Love in the Time of Paranoia

Who shall live and who shall die
Who at the measure of days and who before
Who by fire and who by water
Who by the sword and who by wild beasts
Who shall have rest and who shall go wandering
Who shall be brought low and who shall be raised high.


Mitchell James Kaplan’s debut novel, which takes its name from the words of this sacred Hebrew piyyut , follows the fortunes of one man at a time of great social and political turbulence. 15th century Spain was the epicenter of some world-changing tremors – the conquest of Muslim-dominated Granada by Queen Isabel; the establishment of the Inquisition to reinforce the power of the Church while displacing thousands of Muslims and Jews across the world, and- that most famous of nautical goof ups, Christopher Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the New World .


Into these historical facts, Kaplan deftly weaves a story of a man caught in a crisis of faith. This is no ordinary man; Kaplan ambitiously chooses as his protagonist the powerful and charismatic Luis de Santángel, an influential member of the court, unscrupulous accomplice to King Ferdinand in his quest for power, and financier to the gamble that was Columbus’ quest for Asia. But Santángel was also a third generation converso, or New Christian-his forefathers having abandoned the Jewish faith - who was implicated in the murder of an Inquisitor and lost several members of his family to the Inquisition.

History shows that the conversos were never entirely accepted, their status as former Jews or Muslims always making them suspect .“You think you’re one of them…”, Santángel bitterly observes to his brother Estefan, a man who hides behind a boisterous show of Christian feeling. ”But neither you nor I shall ever be one of them, no matter how much we drink or take confession.”.


Kaplan interprets Santángel as a man whose revulsion at the horrors and hypocricy of the Inquisition gradually turn him from skeptical converso to covert Jew. (“ Where they see a conspiracy of New Christians,” he says, “I see… history. Shared history. And history, memories, how can you escape them?”) He turns to the comforting fold of his abandoned faith, secretly practicing Jewish rituals and studying ancient Hebrew texts with the help of a young scribe. When the scribe is betrayed and tortured by the Inquisition into confessing his ‘crimes’ and naming accomplices, Santángel has the Inquisitor murdered. He soon finds that his power and wealth are little protection, given his suspect status as a New Christian. He is arrested, before his proximity to King Ferdinand comes to his aid, but is helpless to prevent the punishment of his son and the torture and murder of his brother.


Running parallel to Santángel’s story is that of Judith Migdal, a young woman living in the Jewish quarter of the Muslim kingdom of Granada. Judith, a devout Jew, defies social convention by refusing marriage and single handedly taking over her murdered brother’s business and the care of his family. Santángel meets her on a visit to the vizir of Granada, but theirs is a romance doomed; Santángel is arrested, while the Christian occupation of Granada turns Judith and thousands of Jews like her into homeless refugees. Also playing a role in Santángel’s persecution is the Toledoth Yeshu, a Hebrew scroll of unknown origins, that Colon gives to him. Suggesting an alternate version to Jesus’ origins, the scroll ,though hardly comparable to the hate mongering of anti-Semitic propaganda like the Fortalitium Fidei ,has often been misrepresented as anti–Christian, and becomes, in this book, a powerful stimulus in Queen Isabel’s fanatical desire to conquer Granada.


The story moves seamlessly between theological debate, moments of intimacy and graphic violence, with the odd burst of florid prose'. Kaplan’s rendering of Santángel reminded me of Thomas Cromwell, flawed star of ‘Wolf Hall’, Hilary Mantel’s literary juggernaut – amoral, conniving, as much a power hungry opportunist as the monarch he supports, then blackmails. In Kaplan’s assured hands, however, Santángel is also an intriguing character, tortured by his love and the consequences of his beliefs. By contrast, Kaplan’s vision of Colon/ Columbus is far more flattering – devious, yes, in his single-minded dedication to his vocation, but also intellectually curious, and tolerant of cultures foreign to his own (in a sub-plot, he secretly supports Judith’s business at a time when anti-Semitic feeling runs particularly high).


But the character who stands out as truly heroic is one who starts off as an underdog - Estefan, a man who feigns an affinity to primitive Christian rituals, only to openly defy the Inquisition when his young nephew is arrested. “No one cares a straw what you believe, Luis,” Estefan tells his brother, rather prophetically, at the beginning of the book. “No one cares what I believe, in the black dungeon of my heart. That’s the outrageous joke behind this madness.” And later, “Where’s the other cheek?” he taunts the men arresting him for a drunken tirade against Torquemada’s ‘splenetic choirboys’ and their zeal for violence.”Where is He?” Needless to say, the Inquisition’s response is brutal.

‘By Fire, By Water’ makes for compulsive reading with its lucid prose and strong characters, in a narrative where the research never overpowers the story.

Thanks to Mitchell James Kaplan for sending Bookblah a review copy of his book.

Anna’s World

by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin
ISBN 978-1-935178-06-4
Chiron Books

Winner of several awards including the Moonbeam Children's Book Awards, and a Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award. 'Anna's World' is a gentle coming of age story, based in a turbulent time in American history. The book combines history and fiction with a powerful message about moral choice.

It is 1845. Fourteen year old Anna Coburn has barely survived an attack of typhoid after a flood that has left many of her neighbours dead. Her country is on the verge of war with Mexico, but no one thinks she should talk about it. Faced with financial trouble, her father sends her to live at a Shaker village.

