This is not a book you will read in a day. In fact it took me about a month to read it but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable. There was just so much to absorb to think about and to understand. Isn’t that just the best sort of book. It is the biography of Jerusalem. This seems to be a common thread in recent times – to write about a city. Dublin, London, New York by Edward Rutherford are some that come to mind. They pale though in comparison with Jerusalem. We start right at the beginning with pre biblical times – material garnered from archeological sites. What comes through is what a bloody history this wonderful city has had. Perhaps that is what is in its stones now as the blood let continues. Montefiore writes so well. Historical books can be dry and deadly but this isn’t. His footnotes add to the narrative too and there is dry humour and amusement and also the continuing foolishness of mankind. Horror too at what we do to one another.
I am very pleased to have something tidied up for me. I always was very dubious about the story of David and Goliath. I had a vision of his slingshot something like the things my brothers used to make out of forked sticks and bits of old bicycle inner tube. They would fire them off at my mother’s hens once getting into terrible trouble when they hit a hen sitting on the gate and broke her leg. She had to be dispatched to the pot.
What David had was a slingshot which is a much larger thing. There were battalions of ‘slingers’ and very smart they were. They could swing the sling around and let a stone fly which could travel at over 100 kilometers. A corps to be considered I see now.
What is the future for the glorious city? Amos Oz a writer who now lives in the Negev suggested that what should happen is that every stone of every building should be taken and shipped to Scandanavia for 100 years until the people in Jerusalem learned to get along with one another. Not really a viable solution but it shows how difficult the interaction will always be.
In the epilogue Montefiore gives us a picture of the Muslim, the Jew, and the Christian going to their prayers on a particular day. At some stage of each of the praying they use the word ‘peace’. A pity it cannot be brought to the forefront of everyone’s ideal for that city.
Jerusalem is the best book I have read this year. Yes it took a while to read, but what jewels it contained. It also gave me a better perspective of the history of the area and the glory of that desired city.
