Reviews with content warning for Violence - The World and All That It Holds

I was really excited that this book was partly in Ladino/Spanjol, the language of the Jews who got expelled from Spain in the 1490s. It's kind of like a medieval, oddly-spelled Spanish, and its speakers mostly diffused throughout the then-Ottoman-empire (Istanbul, Sarajevo, Salonica) and into Mexico and New Mexico (where a lot of "crypto-Jews" -- people who either disguised their identities or, after generations, forgot them, settled).

It make sense that that Hemon, who was forced into the life of a refugee when Sarajevo got besieged while he was overseas, would vibe with the Jews, who can feel semi-permanently not home. It also makes sense that he would be compelled to write this plot, about a sweet, inebriated Sarajevan Jew who gets knocked out of the Sarajevan carsija by war, and who -- like a good Bosnian -- falls into a cross-religion love affair.

I wasn't prepared, however, for the fact that Pinto, once leaving Sarajevo, would never go home again. The book takes us from Archduke Ferdinand's assassination straight to the bloody fields of Galicia, then by train to prisoner of war camps in Tashkent. Pinto is the narrator and he is not interested in any of the bird's eye political view of his situation, or even what you might write to your mom in a letter (Pinto fails to write his mom letters) -- so if you don't understand how he got into World War I, or who they were fighting, or what all the tumult is about when they reach Tashkent, or what's going on with the Great Game player they meet up with there -- well, you're going to stay ignorant.

While the text is beautiful and intimate and Pinto's love for Osman shines through it all, the rest feels like it's seen through a glass darkly. Together with the lack of driving plot -- TWAATIH is more of a chronicle than a set of rising actions -- the failure to ever orient towards the "larger focus" of what Pinto is living through started to make me feel frustrated and claustrophobic. I felt like I was seeing everything through multiple layers of gauze.

So, while I'm a big fan of Hemon's first book and I might come back to this later, I just don't have the steam for it during this dark February.

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softanimal's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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_moomin's review against another edition

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God. This book has so much potential and some beautiful moments but it is SO BORING between those bits. The author repeats motifs and phrases so frequently and inelegantly that it takes the reader out of the story. I have no reason to pick this up again. You keep waiting for Pinto to be able to return to Sarajevo or for him to have any control over the events of his life, but it's world war I and he's a gay Bosnian Jew so of course he can't do either of those things! Great characters and often pretty prose but too repetitive and slow-paced for me.

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spec_tacles's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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likemindedbooks's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon (The Lazarus Project) is brutal, beautiful and an absolute masterpiece. I was riveted by the audiobook, the narration of which was expertly done and very authentic to the voice and tone of this piece. There are plenty of trigger warnings that would normally perhaps prevent me from picking this book up (lots of wartime violence--gore, torture, and sexual assault) but it is part of the reality of this world in the backdrop of the exceptionally tender and raw love story between the two MCs. It was difficult emotionally at times but worth it. A powerfully human novel that will stay with me a very long time. Thank you to MacMillan audio for the advanced listening copy.

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danaaliyalevinson's review

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challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was floored by this book. Told over the course of 35 years, this is the story of an epic love between a Jewish man and a Muslim man from Sarajevo set against the backdrop of the first half of the 20th century, covering WWI, its aftermath, and WWII. This book is a lyrical and deeply moving portrait of war, trauma, grief, displacement, and Jewish longing. As a Jewish reader, there’s a certain ineffable Jewishness that can sometimes be imbued into an author’s work. I think of Nicole Krauss’ work as an example, or also Nathan Englander. It’s this balance of emotionality, an almost biblical poeticism, a sense of past always being present, and a sprinkling of absurdism and surrealism. This book oozed it. I was also impressed by how much Hemon utilized these tools to draw a vivid picture of war and being a refugee, not in the external details, but in the emotional ones. I know it’s only January, but this will be a book that all others I read this year are held against. A stunning read.

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