The austere life expected of her with the Shakers upsets Anna at first - it is a world of forced segregation between sexes, prolonged periods of enforced silence, hard labour and limited contact with the 'World'. Precocious Anna finds life here tedious and oppressive. Yet, she finds friends and kindred spirits too - Sister Zenobia, the charismatic brother Seth, and celebrated author Henry David Thoreau himself. And, despite her many apprehensions, Anna turns out to be more Shaker than she realizes. When she leaves the village to join her father and his new wife in Boston, she finds the outside world both unpleasant and morally conflicted. Newly wealthy, her father expects Anna to lead a life of leisure like other girls her age and social status. Slavery exists as well as apathy for the people of Mexico, being slaughtered in a war with the USA that they are unprepared for. Worse, Anna's father‘s fortune is built on this very war, in partnership with a man who has betrayed the Shakers and threatened her life. Even as Anna struggles to reconcile her life with her beliefs, she is thrown into danger again.

The plot makes a smooth trajectory from history to mystery, weaving in some very powerful observations on moral choices and conviction in one’s beliefs. Anna is a compelling protagonist, sensitive and aware, and through her eyes the reader is offered a child’s eye view of two vastly different worlds. Neither the ‘World’ nor Shaker life is ideal, and the narrative deftly reveals Anna’s growing maturity as she learns to question and negotiate the hurdles she confronts in each. I especially liked the way a real historical figure, Thoreau, was introduced into the story, guiding Anna gently along on the journey she takes in this book toward finding herself and her calling.


There is a telling metaphor about Shaker shoes, which are made identical for either foot. Like Shaker life itself, the shoes do not fit Anna at first, and cause her discomfort. Yet by the end she finds she has grow into them.

*spoiler alert*

A heartwarming and thought provoking book about life, growing up and finding purpose.

The Feast of Roses, by Indu Sundaresan

The Feast of Roses is an engrossing fictionalised account of the lives of Emperor Jehangir and Meherunissa (renamed Nur Jehan) in the sixteen odd years between their marriage and their respective deaths. It is a sequel to Indu Sundaresan's earlier book, The Twentieth Wife, which chronicles the lives of Jehangir and Meherunissa before their marriage.

The Taj Mahal is usually what comes to mind when we think of immortal love stories, built as it was by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife. But reading this book, you quickly realize that the greatest love story ever might in fact not have been his, but that of his father, Emperor Jehangir, and stepmother, Empress Nurjehan. A love so deep that Jehangir willingly flouts legal process to save her neck, allows her privileges unheard of for women in that era, and political power at par with his own.The feast referred to in the book's title is itself another extravagant gesture he makes entirely for her benefit, to symbolically assert her importance to the women of the palace.


Meherunissa, as portrayed in this book, is fascinating - astoundingly beautiful and courageous. Also shrewd, manipulative and obsessed with power.She is devoted to her husband yet never hesitates to use his position, and love for her, to her advantage.She therefore becomes the first woman of the Mughal court to attend court and be seen to have a say in public affairs , the first also to have a royal seal of her own, as well as her likeness on the coinage of that time - all this at a time when women were expected to stay hidden within the walls of the house and procreate. Even marriages at that time were essentially statements of male power, marking affiliations between their families and that of their husbands'. In such times, for a woman to become a public figure, to assert herself in politics and trade, was especially remarkable.

Sadly, Meherunissa is also quite tactless. Even as she forms a little inner circle comprising men she considers her allies - her father, her brother and the prince who will go on to become Shahjehan - she alienates herself from practically everyone else including other women of the palace. Even her daughter isn't spared her manipulative games. It is rather telling that, despite using her own feminine qualities to keep the Emperor close, Meherunissa views other women as either rivals or pawns in her rise to the top. This attitude, and the many slights and insults she delivers to people during her reign, inevitably contribute to her downfall.


This is a book that highlights otherwise forgotten people in history, like the rather luckless Thomas Roe, and his failure as an Ambassador of the Crown to Jehangir's court. I was also intrigued by Mahabat Khan, a childhood friend of Jehangir's, who feels slighted and distanced by Meherunissa's manipulations. His attempts to regain the Emperor's favour make him unwittingly stage a royal abduction that quickly spirals out of his control . It is also a grim reminder that the primary reason the British empire succeeded in colonizing India was the locals themselves - the petty squabbling, the ceaseless warring that Meherunissa and her rivals were co consumed by, practically delivered a rich and diverse country into the hands of a tiny nation intent on plunder.

This is a really long book, and best avoided by people who don't enjoy history or like it well-couched in romance. This book, infact, does start off reading suspiciously like a romance novel, but quickly moves on to get into political intrigue and Meherunissa's unyielding struggle to be seen and heard.It is also meticulously researched, and this clearly shows in the details. I enjoyed it, but did feel at times that a need to include every last bit of research into the plot may well be the real reason for its length. There were times when I would get a little impatient with yet another tender moment between Jehangir and Meherunissa, yet another description of an amorous prince romping among half clad slave girls.Entire dramatic episodes- Meherunissa's coldblooded murder of an intruder in her palace quarters, the princes groping handmaidens with clockwork regularity through the book, the burning of Indian ships by the Portugese - could well have been condensed and the overly-dramatic prose reined in.

On the other hand, the book barely mentions Jehangir's well known addiction to opium and alcohol, which effectively left the reins of the empire in Nurjehan's hands. Nurjehan is also renowned for making perfume, but that's another detail I couldn't find in this book.

Nevertheless, still a book worth reading for its portrayal of an enigmatic and gutsy woman ahead of her time.