it needs to be remembered.